Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I will tell the hon. Lady what this Government have done. We have legislated for parity of esteem for mental health. We are treating 1,400 more people every single day for mental health conditions compared with six years ago. We have a new plan that will see 1 million more people treated every year by 2020, including a transformation of child and adolescent mental health services. That is possible because we are putting into the NHS extra money that her party refused to commit to.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

T9. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government have a moral obligation to end the raid on poorer countries for their skilled doctors and nurses and to make our NHS recruitment more self-sufficient?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I find it extraordinary that the Labour party said that our plan to train more doctors was “nonsense”. We currently have 800 doctors in the NHS from Sri Lanka, 600 from Nigeria, 400 from Sudan and 200 from Myanmar. They are doing a brilliant job and I want them to continue doing that job, but we have to ask ourselves whether it is ethical for us to continue to recruit doctors from much poorer countries that really need their skills.