Speeches by Streeting.

“I am torn on this one. I would say that if there is one thing that would make a demonstrable improvement in the patient experience, the level of personalised care and the extent to which we can run and lead this system more effectively and efficiently, it is around the shift from analogue to digital. When I talk about …”

“I really am. Since we launched change.nhs.uk back in October, we have had 1.2 million visits to the website. Over 100,000 people have registered, 70,000 have sent survey responses and over 10,000 have contributed ideas. Yes, some of the ideas involve firing me out of a cannon, or putting a Wetherspoons in every hospita…”

“That is a fair challenge, and in the spirit of transparency I will give you some other anxieties I have about participation, not least because it might help us to get the word out and drive up engagement. On children and young people, for very good safeguarding reasons, we have to tread carefully in how we engage with …”

“That goes back to my conviction on devolution, actually. I genuinely think that we will see better service coverage in all communities, but especially in rural communities, if those decisions are taken close to communities and close to people.”

“Absolutely. It is hard enough being the Health and Social Care Secretary without being the Chancellor as well.”

“I am not sure how you would disaggregate those pressures from all the other winter pressures we are seeing at the moment, but as I say, because of the protection the Chancellor put in for the poorest pensioners, including the maintenance of the winter fuel allowance for those pensioners, and because of our Government’s…”

“You are making a whole set of assumptions ahead of me setting out financial allocations for the year ahead. I come back to the central point, which I am afraid you cannot escape. You cannot say, “That £26 billion is great; I love the investment, but I really hate the way you are raising it,” unless you spell out which …”

“Completely.”

“—but that “drop in the ocean” complacency perhaps contributed to the £22 billion black hole.”

“I am definitely taking into account those pressures—”

“It is the right concern. I have been emphasising something in relation to the poorest performers in the country and the most challenged areas of the country; I can think about the south-west and Cornwall as an example. The areas at the bottom of the league tables today were also at the bottom of the league tables back …”

“I think that, between us on this side of the table and the representation around that side of the table, there is a lot of possibility in terms of how we can redress that imbalance between health and social care and health and local government. By conviction, we will definitely do that and see the sort of improvements …”

“Stephen Kinnock will be starting that shortly in the new year. I do recognise, by the way, the fundamental point you are making: pharmacy is under enormous pressure. I have been balancing things up when thinking about financial allocations. Before I even get to where I want to be on community pharmacy, which is even mo…”

“As I say, now that we’ve got the budget set, we will be consulting with Community Pharmacy England shortly, in the new year. I do want to reassure pharmacists across the country that we are taking into account the enormous pressures they are under when we think about allocations, so that we can stabilise the system and…”

“The first thing I would say is there is plenty of work to go around. There really is. What I am picking up—I have done for some time now—is, effectively, a competition between general practice and pharmacy, because people are worried about their own bottom line and their own financial sustainability. Whereas I see more…”

“Because of the choices that the Chancellor has made, particularly on protecting the state pension through the triple lock, and even taking into account the decision she has taken on winter fuel allowance, pensioners will still be better off this winter than they were last winter and will be better off next winter furth…”

“Yes, we came in with a clear plan to deliver those 40,000 more appointments. We are delivering. I said that we would deliver 40,000 more appointments every week—2 million extra appointments a year. I will commit now to coming back to this Committee after the first anniversary—well, I will be back here anyway. It’s not …”

“Financial flows and incentives are really important in this system. First, for the extra evening and weekend working, we will pay staff overtime and we will make provisions for employers to be able to do that. Secondly, in terms of performance improvement across the NHS, we will build in some capital incentive for NHS …”

“I’ll send you the bill!”

“Demand management is really important. I cannot say this enough. The shift from hospital to community is so important because alongside the extra capacity to meet demand on the elective waiting list now, we need to manage demand. That is the variable that I am keeping my eye on in terms of getting to the 18-week target…”