Junior Doctors Contracts Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Christopher Pincher
Main Page: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)Department Debates - View all Christopher Pincher's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman’s definition of “ideological” is. If “ideological” is giving safer care to patients, it is an ideology that we can all share, but I will tell him exactly the answer to his question, which he can relay to his constituents. What we want to do is reduce the difference between the mortality rates for people admitted in the week and at weekends. We have identified four key clinical standards that we believe are necessary to do that. It is by making sure that we can deliver those four clinical standards across the NHS that we will deliver this strategy.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend imagine the distress and the anxiety felt by constituents who have come to see me over the past six years because they are concerned about the treatment of their relatives admitted at the weekend, when they see the BMA and the Labour party appearing to use them and other patients as hostages in a long-running dispute that must come to an end?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is right. What patients want is a safe NHS where it does not matter on which day of the week they are admitted if something goes badly wrong. The big surprise here is that this is not something that the whole House can unite behind. It is something that people who believe in the NHS, as I think we all do, should strongly support. We are standing up for those patients, and I hope Labour, the party that founded the NHS, might do the same.