CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

HEALTH – RETENTION OF CONSULTANTS - 13 March 2001

HEALTH – RETENTION OF CONSULTANTS - 13 March 2001

Dr Julian Lewis: If he will make a statement on the recruitment and retention of consultants?

[SUPPLEMENTARY:] Does the Secretary of State's [Alan Milburn's] policy not show that he thinks he knows a lot better than the founding fathers of the NHS, who recognised the problems that would be caused if consultants were forced into the NHS and not allowed to engage in private practice? What makes him think that he has a better solution to the problem, which is fundamentally the same now as it was when Aneurin Bevan and other Labour Ministers, who knew what they were doing, decided that the course that he proposes to adopt was totally wrong, counter-productive and would result in consultants being lost from the NHS?