PM fails to give proper reply to Harris on NHS cuts in Oxfordshire

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 28th Feb 2007

In Prime Minister's Questions today, Tony Blair was asked by Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon to address the cuts in patient care that Oxfordshire patients were experiencing.

Commenting on the exchange (set out below), Dr Harris said,

"While he recognised the financial pressures, it is disappointing, but not surprising, that the Prime minister failed to engage with the main question which was cuts in patient care he anticipated from the spending squeeze that he and his Government are exerting on the Primary Care Trust"

"The Prime Minister admitted that patients were having to wait longer because of the cash crisis when he referred to the minimum waiting time" where patients are being made to wait longer than they would have to normally - in order to save money - in this financial year. That is not acceptable since those patients will have to be treated and paid for eventually."

"The Prime Minister talked about the PFI scheme for the relocation of services from the old Infirmary to the John Radcliffe Site, without seeming to understand that the costs of paying for that private borrowing will saddle the local economy with debts fro decades to come."

"I will continue to raise these issues with the Government at all levels."

House of Commons - Prime Ministers Questions - 28th February 2007

Quest. 1: Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon): What assessment he has made of the impact on patient services in Oxfordshire of financial pressures on the NHS.

Prime Minister: Mr Speaker Sir, the financial pressures on Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust are real, to their credit our Primary Care Trusts are sorting those pressures out and, as the Hon. Gentleman knows, Oxfordshire PCT will receive some £727 million this financial year, which is an increase of 19% in two years; and given this huge increase in resources I am sure that they will continue to improve services to their patients over that period.

Dr. Evan Harris: Does his briefing note make reference to the plans to restrict access to various operations in the country; or for the Strategic Health Authority to spend £2 million asking Price Waterhouse Coopers how to privatise commissioning services; or to cut nearly two-thirds of the community hospital beds, including in Abingdon Community Hospital. If he provides the list of the number of nurses that his funding has paid for, which I also voted for, will he explain whether that is net or gross of the hundreds of job cuts at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospital.

Prime Minister: First of all let me point out that it is true that for financial reasons there has been the introduction of the minimum waiting time, however, this will disappear at the end of March and as a result of the changes that they are making, and have made, the number of people who are waiting over 26 weeks for in-patient treatment has fallen in the last ten years from over 21,000 to nothing; and if I can just point out that it is true that there will be some, I think, sixty compulsory redundancies, but there have been in this area almost 20,000 more NHS staff; and let me just say to him that the amount of money that is going into new hospital schemes in Oxfordshire is enormous and they include, with direct reference to his own constituency; a £134 million PFI scheme to relocate services from the Radcliffe Infirmary to the John Radcliffe site; £129 million to open a new Oxford cancer centre; a £26 million expansion of cardiac care; and on every measure, waiting lists, heart disease, cancer treatment, accident and emergency, performance is up and the number of people on waiting lists is down.