Oral Answers to Questions

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman misses the point that what matters to the public is the quality of services that are provided to them. When he asked his question, he might have reflected on the simple fact that the Labour party told us before the spending review to cut the budget of the NHS. We refused to do that, which means that this financial year, £2.9 billion more will be available for the NHS to spend than it spent last year.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

A crucial front-line service is the provision of stroke care. Can the Secretary of State confirm that under his proposed reforms, local clinical practitioners will have much more influence over the location of those stroke services than in the current situation, when management can make somewhat arbitrary changes?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can confirm that. We are looking for commissioning consortia not only to lead from a primary care perspective on behalf of patients, but to work on commissioning services with their specialist colleagues. Of course, the stroke research network has formed a strong basis upon which such commissioning activity can take place.

There have been many improvements in stroke care. Over the last year, we have seen a significant improvement in performance in relation to responses to transient ischaemic attack, and I hope we continue to see improvements in future.