Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Health Service Spending

Tuesday 21 October 2025 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 2 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Ministerial Department is taking steps to improve efficiency in NHS spending.
  • Response mentioned cutting agency spending by a third and plans to abolish it.
  • Reforming NHS to move hospital services into community and develop neighbourhood services.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Richard Burgon Lab Leeds East
NHS
Context

The MP is concerned about wasteful spending within the NHS and the impact of previous government policies.

Question

What steps his Department is taking to tackle wasteful spending in the health service, considering the example of PFI deals which did huge damage to NHS budgets by saddling trusts with £80 billion in debts despite receiving only £13 billion in assets?

Answer from The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)

As well as the record investment that we put into the NHS, we are ensuring that we get a better bang for the taxpayer’s buck. Under the Conservatives, for example, the NHS was paying £3 billion to recruitment firms for agency shifts. We have cut agency spending by a third and are abolishing it altogether, with the savings reinvested in staff pay and treatment for patients. That is just one example of how our reform agenda is good for patients and for taxpayers.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Did not directly address ruling out private finance for new NHS clinics but mentioned learning from previous government's failures.

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Q2 Tim Farron Lib Dem Westmorland and Lonsdale
NHS
Context

The MP highlighted an issue where cancer patients from Kirkby Stephen, who need chemotherapy in Carlisle, must travel on the day or before their treatment to get blood tests done at a hospital.

Question

Is it not wasteful and inconvenient for cancer patients needing chemotherapy in Carlisle but living in rural areas like Kirkby Stephen to have to travel on the same day or the day before just to get bloods taken, due to local hospitals no longer funding these services through GP surgeries?

Answer from The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)

As he often does, the hon. Gentleman highlights in his own very rural constituency some of the fundamental problems at the heart of our NHS. That is why we are reforming it, ensuring that we move hospital services from hospitals into the community and developing neighbourhood health services. We are also looking at the financial flows in the system that lead to these sorts of perverse incentives and funding arrangements, which do damage to his constituents, as they do to many others and to rural and coastal communities.

Partly answered

Not addressed: Did not directly address the specific travel inconvenience but acknowledged issues with financial flows and community-based services.

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