What action her Department is taking to transfer resources from administration to front-line patient care.

The Department is committed to reducing unnecessary spending on administration and releasing the resources saved to front-line care. Those savings are part of planned efficiency savings of £6.5 billion by 2007–08, which are being recycled into local services.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which includes the Royal Preston hospital in my Constituency, has gone from two-star to three-star status, has now acquired foundation status and has hit nine out of nine of its key targets. Can she assure me that cuts in administration and moving resources to front-line services will make those services even better than they already are?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the real success and improvements taking place in front-line services. I hope that I can give him the assurance that he seeks.

On the notional transfer of resources to front-line services, can the Minister tell us how many primary care trusts, as a result of the new centrally imposed GP contract, will increase payments to GPs in the coming year by between £20,000 and £25,000 each compared with last year, and how many consultants, as a result of the new consultant contract, will earn more than £20,000 more this year than last year? Was that the intention of either contract and is that the best use of money in the national health service?

The right hon. Gentleman asks a detailed question, and with my mental arithmetic not being as good as it should be, I will get back to him on the detail. His general point, however, is important. We decided to agree those new contracts and pay the salaries that go with them precisely because we needed to retain really good people in the health service. That is what the whole process was about.

Will my right hon. Friend explain to me and the people of Staffordshire how the performance of probably the finest ambulance service in Europe, the Staffordshire ambulance service, will be improved by merging it with any other ambulance service? Will she guarantee that any merger will take place only if both partners are at the same level of performance?

We want the very high quality of service from which my hon. Friend's constituents in Staffordshire benefit to be the experience of everyone in England and no changes will take place without the fullest possible consultation.

Last year's Secretary of State ordered a review of the Department's arm's length bodies. Since then, the number of staff in those bodies has fallen by just 2 per cent. It has cost £32 million to close some of those organisations and £4.7 million to establish some new ones, added to which the administrative costs of running her Department are now running at £296 million, and trust chief executives estimate that they spend at least a day and a half a week just providing information to the Government and strategic health authorities. Is it therefore right that the Government should demand 15 per cent. efficiency cuts by PCTs, leading to bigger deficits and shrinking front-line services, when she and her right hon. and hon. Friends have signally failed to get a grip on the running costs of her Department?

Yes, it is right that we should seek efficiency savings. An organisation the size of NHS, which treats millions of patients a year, must have effective management as well as administrative and clerical staff to take away that burden. No one wants to see nurses and doctors wasting valuable time on training or being tied up with administration instead of being out on the wards delivering patient care. We need to stop using NHS managers and support staff as scapegoats, as Conservative Members often do. We need to back those who are working flat out to support the NHS.