NHS 10-Year Plan Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Anneliese Dodds
Main Page: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)Department Debates - View all Anneliese Dodds's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
NHS 10-Year Plan
Anneliese Dodds Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Of course, we were not actually meant to be here at all this week, but it is absolutely right that this debate took place tonight. We need another one and we will very shortly need a debate on the social care Green Paper, when that is published. We also need a debate on what we are going to do about some of the legislative changes that the Government have promised, because all these things need to take place in the public eye.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we also need a debate on privatisation, given that we are seeing no public consultation on very significant changes, such as what is purported to happen to the PET—positron emission tomography—scan centre at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, causing a huge amount of local concern?
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is absolutely right. The Secretary of State has said on the record that he wants to stop privatisation, but we have identified a number of very important contracts lasting many years and costing millions of pounds that should be halted if the Government are going to stick to their word. It has not happened and it should.
The timetable for the publication of the plan has itself not gone to plan. Again, when the Foreign Secretary was Health Secretary, he said:
“we now intend to publish the social care Green Paper in the autumn around the same time as the NHS plan.”
I am not sure which autumn he was talking about for the social care Green Paper, but the intention was right, because, as he also said:
“It is not possible to have a plan for one sector without…a plan for the other”—[Official Report, 18 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 52.]—
but here we are.
In conclusion, whatever fine words, gimmicks and spin we have in the 10-year plan, we know that the reality is that the NHS is on its knees and that it cannot survive another decade of Tory Government. It is time for Labour to come to the rescue again.