Member

To go back to my 2,900 square miles of Wales, the old county of Montgomeryshire, which is now part of Powys and part of a bigger constituency, has no acute hospital. It has a number of cottage hospitals, as they used to be called—local hospitals—and very good they are too. On the whole, the local medical services are excellent, but there is no acute hospital. When people used to go to their GP—surprisingly, most people in rural Wales are on first-name terms with their GP when they meet them in the street—the GP would ensure that they had the best possible advice, including advice on palliative care, but most of that advice would come from hospitals in England. The need for uniformity in the provision of services is essential, but that uniformity will be provided not by the conceptual principle behind the Bill but by the way in which it is put into effect.