Opposition Day Debate

Access to NHS Services

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): As my hon. Friend knows, reconfigurations are taking place throughout the country, especially in south-east England. Will he consider asking the Secretary of State if it is possible to call a halt to them for the moment as they are an attempt to impose one-size-fits-all structures on local health services? The Princess Royal hospital in Haywards Heath is 15 miles south of one the biggest airports in the world, five miles from a major motorway and located in a changing area where thousands of new houses will be built. It is to have its accident and emergency and maternity services taken away from it and transferred to an impossible place to get to in Brighton. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be proper to reconsider that in light of what he has said?

Mr. Lansley (Shadow Secretary of State for Health): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I entirely agree with his point. The new Prime Minister has stated that he must listen to what the public and NHS professionals are saying throughout the country, but he cannot do that in circumstances where-as is happening in many places-top-down reconfiguration of services is being forced upon local health care economies. I was recently in Hastings in my hon. Friend’s part of the country. The ways in which the reconfigurations are to be applied raise serious questions both of the evidential basis for them and of access considerations in respect of the services that will result. I will say more about that.