Mr Clive Betts

Absolutely. Obviously, it is done with a clinician’s approval and with the patient’s agreement. The idea has been around for two years now, but again it is lost in the labyrinth of NHS discussions, boards and committees. Come on—let us do it now. It is a good idea, which is actually cheaper and benefits the patient. Why cannot these ideas be got up and moving much more quickly? I absolutely agree with the comments made by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee on public health. It is like an afterthought. The grant for public health comes out at least two, three or four months after the main grants for the NHS and local Government—it is like the money down the back of the sofa that the Treasury finds at the last minute—and over the years it has been cut significantly in real terms. Public health in Sheffield does an absolutely great job, working with NHS Sheffield Place. It has done some really good work in deprived communities to increase and improve community care in the north of Sheffield. That is the sort of initiative we ought to pursue, and we should give the ICB the wherewithal to support and engage with that. Finally, we ought to build equality of treatment into our aspirations. In Sheffield, from one end of the city to another, life expectancy changes by 10 years. That is simply not acceptable. However, for child vaccinations, GPs get paid by the number of vaccinations they do, so those GPs with the easy patients to reach—probably those in the wealthier areas—get a lot more money for doing vaccinations than those struggling to engage with deprived communities. That sort of initiative from the NHS is wrong and we need to correct it.