Management of the National Health Service

Part of Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 6:35 pm on 9 May 2006.

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Photo of Nicholas Soames Nicholas Soames Conservative, Mid Sussex 6:35, 9 May 2006

I am going to press on with my speech.

While the "payment by results" initiative has brought the impetus to improve productivity in the NHS, the real challenge lies in empowering and engaging its front-line staff and getting them to take personal responsibility for the performance challenge. That is a technique that has been implemented time and again in the private sector to very great effect.

I want to conclude by saying that the national health service is, in my judgment, a truly remarkable organisation, which is greatly valued by the people of this country, but it could be and should be so much better than it is. There is nowhere better to be, frankly, if people are really ill, and I know that most of the people who work in the NHS find the teamwork and comradeship extremely rewarding. Most feel that it is a great privilege to work in the NHS, but they all have one thing in common, as eloquently argued by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood: they absolutely yearn for a period of stability. They yearn for the ability to take the best decisions for their local communities, to provide the best care that they can, and to deal with the abuses and inefficiencies that are all too rife. Many of the NHS's difficulties are systemic and the deficits can be wiped out only by fundamental change: the NHS and its people, wherever they work, need the time, the space and the resources to achieve it.