NHS Funding

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her excellent question. I absolutely agree with her, as someone who worked in healthcare before she came to this House, that it is vital to nurture the links between the health and social care systems if we are to deal with some of the issues that concern Members on both sides of the House. There are some very good examples of where this is working well, but it is not happening in as many places as it needs to, and we all must focus on that.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State was in Cambridge on Friday. Did he have an opportunity to notice that at Addenbrooke’s, the hospital that serves Cambridge, the number of over-85s coming into A&E has risen by almost 12% year on year, and on Friday there were 100 over-85s in that hospital who should have been out in the community? Does he agree that that is proof perfect of the failure of this Government’s policies on social care, which are the root cause of the problems in our NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is looking at the record of this Government: we have 1,200 more doctors in our A&E departments, who are treating within four hours 2,500 more people every single day. We are also putting more money into the NHS and into the social care system. Addenbrooke’s is a hospital under great pressure, but it is determined to co me out of special measures and do its best for patients, and I salute all the staff, whom I much enjoyed meeting there on Friday. The one thing they would not want is the NHS budget to be cut from current levels.