Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I am happy to look at that. It is obviously an NHS England responsibility, but I will ensure that I draw its attention to the scheme that the hon. Gentleman mentions in Northern Ireland.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department has taken to ease the short and long-term effects of winter pressures on the NHS.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department has taken to ease the short and long-term effects of winter pressures on the NHS.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

In the short term, a record £400 million has been assigned to help the NHS through this winter, with £250 million announced in August, much earlier than before. For the long term, we are restoring the link between GPs and vulnerable older patients by bringing back named GPs for all over-75s—something that was broken in 2004.

[Chloe Smith]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. My constituents, including a family who came to my surgery on Saturday, are frustrated by the brick walls that sometimes seen to exist between different bits of the health service, and which are all the worse in urgent and traumatic winter cases. Different health services in Norwich have come together in Operation Domino to improve services in the face of demand, and they have used winter funding money to run a new style of urgent care unit at Norfolk and Norwich hospital. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Norfolk is leading the way?

[Mr Hunt]

I congratulate the health services in Norfolk—and indeed in Norwich—on what they are doing to break down those barriers. That is the key issue, and this year I am working closely with the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), to merge the health and social care systems—a £4 billion merger—to ensure that medical records can be shared across all the different systems, and that there is a named accountable doctor for the entirety of people’s time outside hospital. I hope that will make a difference in Norwich as elsewhere.