---

Baroness Andrews: Very much so, my Lords. One of the interesting things about the Cantle report is the tribute that it pays to "heroic leadership". Let me give just one example of what has been and is going on in these communities. The PeaceMaker project, which was run by a young Bangladeshi man to bring together white and Asian young people, has been a tremendous success and is a national model. To reflect that kind of voice in the reports gives them authenticity and gives hope to us all.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, on the issue of people coming forward and exercising leadership, does the Minister agree that one of the major tasks that has to be tackled in ethnic minority communities—particularly Asian communities—is to find ways of making it possible to bring the great majority of women, who are at the moment excluded from public processes, into the community processes in this way?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I agree. It is difficult sometimes in traditional communities for women to come forward, but there are innovative programmes to encourage that—not least by working through the schools. There are a great many opportunities for
 
7 Jun 2006 : Column 1263
 
young people in all the ethnic groups to mix after school, during holidays and so on. That is one way of bringing women together, but many interesting things are happening.

Lord Ahmed: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, although there has been a good deal of regeneration work in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford, there is also a great need for capacity building in the ethnic minority communities and white working-class groups? I praise the local councillors, including Councillor Mohammed Riaz, who is the deputy mayor in Oldham, and many others, for the work that they have done. They have been working very hard to bring all communities together in Oldham and the other areas that have been mentioned.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, throughout the voluntary sector we consider it important to promote capacity building. I refer my noble friend to the interfaith consultative council which, in itself, is keen on building up relationships between local city partnerships, faith communities and the voluntary sector. It is a challenge, and we are looking at innovative ways of meeting it.

NHS: Performance 2005–06

3.37 pm

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I wish to repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health in the other place. The Statement is as follows:

"With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a Statement about the NHS chief executive's report and NHS finances for 2005–06.

"Sir Ian Carruthers, acting chief executive of the NHS, is today publishing his first report on the performance of the NHS, including the provisional financial outturn for the last financial year. A copy has been placed in the Library, together with a more detailed report on the finances from the department's director of finance, Richard Douglas. This information also forms part of the Government's evidence to the Health Select Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into these matters.

"First, I would like to remind the House of the context. Following decades of growth averaging around 3.1 per cent a year, the NHS has since 1997 received annual average growth in funding of 6.4 per cent. The NHS budget, which has already doubled compared with 1997, will have trebled by 2008. This unprecedented investment has enabled the NHS to employ an additional 307,000 staff, including 85,000 more nurses. I am sure the whole House will want to express our thanks to all NHS staff for their outstanding dedication and hard work.
 
7 Jun 2006 : Column 1264
 

"With that investment has come reform, giving patients more choice for elective operations, using the independent sector to add to the capacity and innovation of the NHS, and establishing NHS foundation trusts with more freedom to respond to local people's needs.

"Sir Ian's report shows that the NHS is continuing to improve patient care. Waiting times are continuing to fall. No one now waits over six months for an operation compared with 270,000 patients who were waiting more than six months for their operation in 2000. The majority are, of course, treated much quicker—the average wait for an operation is around seven and a half weeks. There is now a maximum 13-week wait for an outpatient appointment. Again, the average wait is much shorter—four out of five people get a first out-patient appointment within eight weeks. Nearly 99 per cent of people with cancer are treated within a maximum of 31 days of diagnosis, and more than 91 per cent are treated within 62 days of an urgent referral from their GP, compared with only 75 per cent just one year ago. Early deaths from coronary heart disease, cancer and suicide are continuing to fall. Patient care is improving everywhere. However, some parts of the country are facing significant financial problems.

"I can today tell the House that the provisional, unaudited figures for 2005–06 show a net overspend across the NHS, excluding foundation trusts, of £512 million. This is made up of a gross deficit of £1.27 billion, offset by surpluses of £765 million.

"Although we clearly cannot allow this situation to continue, we also need to put it into perspective. The net deficit in the NHS is less than 1 per cent of the NHS revenue budget and is concentrated in a minority of organisations. Seven out of 10 NHS organisations are not only improving patient care, employing more staff and paying them better than ever before, but they are doing so within their budget. Two out of 10 have relatively small levels of overspending. Just one in 10 NHS hospitals accounts for more than two thirds of the overspending.

"My decision to publish these unaudited financial figures, together with the director of finance's report to me, reflects our commitment to greater transparency within the NHS. I can also tell the House that, in future, we will publish quarterly reports on NHS finances.

"In the past, because the focus was largely on the overall financial position of the NHS, overspending organisations had little incentive to improve their performance, but relied instead on other parts of the service to bale them out. The system was unfair because most of the overspending occurred in better-off areas with a generally healthier population, and most of the underspending was in places with far greater health needs and inequalities. We are not prepared to allow that unfairness to continue.
 
7 Jun 2006 : Column 1265
 

"By the end of this financial year, we will return the NHS as a whole to financial balance. The turn-around teams that I announced to the House in January are helping organisations with the biggest financial problems to implement recovery plans that will allow them to maintain and improve patient care within their budgets. As most of the NHS demonstrates, and Sir Ian confirms in his report, there should be no trade-off between improving patient care and sound financial management: they go together.

"We are aiming for all organisations with deficits to reach monthly balance of income and expenditure by April 2007. There will, however, be some exceptional cases where an organisation needs longer to make the necessary changes, while still maintaining patient care. However, because overspending by one organisation has to be balanced by under-spending elsewhere, we will continue to challenge and expect organisations to return to monthly balance as quickly as possible.

"We have already asked the new strategic health authorities to establish a regional reserve that will support organisations while they return to balance. That means asking primary care trusts that have stayed within their budget or, indeed, delivered a surplus to contribute some of their growth money in the current year and to postpone some of the improvements that they plan to make for their own patients. But that money will not be lost to those communities. It will be repaid, normally within the three-year allocations period, and I have stressed to the SHAs that the areas with the greatest health needs should be repaid first.

"There will be difficult decisions to make, particularly in the minority of trusts with substantial deficits. In some cases, this will mean workforce reductions, and we all understand the anxiety and uncertainty that this causes for staff who have dedicated their lives to the NHS. But there will be not be wholesale redundancies across the NHS as forecast by some commentators. In most cases, workforce reductions will be achieved by natural turnover, reduced spending on expensive agency staff, redeploying staff, and freezing some posts. Compulsory redundancies will be kept to an absolute minimum and those affected will, of course, be given as much support as possible to find a new post.

"The NHS is treating more patients and saving more people's lives than ever before. Of course, there is still more to do to meet the huge challenges of rising public expectations, people living longer and a revolution in medical care and scientific knowledge. But Sir Ian's report today shows that we are on the right track and I commend it to the House".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

3.45 pm

---