As my hon. Friend is aware, the PCT is working closely with the trust and the strategic health authority to agree changes that will lead to more cost-effective services. These changes will lead to a better use of resources, with some patients being treated more appropriately closer to home.
The national health service is based on the principle that care is provided on the basis of patients’ clinical needs, not their ability to pay, so will the Minister reassure the House that the rights of patients in north Yorkshire will be protected, despite the PCT’s deficit, and that they will retain access to the same range of NHS treatments, and experience the same waiting times, as NHS patients from other parts of Yorkshire and the Humber?
I agree with my hon. Friend and congratulate him on adopting a constructive approach towards the difficult financial circumstances that his PCT faces. As difficult decisions are made to ensure that we get that organisation back into balance, it is important that patients continue to enjoy access to high-quality services. However, it sometimes might be more appropriate to provide those services in the community, so this might be an opportunity to make some of the changes that frankly should have been made anyway, irrespective of the financial pressures that the organisation faces. Of course, the interests and needs of patients must remain at centre stage, and the trust must maintain the national standards that are set down on the quality of patient care.
Does the Minister think that it is fair that while NHS workers in York are bearing the brunt of the £77 million deficit in north Yorkshire, the nature of the contracts imposed on the PCT by the Government means that the new private Capio hospital in York escapes relatively unscathed?
What is important is the fact that patients in the hon. Gentleman’s area have access to high-quality services and are required to wait for as short a period as possible. If that means allowing constructive engagement between the NHS as a direct provider and the independent sector, leading to better treatment for patients in his community, I would have thought that he would welcome it.
I am delighted that Capio is enabling us to reduce waiting times for certain operations, but will the Minister respond to the question asked by the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), with whom I entirely concur? The issue is not about having services delivered by other providers in the hospital trust, but about unacceptable delays and clinical need being put on the back foot. Will the Minister please respond to that question?
The waiting time targets apply in the same way in the hon. Lady’s constituency as in the rest of the country. Indeed, if we look at the facts, we see that no patient is waiting longer than 26 weeks for in-patient treatment, compared with 1,317 patients who did so when we came into Government in 1997. I hope that she will acknowledge the two new CT scanners that have been delivered to the hospital, the replacement MRI scanner, the fully modernised accident and emergency department, the additional cardiac catheter laboratory, and the new day unit, which was opened only in December last year, not to mention the £6.1 million integrated breast unit on the York hospital site. These are difficult times, and there are difficult decisions to be made, but there have been massively increased levels of investment and performance since 1997.