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Clevedon Community Hospital

My right hon. Friend makes a good case. From what he has outlined, I fully agree that some of the circumstances surrounding the decision seem extraordinary and completely unacceptable. He described it as being far from competent, and I would not wish to disagree, judging from his analysis.

We are interested in delivering high-quality front-line patient care. The challenge for the NHS is delivering that care close to home and close to people’s communities. That is what Clevedon does and what it needs to continue to do. We need to ensure that PCTs, as they are at the moment, and clinical commissioning groups, as they will be in the future, invest in high-quality local health care services in order to meet the challenge of better looking after older people. That is the clear challenge that David Nicholson set for the NHS in 2009 in the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention challenge. It is about the need to redesign services in order to deliver better and more affordable care in the community.

That was also the challenge that Dr Foster outlined for the NHS earlier this week. It is about time that my right hon. Friend’s local health care commissioners acknowledged that challenge, invested in local health care services and made the argument for keeping investment locally, rather than, as he said, siphoning it off elsewhere. I will clarify the matter further by investigating with the PCT what has happened. From our discussions so far, I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the PCT and the clinical commissioning groups reassured me yesterday that they would, they thought, be able to find the investment to continue with the current older buildings, maintaining them as fit for purpose to continue with patient care, and that patient care will continue on the current site, as it does now, in April. Nevertheless, there are clearly questions for the local health care commissioners to answer.

Question put and agreed to.

6.39 pm

House adjourned.