NHS Long-Term Plan

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady campaigns hard on this issue and I believe she is meeting the Minister with responsibility for dentistry tomorrow to talk about it further.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this enormous funding boost, which is far in excess of that proposed by any Opposition party. Does my right hon. Friend agree that local trusts should consider using these further resources to help to attract and retain additional doctors in tough-to-recruit fields such as emergency medicine, to support and extend A&E in hospitals such as Cheltenham General Hospital?

[Mr Hunt]

Of course I agree with that. My hon. Friend campaigns extremely vigorously on behalf of his own hospital in Cheltenham. Recruitment will be one of our top priorities. One way we want to tackle that is very simply by giving hope to people in the NHS and to people thinking of going into medicine that there is a long-term plan that has the support of the NHS, and which is at one remove from the party politics that we always get around the NHS. I think that is something doctors and nurses overwhelmingly want.