Care Bill [Lords]

Part of Bill Presented — House of Commons Members’ Fund Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:05 pm on 16 December 2013.

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Photo of Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt The Secretary of State for Health 4:05, 16 December 2013

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Our health and care system stands for compassionate care, or it stands for nothing. That was the vision when the NHS was founded 65 years ago: that anyone and everyone, regardless of background or income, should receive the best quality health care and be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. Because we have made much progress in delivering that vision, the NHS rightly remains the single biggest reason people are proud to be British. This Government want to keep it that way, which is why we are determined to root out poor care whenever and wherever it exists. Tragically, it does exist, both in the NHS and in private provision. In recent years, we have heard of patients being left in their own excrement at Mid Staffs, of patients left unchecked on trolleys for hours on end at Tameside, and of blood on the curtains and catheters on the floor at Basildon. All are issues that could and should have been dealt with by the last Government. Tragically, those problems were swept under the carpet, with devastating consequences for families across the country.

Today it gets worse, because the same people who failed to face up to those problems as Ministers will troop into the Lobby to try to vote down the very measures that will stop them ever happening again. People watching this debate will be asking one simple question: what more will it take for Labour to learn the terrible lessons of these tragedies? How many more people will need to suffer before the Labour party, the party that is rightly proud to have founded the NHS, comes to its senses and recognises that, on its watch, targets mattered more than patients and good news mattered more than good care?