Primary Care Trusts (Hansard, 3 June 2003)

§ 7. Mr. Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove)
If he will make a statement on NHS primary care trusts' deficits at the end of 2002–03. [116530]

§ The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)
Audited accounts for primary care trusts for the year 2002–03 will not be available until the autumn. Local health services, however, received an average cash increase of just under 10 per cent. for that financial year.

§ Mr. Stunell
What comfort can the Secretary of State give Stockport PCT, which reports that it is rolling forward a deficit of £2.5 million into the current year and is now committed to a programme of £6 million of financial reductions in that year? My constituents face reductions in access to magnetic resonance scans, ophthalmology services and minor surgery, and my GPs face a £600,000 reduction in their prescribing budget. Will the Secretary of State ensure that Stockport's health service has the resources that it needs to restore those services to my constituents?

§ Mr. Milburn
My understanding is that at the end of this financial year, Stockport primary care trust will deliver a balanced budget. Secondly, over the next three years it will receive increases of 9.13 per cent., 8.88 per cent. and 8.57 per cent. Those are cash increases for the local PCT—which, of course, is a lot more than the Liberal Democrats ever promised for the health service.

§ Dr. Howard Stoate (Dartford)
The extra resources given to PCTs are very welcome indeed, and as my right hon. Friend will know, the GP contract is out for voting among GPs. That is an important part of the Government's plan for improving primary care, but I ask him to reassure my GP colleagues that the GP contract really is a step forward in improving recruitment and retention, and to ensure that the extra resources given to PCTs really will find their way through to GP surgeries. The worry remains that some of the money given to PCTs never gets as far as it should, and that GPs and their patients do not get the benefit that they ought to.

§ Mr. Milburn
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I know from my discussions with GPs and primary care organisations that this issue is a real cause of concern for them. However, there are guarantees that the money will get through—presuming, of course, that GPs decide to vote yes in a ballot that the British Medical Association will be holding. My hon. Friend will be aware that the new contract negotiated between the NHS Confederation and the BMA represents a real step forward not just for GPs but for NHS patients—not least because it guarantees a 33 per cent. increase in funding for primary care services. Such funding is long overdue and will make a real difference to GP surgeries throughout the country.

§ Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury)
The Secretary of State will know that many of these debts and deficits are the result of past mismanagement by a small number of 13 NHS trusts and health authorities. Does he think that the burden of that should be borne by local service users or spread more evenly over the whole of the NHS?

§ Mr. Milburn
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As he is aware, the way out of the financial difficulties that arose in his own area, for example, was for it to borrow NHS resources from other areas that underspent on their budgets in a particular year, so it cannot be right simply to wipe the slate clean, thereby penalising those areas that have managed their budgets properly. We need the right incentives in place to ensure that, in all parts of the country, financial management is always given the priority that it deserves. Equally, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, we are making extra resources available, through the NHS bank, to areas such as Avon, Surrey, Sussex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, in which particular financial difficulties have arisen.

§ Fiona Mactaggart (Slough)
Has the Secretary of State had a chance to read the letter from Dr. Neil Coleman of the Avenue Medical Centre, in Slough, a copy of which I sent to him? Dr. Coleman says that it would be possible to state that if the new contract can work in his practice, with high disease prevalence, it can work in any practice throughout the country. He also volunteers the Avenue as a pilot programme for the new contract. Could the Secretary of State spread this enthusiasm to other areas, in order to develop the contract?

§ Mr. Milburn
I will do my best. Although there has been controversy about the new contract, when GPs see the detail they will understand how they will benefit. Of course, their surgeries will benefit and there will be additional financial investment, but like most people working in the national health service, family doctors are after an improvement in services to patients. Crucially, that is precisely what this contract offers.