Health Bill [Lords]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. As first days in a new job go, there must have been easier ones than this, but it is very good to be back and to be supported by an excellent new or nearly new team, in time to bring to the House a Bill that I can modestly claim to have had some hand in creating. First, let me summarise what I think the Bill does. Building on last year's 60th anniversary celebrations, it begins a new era in the national health service, in which quality becomes the focus of everything that the NHS does; the drive for quality is predominantly locally and staff led rather than dropped from on high; patients have more rights, choice and control over their care; prevention and health promotion truly come to the fore; and further reform can take place against the knowledge that NHS principles and values are secure and that the NHS will endure as the preferred British model throughout the century. We build on a position of strength, banking the huge progress that the NHS has made in the past decade, but setting out a new direction for continued improvement in the next. By way of context, let me remind the House of some of the key developments of recent years. In the past 12 years, the NHS estate has been transformed, with 100 new hospitals. NHS finances are secure, with more than a £1.7 billion surplus and only six trusts in deficit. Hospital-acquired infections are being tackled, with MRSA rates down 65 per cent. on 2003 figures. We now have the shortest waits in the history of the NHS, moving from the scandal of 18-month waits for operations to the landmark pledge that all patients are now seen in 18 weeks. On average, patients now wait only eight weeks for treatment and are seen by a specialist in two weeks if cancer is suspected. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record high. The Care Quality Commission's adult in-patient survey found that 93 per cent. of patients rated their overall care as good or better. That is conclusive proof that the NHS is Labour's great achievement, and its revival in the past decade is arguably the Government's greatest success story, which I intend to tell with pride and energy every day that I do the job.