NHS Shared Business Services Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Barry Sheerman
Main Page: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)Department Debates - View all Barry Sheerman's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
We have always been concerned to make sure that, because of the extra administrative work involved in going through more than 700,000 records, other patients using the NHS do not find that their care is delayed. We made extra resources available for GP practices so that they could do that without interrupting the ordinary work that they have to do for their patients.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Surely the Secretary of State agrees that if everything were going swimmingly in the NHS, if we were investing in it like our European neighbours and if people were confident that their A&E departments and trusts were safe and that the whole health service was not in trouble, with privatisation biting into it, this issue could be put in perspective. But the NHS, under his watch, is in chaos. That is why we are so worried about this issue.
Mr Hunt
Let me gently remind the hon. Gentleman that, because of the decisions this Government have taken, we are actually now investing more than the European average in the NHS, which would have been much more difficult to do if we had followed his party’s spending plans. He tries to characterise our approach as one of suggesting that the NHS does not have problems. We think the NHS has some very big problems—it is working very hard to tackle them—but we are providing more doctors, more nurses, more funding and more operations than ever before in its history.