Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

But we are taking measures. That is why we have 2,000 more doctors and 5,000 more nurses compared with a year ago. Frankly, the last thing those doctors and nurses on the front line want is scaremongering by the right hon. Gentleman—posters saying that the NHS might cease to exist under this Government; and leaflets like the one I have here from Lancaster saying that the local hospital might close. We are backing the NHS with more doctors, more nurses, more resources and a long-term plan. Will he now back the NHS by disowning this kind of scaremongering and stop trying to weaponise the NHS?

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

3. What the average waiting time was for a GP appointment in the most recent period for which figures are available.

A and E (Major Incidents)

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am sorry to hear the news about the chief executive at Watford. I am aware of the pressures there and I agree with my hon. Friend about the need for stability in management as much as possible over the next few months.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

One of my constituents wrote to me about her elderly mother who faced a wait of many hours for an ambulance to A and E. My constituent told me that at A and E she saw patients on trolleys backed up through the corridor to ambulances waiting in the car park. Meanwhile, patients were waiting at home, unable to get those same ambulances. She described the scene as “a war zone”. Is it not the case that A and E is unable to cope, the ambulance service is unable to cope, and patients who need to go to A and E are suffering?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that there are real pressures in A and E across the system, but it is important to remind the public that even under that pressure, nine out of 10 people continue to be seen, treated and sent home within four hours. That is an extremely impressive record for the people working very hard in our A and E departments.

Special Measures Regime

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. We have seen 31 more doctors there since special measures, 52 more nurses, a new acute medical admissions unit and better flow throughout the hospital, reducing the number of moves that patients make between wards during their stay, so lots has been done. When I did a stint in the A and E department at George Eliot, I was very well looked after by the nurses there, but they told me how bad the IT systems were—I think they said there were 16 different IT systems in the hospital—and how they were constantly filling out new forms. I therefore hope that the partnership with University Hospitals Birmingham, which has one of the best hospital IT systems in the country—a fantastic system, developed by the trust itself—will mean that George Eliot can move to having really good IT, so that nurses have more time with patients, which is what they want.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State spoke earlier about the need to value staff who work in residential homes. I presume he meant by that people who care for vulnerable, elderly and disabled people in their own homes as well. I completely agree with that, and he knows that we have discussed many times in the House issues such as the 15-minute time slots and the lack of reimbursement for the travel costs that people who care for elderly or disabled people have to bear. Does he agree, therefore, that unless we address issues such as the pay and conditions of staff, whether in residential homes or in people’s own homes, we will struggle to recruit and retain the very best staff, whom we desperately need to look after our vulnerable people?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to value staff who work in the social care sector much, much better. I think they do a fantastic and very difficult job for what is not high pay at all, so I recognise that issue. I also agree with his concern about 15-minute slots. I find it hard to believe that anyone can really do everything they need to when visiting someone who is frail or vulnerable in their own home in just a 15-minute slot. The new inspection regime will look at that and if it is unsatisfactory, it will say so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I know that they do that, and I know that people recognise that access is a critical issue. That is why the Prime Minister introduced a £50 million fund last year that has been taken up by 1,100 of the 8,000 surgeries across the country to improve access in evenings, at weekends and by e-mail and Skype. I hope that those will benefit his constituents.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

SSP Health runs a number of GP practices in my constituency and across Merseyside. When it took over, it promised full-time GPs and an improvement in services, yet after well over a year several of the practices are still run by locums. We have seen vulnerable, elderly people unable to get appointments for many days, if not weeks, and those who can have gone to other practices. Will the Secretary of State look at what is going on with SSP Health in and around Merseyside and give me and other hon. Members an answer?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do so, because the service that he describes—I have not seen the details—sounds totally unacceptable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I think they absolutely should be, and the changes that we introduced in the Care Act 2014 relating to the transparency of the inspection regimes apply to private providers supplying services to the NHS just as they do to NHS providers. Let us be absolutely clear: poor care is poor, whether it happens in the public sector or the private sector, and we must clamp down on it wherever it happens.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Minister said that he was dealing with the chronic shortage of staff who help vulnerable children and young people, who cannot get access to mental health services. Will he tell us when there will be enough staff delivering those services to that important group?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I cannot speak highly enough of the staff at Southport hospital who cared for me when I spent three days there as a patient last month. They told me that GPs now routinely send older patients straight to A and E because their funding has been cut and that community services are no longer in place to support people in their own homes, which is all leading to a crisis at A and E. Is not the sad reality that what is happening at Southport is being repeated up and down the country as a result of the Government’s disastrous reorganisation and cuts to front-line services?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I am very pleased about the excellent treatment that the hon. Gentleman received. The problems that the nurses talked about are exactly why, from today, we are reintroducing named GPs for everyone aged 75 or over to bring back the kind of personal care and personal responsibility for patients that I am afraid was so sadly abolished previously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T10. The village of Melling has grown in recent years, yet its surgery hours have been cut drastically. Elderly and disabled residents now face a four-hour round trip by public transport to see their doctor. How can cuts in surgery hours, like those in my constituency, be justified if the Government are serious about having a first-class NHS?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We absolutely want to make primary care more accessible and that is why we are introducing named GPs for everyone aged 75 or more from April. This is a significant and important reversal of, I think, a mistake that everyone now agrees was made in 2004 when named GPs were abolished. Its purpose is to make GPs more accessible to the people who need them the most.

Urgent and Emergency Care Review

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am always happy to meet colleagues if they have concerns about what is happening in their constituency, but I absolutely stand by what I said. There will remain an A and E at Ealing. That was the decision that I made because I wanted to give clarity, but I also said that the shape and size of that A and E may change in accordance with the announcement that is being made tomorrow by Sir Bruce Keogh. I hope that will give the hon. Gentleman further clarity and further certainty to reassure his constituents.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has already acknowledged that keeping people in their own home is one important way to relieve the pressure on A and E. I do not understand why, if he wants to make a real difference, he will not reinvest the NHS underspend to make up for the cuts in local government and put it into social care.

[Mr Hunt]

We have put in an additional £2 billion—that makes a total of £3.8 billion being invested to support the social care budget. That is significant because it is recurring expenditure. We have shown our commitment by continuing to support the social care system through this Parliament. The trouble with underspends is that they depend on how many resources we have in any particular year. It is therefore much harder to invest off the back of them.

Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will make some progress and then give way. I want to ask why the Opposition have chosen to call this debate. I am afraid it is nothing less than a smokescreen, because their objective is to try to dress up the pressures on A and E as a short-term crisis when, as every A and E department in the country will tell us, to deal with the pressures we need to address long-term structural problems that the previous Government either ignored or made worse.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

May we talk about one of the pressures on A and E, which is the pressure of social care? I hope that the Secretary of State will accept that significant cuts have been made in social care under this Government and that the role of social care is crucial in keeping people in their homes in the first place and in returning them to their homes after they have been in hospital. As a result of those cuts, it is very difficult for social care to perform that role. Will he examine the suggestion by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) to use the underspend from the Department of Health to support social care to perform its essential role?

[Mr Hunt]

I will come to that suggestion, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If we are going to deal with bed blocking, which is one of the root causes of the problems that many A and E departments talk about, we have to have better integration between the health and social care systems—that is essential. I say to him that the problem of the underfunding of social care did not start in 2010; as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, it is a problem that goes back many years, and the failure to integrate health and social care was a failure that happened over 13 long Labour years.

A and E Departments

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I completely agree with that. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) for piloting those important reforms through the health service. I just hope that the Labour party, which claimed to support practice-based, clinically led commissioning, will see the error of its ways and understand that proper clinical commissioning holds the key to solving many of these problems.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

One of the concerns raised with me is about the lack of commissioning of community services to help patients to be discharged from hospital, which has a knock-on effect on A and E and queuing ambulances. Is not the reality that, as health professionals tell me, the lack of community services, which is what causes the problem in A and E, is a direct result of this Government’s reorganisation?

[Mr Hunt]

Quite the opposite: the changes introduced by my predecessor make it possible to have truly joint commissioning between clinical commissioning groups and local authorities, which are responsible for social care. I hope that will deal precisely with the problems the hon. Gentleman talks about. That is what we have to encourage and facilitate in every way we can.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is absolutely right, and that is why we are trying to draw a line under what happened under previous Governments of all colours, and trying to sort this problem out. I think it is time that Labour Members took a responsible attitude, because this is an opportunity to do something about this problem and we are trying to do so honestly and conscientiously.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The more that Government Back Benchers claim that the Secretary of State is a man of integrity, the less the public are likely to believe them. My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) asked whose suggestion it was that a special adviser—

[Bill Esterson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To answer the question, we need to know whose suggestion it was that Adam Smith should be the point of contact for News Corporation and why the key contact was a special adviser, not a civil servant.

[Mr Hunt]

We will look into all the processes—[Interruption.] We are very happy to learn lessons about the way this was structured. The hon. Gentleman can pick on one element of what happened, but he should not ignore the big picture. The big picture was that we put a huge lock in the process to make sure that my decisions were impartial and seen to be impartial, and that was the involvement of independent regulators—something that we did not have to do, but that we chose to do. That, in the end, is what demonstrates that my decisions were taken on the basis of objective evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of the effects on the arts of reductions in public expenditure.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Cuts are a challenge for all arts organisations and we have tried to mitigate the situation with four-year budget settlements and an increase in lottery funding of 43%, with the result that we have been able to preserve free admission to museums.

[Bill Esterson]

I could thank the Minister for that very complacent answer, but the arts have faced huge cuts of 29% and the Government say that the cuts will be replaced by “philanthropic giving” although the level of donations always falls in a downturn. How much of the 29% cut in the arts has been replaced by philanthropic giving?

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T6. May I again press the Secretary of State on phone hacking in News International? Will he guarantee full co-operation between his Department and Lord Leveson’s inquiry?

[Mr Hunt]

Not only will I guarantee it, but we commissioned the inquiry, so it is very much in our interests to give it every help.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns about the issue in question. He will agree with me that in a free country, it is important that the Government should not dictate to our national broadcaster what it says or broadcasts. However, he is right to say that we need to look at governance of the BBC. There is cross-party agreement that the BBC Trust set up by the previous Government has not worked in the way that was intended, and as we come up to the renewal of the BBC charter, we will be looking closely at ways to improve the democratic accountability of the BBC.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T4. Can I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to Chesterfield high school in my constituency, a specialist sports college which has been told that it has lost its £180,000 grant, and that the money will not go into its main grant? It was something that the Secretary of State for Education did not deny last week when I put a similar point to him about the situation throughout the country. Does the Culture Secretary agree that a cut in specialist sports grants will lead to a reduction in the number of young people taking part in sport?

[Mr Hunt]

First, although I do not know exactly what happens in Chesterfield, I have no reason to believe that the work done by school sport partnerships is not excellent there as well. School sport partnerships can continue; however, the philosophy of this Government is to devolve responsibility for budgets to heads, because we think that they are best placed to know how their money should be spent. In Chesterfield, as, I am sure, in large parts of the country, I have every confidence that heads will decide to continue to support their school sports partnerships.