Mark Garnier, MP for Wyre Forest, used a speech yesterday to illustrate how new health legislation, aiming to modernise the NHS and put patients at the heart of everything it does, came about after the Government listened to people in Kidderminster. Mark paid particular attention to the willingness of Andrew Lansley, now Secretary of State for Health, to visit Kidderminster hospital back in 2004. This was after the hospital had been downscaled despite massive local protests.
In his speech, during the second reading debate on the Health and Social Care Bill, Mark explained how he had arranged for Andrew Lansley's visit when Mark was first elected as a candidate. He said "I wanted [Andrew] to come to Kidderminster to hear firsthand how angry local residents were at not being listened to. He came on many occasions and listened to the staff, to patient groups, to doctors and to nurses."
Mark tributes this willingness to listen to the people of Kidderminster, as well as the many other hospitals facing closure, to key elements in the Governments new Bill.
Andrew Lansley is now leading what has been described as a "revolution" in the NHS. The main proposals of the Bill aim to bring commissioning closer to patients and give local councils and clinicians the power to shape local services. This will be done by giving commissioning responsibility to GP-led groups and establishing local health and wellbeing boards within local councils. These measures will also save the NHS over £5 billion by 2014/15 and then £1.7 billion every year after that - enough money to pay for over 40,000 extra nurses, 17,000 extra doctors or over 11,000 extra senior doctors every year.
Mark said "the Bill will result in a more responsive NHS that listens to local people in delivering local solutions to local problems."
He also concluded by saying "Finally, I can say to my constituents in Wyre Forest, who are still angry because they thought that they were ignored for a decade, that they are being listened to, that it was the Conservative Opposition who listened to their plight, and that it is their anger at being ignored and the response to that anger that lie at the heart of the Bill."