Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Mowat and Simon Burns

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

We are training 3,250 extra GPs every year, and we have a target of 5,000 additional doctors working in general practice by 2020. However, as well as new GPs, we must do much better with retention. That means keeping the GP population that we have, and there are a number of steps that the Government are taking to do that. On the specific point about Sunderland, there is a bursary scheme that is aimed at attracting GPs to areas where they may not necessarily have wished to work previously.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

11. What estimate his Department has made of the amount accrued to the public purse from efficiency savings in the NHS since May 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Mowat and Simon Burns

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am most grateful.

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is playing with the figures. As he knows from previous discussions, he is talking about the SITREP—situation report—figures, which do not form the basis of the figures the Government use. [Interruption.] If he will keep quiet for a minute and listen, I will reiterate the point I made last night. Regarding A and E waits of under four hours and the percentile of 95, we are at 96%, which means we are within and above the level set down by the Government’s figures.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

11. What plans he has to review the health allocation formula.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Mowat and Simon Burns

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T8. The Cheshire and Merseyside treatment centre has been closed for just over a year, since the private sector contract let by the last Government expired. Can the Minister confirm that the centre is now going to be brought back into the NHS as a fully fledged part of the Warrington and Halton hospitals trust, and will he give me an indication of the time scale involved?

[Mr Simon Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to explain that the NHS trust and the PCT have made plans for the building to be used by the Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for orthopaedic out-patients and surgery. Those plans should enable clinicians to provide the NHS services needed by local people in much-improved buildings, and I understand that services will be recommenced from those buildings in weeks.

Vascular Services (Warrington)

Debate between David Mowat and Simon Burns

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Minister is describing in some detail the process by which the nine centres that previously existed are to be reduced to two, and we can, perhaps, accept the logic of that. This is a piecemeal decision for one type of service, however. If every centralisation decision is taken in a piecemeal way, Warrington and Halton might well lose every single time. When decisions on centralisation are made, should there not be some kind of strategy for deciding what will end up where, so that every decision is not made on a piecemeal basis?

[Mr Burns]

If my hon. Friend means by “piecemeal” that the decision is dealing only with a certain part of the country, then that is indeed the case. However, the review was carried out in the context of a wider geographical area in and around Merseyside, and in that respect it is achieving its aim of finding the most relevant service for the local communities. That is why the recommendation was to have two arterial centres located there.

The hon. Member for Warrington North raised the issue of population, as she believes, I think, that there should be a third centre. The following point is based on advice from both the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the local clinical advisory group. The population in the area under discussion in respect of this decision on services is 1.2 million, whereas the figures that would be required to have a third centre are 1.4 million for the vascular networks and 1.6 million for abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programmes. Therefore, the population currently under discussion is too small to warrant an extra centre. I hope she will accept that.