Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point and I do not want to defend that service in the instance she cited at all. It is completely unacceptable if that kind of thing has to happen. The principle of 111—which is for people to have an easy-to-remember number and to be able to be connected to a clinician directly if they need to be, which did not happen with NHS Direct—is a good one, but it is not happening in practice as much as it needs to be. We are broadly meeting our operational standards, but it is not good enough and she has given a very good example as to why.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

First, may I thank the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for responding to the recent debate we held on this issue? When it was my own father in those circumstances, I did not say that I was an MP, as I felt that would be an abuse of the system. I am delighted that North Yorkshire has reported no problems since 111 was introduced, but there is the issue of the deficit for clinical commissioning groups, which we hope will not detract from the 111 service. Can the Secretary of State assure us that the review of funding will be brought forward at the earliest possible moment?

[Mr Hunt]

I am pleased the 111 service worked more satisfactorily in my hon. Friend’s case. NHS England is working on the funding formula and it hopes to make any necessary changes in time for the next funding round, which starts in April 2014.