Karin Smyth

I could talk for a long time about the accountability of health services, but we do not have time for that. The legislation, as set up by the previous Government and others, is clear that ICBs have responsibility for commissioning services on behalf of the local population within the resources that they have available. They need to do that under particular guidelines, which I have outlined, and it is important that they keep up communications with Ministers and local people. I am not au fait with the day-to-day running of Dorset ICB—that is not for Ministers—but at a strategic level, I recognise that Dorset currently has the fifth-highest ratio of GP clinicians to patients in the country. I know that everyone wants to be in first place, but I am sympathetic to the ICB’s arguments that other practices may suffer if the surgery were reopened. Closing the former site has made the services at Christchurch medical practice and other neighbouring practices slightly larger, which has given them greater resilience in the long term. The hon. Member for Christchurch mentioned the new Labour Government and what we are trying to address. I do not have the figures in front of me, but every hon. Member present will know there have been hundreds of GP service closures—not just branches but practices—over the past 14 years. The trend has been for primary care to receive a smaller share of the NHS budget, and as a result, secondary care has had much more activity. We all know about the 8 am scramble, and some GPs have been forced to work in appalling conditions with leaky roofs and buckets catching rainwater. That is why our priority is to stem the flow of resources away from primary care, shift the focus of the NHS from hospital to community, and begin building a much better neighbourhood health service. Our objectives are to hire more GPs, reach an agreement on a new contract, rebuild surgeries through increased capital spend, and bust the bloated bureaucracy that has built up. In the summer, we committed to bringing in an extra 1,000 GPs through the additional roles reimbursement scheme, which we backed with an extra £82 million of funding after changing a technicality that prevented primary care from hiring more new doctors. We have surpassed our initial target and 1,500 more GPs are now serving patients on the frontline. Since we took office, I am happy to confirm that 11 have been recruited by Dorset ICB, including, as I understand, three in the hon. Member’s constituency. In conclusion, we are committed to shifting the NHS from hospital to community and to building a neighbourhood health service. We are bringing back the family doctor.