Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We have 1.2 million more people going to A and Es every year. The ambulance service has, on the whole, been doing a good job, but there have been areas where there are problems. We need to change our attitude towards the capabilities of ambulance services, particularly the ability of paramedics to treat people on the spot, and we are driving through that change.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

In the absence of a definitive policy decision on the fortification of basic foodstuffs with folic acid, what steps are Ministers taking to encourage women of child-bearing age to take folic acid to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects such as spina bifida and hydrocephalus?

NHS

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

With the greatest respect, what we heard earlier from the right hon. Member for Leigh was a big argument about a massive growth of pressure on A and E departments that had been caused by, among other things, scurvy, and we found that the total number of admissions was 18. I think that that says a great deal.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

On the subject of disastrous mistakes made by the Labour Government, may I point out that one of the omissions in their motion is the lack of any apology for the £63 billion ticking time bomb generated by off-balance-sheet dodgy deals under the private finance initiative? The worst in the whole country, which was signed off by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals Trust, has produced an indicative structural debt of £40 million a year. [Interruption.]

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Perhaps the situation is put into perspective when we know that those PFI deals are costing the NHS more than £1 billion a year: £1 billion that could have been spent on providing compassionate care and looking after patients with dignity and respect, but instead is having to finance Labour’s appalling mismanaged PFI contracts.

Let me return to the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Leigh. I think that a much more substantive argument relates to the things that he chose not to say. This is the day before the anniversary of the Mid Staffs report, and this is the day on which hospitals are finally putting behind them Labour’s appalling legacy of poor care. We have 14 hospitals in special measures—all of them, incidentally, with A and E departments—making encouraging progress after a very difficult year, with 650 additional nursing staff and 50 board-level replacements between them. Every single one of those hospitals had warning signs under Labour, but rather than sorting out the problems, Labour chose to sweep them under the carpet, sometimes because they had arisen during the run-up to an election. There are 5,900 more clinical staff in the NHS than there were a year ago, and there are 3,300 more hospital nurses than there were at the time of the last election. All those people are vital to the functioning of our A and E departments.

Bullying, harassment and intimidation were perhaps the ugliest features of Labour’s management of the NHS. Now we have seen courageous A and E whistleblower Helene Donnelly being given a new year honour, alongside brave campaigner Julie Bailey, who was literally left out in the cold when she came to lobby the right hon. Member for Leigh about poor care at Mid Staffs.

There is much to do—poor care persists in too many places—but with a new Ofsted-style inspection regime, in England but not in Labour-run Wales, we can at least be confident that poor care in A and E departments and throughout hospitals will be highlighted quickly, and not hidden away. We will keep people out of A and E departments in the first place—that is something to which the right hon. Gentleman referred—with the return of named GPs for the over-75s and integrated health and social care through the better care fund: precisely the joined-up, personal and compassionate care that was envisaged when the NHS was founded 65 years ago.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is exactly what we are doing. We are looking at the root causes of the fact that admissions to A and E are going up so fast—namely, that there is such poor primary care provision; that, as we discussed earlier, changes to the GP contract led to a big decline in the availability of out-of-hour services; and, that health and social care services are so badly joined up. That is how we are going to tackle this issue with A and E, and that is what we are doing.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I am delighted to learn that there will shortly be a new national clinical director for neurological conditions, focusing in particular on conditions such as Tourette’s syndrome. Will the Secretary of State reassure us that that appointment, which is so long overdue, will be expedited at the earliest opportunity?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Last week it was a great pleasure to visit Age UK Peterborough, whose No. 1 priority is dementia care, which coincides with the NHS priorities that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined earlier this week. Will he put in place procedures to make available capital moneys for the construction of dementia care facilities locally?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I can announce that we have already put in place such funds, because dementia is one of the biggest challenges we face across the entire health and social care system. We need more capital funds, but we also need massively to increase the shockingly low diagnosis rates. At the moment, only 42% of the 800,000 people with dementia are being diagnosed properly and therefore getting the treatment they need.