My Lords, most people will welcome much of what is in the Statement.
I would like to come back to the issue of seven-day working that in principle this side supports and accepts. Some of the problems that we have at the moment in the NHS are the top issues with patients. We keep talking about patients being “top of the tree” and being in charge. Can the Minister tell the House what issue about NHS performance at the moment disturbs patients most of all? We have a list of issues where we are doing well: tell us what is worst.
The worst is the inability to access a GP, on a timely basis, five days a week, not seven days a week. This is not new. The position was bad in 2010, when Labour, my party, was in power, but it deteriorated while the Lib Dems and the Conservatives were in the coalition. I can point to Questions in Hansard raised in 2012, when we were promised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that discussions were taking place in the
profession about trying to improve access to GPs, particularly where there were problems in London. I speak as a patient with a GP in London, who asks how he is to provide a seven-day week service when he cannot get the GPs and does not have the money to do it.
My noble friend Lord Hunt asked a basic question which is of prime concern to people, particularly in London. Will spreading this over seven days until such time as you can provide the 5,000 trained GPs who were promised, which will be seven years down the road, lead to a further deterioration in the ability to access a GP during the week?