Downing Street Says

» Monday, February 19, 2007

Health

Put to him that a poll in the Times this morning said that most doctors now believed that this Government essentially wasted tax payers money on reforms, and an internal Department of Health report said that 96% of officials in the Department had no faith in their leadership, which must mean the Security of State, and asked what was the PM’s view on these, the PMOS replied that we should look not at polls but at the facts.

The facts were:

85,000 more nurses and 32,00 more doctors since 1997;

10 years ago half of the NHS estate was built before the NHS itself, this was now down to a quarter;

157 new hospitals had opened;

More than 2,800 GPs’ premises had been improved or refurbished;

All waiting lists were down by more than 383,000;

Virtually nobody waited longer than 6 months;

21 ISTCs had delivered over 300,000 treatments and diagnostic tests;

99% of people with suspected cancer were seen by a specialist within 2 weeks or being referred.

The list went on, but the basic point was that the factual position showed that whilst we fully recognised all the difficulties involved in achieving change, change for the better was being achieved. Money was resulting in real differences, not only in terms of the level of provision, but also actually in the impact on diseases. People needed to look at the facts and balance that against the other things.

Put to him that the doctors polled were seeing the reality on the ground, the PMOS replied that it was very difficult to comment on polls without knowing how representative the survey was. What had to be put up against these polls were the actual facts of what had changed.

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Health

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