Oral Answers to Questions

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

I will absolutely look at that case, and I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about it. This is precisely why we are introducing, for the first time ever, an access standard—a maximum waiting time of six weeks for access to psychological therapies from next April.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T8. After all the cover-ups of the past, what is being done to ensure that the culture of the NHS is always improving, particularly in that patients are treated with dignity and respect and always have the highest standards of safety?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. After the Francis report, we now have 5,000 more nurses on our hospital wards. The scores that patients themselves are giving for whether they are treated with dignity and respect are up by 10%. We want to put poor care behind us and behind the NHS. It is time that Labour got on board with this agenda instead of constantly saying that we are running down the NHS by sorting out poor care.