Aaron Bell
Main Page: Aaron Bell (Conservative - Newcastle-under-Lyme)Department Debates - View all Aaron Bell's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Steve Barclay
The hon. Gentleman makes two important points. The workforce plan is critical, and I have referred to that already. He also raises the importance of early diagnosis of cancer, and he is absolutely right on that. He will have seen that the faster diagnosis standard was met in the latest operational performance data for February, which was extremely welcome news. There is obviously more still to do. That is why we are rolling out the programme of diagnostic centres and surgical hubs. We are redesigning patient pathways to streamline those journeys, and we are looking at variation in performance on such things as faecal immunochemical tests. There is a huge amount of work, but I hope he can see some progress in the latest figures.
More widely in terms of elective recovery, we made progress in the summer on the two-year waits, in stark contrast to Wales, which was significantly above 50,000. We got it under 2,000 in the summer. I will update the House shortly on the 78-week waits. We are working through the key actions in our elective recovery plan as we deal with the consequences of the build-up from the pandemic.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
We all recognise how hard junior doctors work, but if we are to have successful negotiations, we need honesty and integrity in them. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the BMA’s figure—its central campaign claim—of £14-an-hour pay for junior doctors has been shown to be misleading?
Steve Barclay
I do share my hon. Friend’s concern. Full Fact has shown that the figure is inaccurate. It disregards higher pay later in the evenings and at weekends. It ignores the 20% that goes into pensions and that junior doctors, probably more than any other profession, have very quick pay and career progression. That is why, as part of our listening exercise, we made changes to pensions in the Budget. That was a reflection of the fact that senior doctors have often accumulated those pension pots, which is one of the other challenges we are dealing with. It is an indication of the career and pay progression that many junior doctors will see later in their careers.