Dr Julian Lewis: On checking my website, I saw that it was in late 2005 – not a period of Conservative government – that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), the then Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Romsey and I were complaining about the closure of in-patient beds in small community hospitals. Does the Secretary of State accept that there is a role for such beds in enabling appropriate discharge from the larger hospitals, thus dealing with one of the main causes of people being stuck in ambulances without being able to be given a bed?

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay): That, I think, relates to the point that I just made about the need for flow in the system and an appropriate step-down capacity. Sometimes patients are not yet ready to be discharged to their homes, but some additional physio or other support may enable them then to go home, which is where they usually want to be. This is all part of taking a much more integrated approach, and part of that must be improving the quality of data in relation to the activity that takes place within community settings.]