The first wave of independent sector treatment centres was designed to provide extra capacity to help cut waiting times for NHS patients. Six of these are now providing training as well. All phase 2 schemes will require training to be made available as part of the contract.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but it does not detract from the fact that these private health centres are privatisation of the national health service by stealth. Will she not agree that every patient who is forced to go to one of these independent centres will help to undermine the financial stability of local hospital trusts—[Interruption]—and laughing is not the answer?
The hon. Gentleman is wrong on every count. Independent sector treatment centres are not privatisation by stealth or any other means. Patients are not forced to go to ISTCs and, indeed, we are extending patient choice. From 1 July, patients needing orthopaedic treatment will have a free choice of more than 200 hospital and treatment centres all around the country. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would support that and also support the fact that more than nine out of 10 patients said that their NHS hospital treatment was either good, very good or excellent. We should be proud of that, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that independent treatment centres, alongside fantastic NHS staff, have contributed enormously to the reduction in waiting lists? Our staff are fantastic as a result of the quality of their education and training. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that in future contracts for the independent sector, we will try to ensure that we train the staff we need so much for our wonderful NHS?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I can give her the assurance that in the second wave contract, training opportunities will be required from all the independent sector treatment providers. Indeed, the ISTCs will be expected to appoint directors of clinical and medical training, who will work with the post-graduate deaneries and other parts of the NHS family in order to ensure that the best possible training opportunities are available to doctors and other health care professionals.
Working on the same principle, would the Secretary of State care to estimate how much it would cost the British taxpayer if we were to refund all the foreign countries that had invested in training their own staff who are now working in the British national health service?
I certainly cannot make that estimate, but the hon. Lady raises an extremely important point. As she probably knows, we were the first country in the world to adopt an ethical recruitment policy in our national health service. That means, for instance, that we do not take nurses from South Africa or other parts of Africa. We try to ensure that, just as medical professionals come to Britain for training from some other countries, we support the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, that desperately need to train and keep their own health care professionals.
Will the Secretary of State promise that she is still very much in favour of this experiment? I would like to see these centres in the Reading area, where they would expand capacity and help people in my area who cannot get the treatment that they need at the moment. Will she promise not to rig the system against them in the way that many Labour Members seem to wish to do?
The right hon. Gentleman is simply wrong on that point. It is clearly right that independent sector treatment centres should make training opportunities available; that is one of the lessons that we learned from wave 1. I completely agree with him, however, that the centres have helped to cut waiting times for NHS patients in many parts of the country, and all the treatment that they provide is on the NHS and free at the point of need. That is what matters to patients.
How does the Secretary of State square what she has just said about having an ethical policy on recruiting from Africa with the fact that the Government have issued work permits for 50,000 nurses and doctors from Africa since 2000? Is it not clear that they are coming to agencies in order to get round the ban on direct recruitment to the NHS?
As I have just said, we have stopped the process of direct recruitment—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] No, we have stopped the process of direct recruitment into the NHS of nurses from developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. There is, however, a real problem with some agencies that recruit people from those countries. I am not sure what level of regulation the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting, but that practice is difficult to control. We try to ensure, however, that they sign up to exactly the same principles as we have agreed for the NHS, and that people who come in through that route are not subsequently re-employed in the NHS.