Andrew Lansley

“I know that nurses are not only the largest healthcare profession but are responsible for the delivery of most healthcare, and are often in the best place to be able to see the whole pathway of care.”

“The culture is about moving to a place where tobacco and smoking isn't part of normal life: people don't encounter it normally, they don't see it in their big supermarkets, they don't see people smoking in public places, they don't see tobacco vending machines.”

“Tackling the environment should not be a licence to lecture people, because they have no excuse not to exercise, or eat their fruit and vegetables. Nannying - at least among adults - is likely to be counterproductive. Providing information is empowering; lecturing people is not. So, no excuses, no nannying.”

“If, like me, nothing is more important to you than our children's future, then their opportunities must be protected.”

“I am not saying do not give people equal health services but do not pretend that giving more money for diabetes or chronic diseases means you are going to deal with the origins of health inequalities.”

“Not reforming the NHS would have been a much easier decision for me as secretary of state to have taken. We could have just protected the NHS from cuts, put in an extra £12.5bn and left it there. But sooner or later the cracks would have started to show. New treatments would have been held back.”

“In the first speech I delivered as health secretary, I made one thing perfectly clear: we need a cultural shift in the NHS: from a culture responsive mainly to orders from the top down to one responsive to patients, in which patient safety is put first.”

“There's a culture inside the NHS that is highly paternalistic. You know, 'We give them the service and they are grateful.' We have to move to shared decision-making.”

“The job of the government - and my responsibility - is to help people live healthier lives. The framework is about giving local authorities the ability to focus on the most effective ways to improve the public's health and reduce health inequalities, long-term, from cradle to grave.”

“Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down.”

“The NHS is a national organisation, but it is best delivered locally.”

“It is more important to engage the public positively with choice and competition to everyone than to be directed into a benefit for a minority.”

“I'm not going to go mystery shopping in the NHS because we have a million people every day using it and rating its facilities.”

“The Transparency Bill is something we should all support - practical steps in promoting an open and accountable democracy.”

“Experience in other countries shows how big money, rather than the best political candidate, can influence politics.”

“I became a Conservative in the late 1980s because I could see that the Conservative party had transformed Britain's economy and our standing in the world compared to Labour in the 1980s.”

“As a Coalition Government, we inherited a legacy of lack of trust and confidence in political system.”

“We will never privatise the National Health Service.”

“Safe care saves lives and saves money. Adverse events like high levels of infection, blood clots or falls in hospital, emergency readmissions and pressure sores cost the NHS billions of pounds every year. There is a serious human cost, too, with patients ending up injured, or even dead. Most are avoidable with the right care.”

“You should be able to choose which hospital you go to.”