Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con): I welcome the Secretary of State's bold and imaginative statement on a White Paper that I am sure will be broadly welcomed in the NHS, not least because it will give people within the NHS the opportunity to give true vent to their creativity. Does he agree, however, that he is setting very demanding targets and challenges; and what time line does he envisage before this is finally implemented?

Mr Lansley; Secretary of State for Health: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will not go through the White Paper in detail now, but within it he will find that we look towards some GP commissioning consortiums taking an early adopter place from 2011-12, with consortiums generally taking, as it were, a shadow responsibility but not a legal responsibility in 2012-13, and then taking full responsibility, subject to the passage of the legislation to establish that, from April 2013 onwards-the point at which we anticipate that primary care trusts will be abolished.

View the full statement here

Download the White Paper here

Hansard

House of Commons

Monday 12th July 2010

volume 513, No 30