NHS Reform

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will absolutely encourage that. The Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust is one of the biggest in the country and has had significant challenges. The Burton foundation trust has been through the special measures process, and patient care has improved as a result. Collaborative working will be the way forward. We need to break down the silos that have cursed so much of the NHS, and I will happily pass on that message.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I advised food manufacturers in the ’90s about bringing in seven-day working to keep supermarket shelves stacked. Twenty years on we are still talking about seven-day working in the NHS, and it seems to me that good care and saving lives are rather more important. Will the Secretary of State ensure that exactly the same principle applies to mental health? Does he recognise that it is just as important to ensure that people can leave hospital and go home on a timely basis, seven days a week, but that with cuts to local government funding there will be more pressure and it will be more difficult to achieve that? Together with the extraordinary pressure that the system is under, does that not make the case even more strongly for a new settlement for the NHS and social care?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for finding time to come to the Chamber on what I know is an important day. I am not sure whether I am allowed to wish him luck, but I greatly value the time that I spent working with him as a ministerial colleague, and I know he will make an important contribution to the House. He is right, as ever, to speak about mental health. The programme towards seven-day working is as important for mental health as it is for other services, and we must also ensure that the revolution happens for things such as suicide rates and crisis care. He is right about the importance of the social care system; and in my mind when I speak about seven-day care I am thinking about social care and health as one entity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

My hon. Friend has long championed this issue and I look forward to debating it with him further. He is right to say that the CCG scorecard is currently being developed. Academic experts are looking at a range of indicators, including the one-year cancer survival data which he has brought to the House so often, for inclusion in the scorecard. It is likely to be published this summer. I will of course look carefully at the points he makes ahead of that.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, may I join others in marking the tragic death of Charles Kennedy? He was one of the most able politicians of his generation, and was loved and admired across the political spectrum. He was a brave and principled man, and he will be missed enormously.

May I raise with the Secretary of State my passion for mental health? He will be very much aware of my absolute determination to achieve equality for those who suffer from mental ill health. Will he guarantee that he will do everything to ensure that people with mental ill health get the same timely access to evidence-based treatment as everyone else?