Modernising Medical Careers

Part of Opposition Day — [9th Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 5:23 pm on 24 April 2007.

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Photo of John Mann John Mann PPS (Rt Hon Richard Caborn, Minister of State), Department for Culture, Media & Sport 5:23, 24 April 2007

There is another game going on, and that is called the knock, knocking of the NHS. The Opposition's motivation in having this debate, and the style of debating used, has been to knock the NHS and run it down, rather than look at the specific technical issues and how they may be improved, as the Liberal Democrats rather more realistically have attempted to do. The party that never really loved the NHS in the first place has a political agenda.

On every occasion the Opposition attempt to suggest that the NHS is in great crisis. The best judges of that are the patients, and my area is as good a judge of the state of the NHS as anywhere else. Since I have been a Member of Parliament, the NHS in my area as been a top performer. Two years after I became an MP it became the top performer in Britain, and remains so.

Mr. Bellingham is no longer in his place but he referred to incompetent NHS local management. That is not what I see. In my regular meetings with management, consultants and GPs, one of whom I met to discuss some of these issues at length last week, I hear pertinent points about where they wish to see improvements, but there is pride in the fact that modern management, modern doctors and modern GPs now receive the funding that they deserve and have the tools to do the job. That is a fundamental difference from the past.

I shall illustrate that with one of the campaigns that I ran. [ Interruption.] Mike Penning from a sedentary position asked what I had had to do with improving the performance of the NHS. Along with thousands of my constituents, I have made a tiny contribution. When there was not a Government but a management move to downgrade my accident and emergency department, I led the campaign—