NHS Long-Term Plan

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can clarify that NHS England has a mandatory—[Interruption.] I can confirm, if the Opposition would be kind enough to listen to what I am about to say, that NHS England has a mandatory mental health standard, which means that every CCG is required to increase its mental health funding by more than its total funding. That is an effective ring fence.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

To follow on from the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), will the Secretary of State look at making greater use of the Professional Standards Authority’s accredited register of 85,000 practitioners? If he made it possible for them to refer to doctors, he would reduce the burden on doctors. That is a recommendation of that statutory body.

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to look again at that issue, which I have looked at in the past for my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I do very much agree with the hon. Lady, which is why we are working hard to recruit 5,000 extra GPs into general practice in England. I gently point out to her that the Royal College of General Practitioners says that, while we spend 9.2% of the NHS budget in England on general practice, it is only 7.3% in Wales.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had time to consider the recent Professional Standards Authority report, “Untapped Resources”, of which the principal recommendation is that practitioners on PSA-accredited registers should have powers to make direct NHS referrals, which would reduce the burden on GP surgeries?

[Mr Hunt]

I always look forward to the multiple interesting ways in which my hon. Friend returns to the same subject. We are always open to ideas that reduce pressures on GP surgeries, and I will look carefully at his latest idea.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have made it clear that we want to integrate very closely with European structures when it comes to medicines research. I would gently say to the hon. Gentleman that great universities such as Dundee also collaborate with universities all over the world, and I think that this is a good opportunity for us to ensure that we strengthen our research networks internationally as well as using the tried and tested ones that we have with the EU.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that leaving the EU will be a good opportunity to build links with other countries’ medical systems, particularly those of the Chinese, who have, for instance, integrated Chinese medicine and western medicine to reduce the demand for antibiotics?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to antimicrobial resistance because China is one of the big countries that can make a difference on that, and yes, we have had lots of discussion with Chinese Health Ministers about how we can work together on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have had a big increase in the number of medical students choosing to go into general practice, but we have also had an increase in the number of GPs retiring early. That is a problem that we are urgently addressing.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on serving as Health Secretary for three Parliaments, and say to him that besides doctors and nurses, he should look to increase the use of properly regulated acupuncturists, herbalists, homeopaths, chiropractors and osteopaths, who would reduce the burden on doctors and nurses in the health service.

[Mr Hunt]

Over those three Parliaments, I have learned to expect questions from my hon. Friend in a similar vein, and I commend him for his persistence in championing that cause. As he knows, I think the most important thing, with all such issues, is to follow the scientific advice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

During my time as Health Secretary, the real-terms investment in general practice has gone up by £700 million or 8%, and we are planning to increase it by 14%—£2.4 billion—over this Parliament. A lot of extra money is going in, but I recognise that there are still a lot of pressures.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The Secretary of State’s plans to recruit doctors will be widely welcomed in Leicestershire, but should he not be making greater use of already properly regulated practitioners—those who are regulated by the Professional Standards Authority—of whom there are 20,000, including hypnotherapists?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend’s ingenuity in bringing these issues up in question after question never ceases to amaze me. As he knows, we recognise that the pressure in primary care cannot just be borne by general practice, but we must always follow the science as to where we get our help from.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that I reject that suggestion. The right hon. Lady wants to know what we have been doing over the course of the year. As I said in the statement, we have 1,600 more doctors than we had just a year ago, over 3,000 more nurses, the biggest flu vaccination programme in our history and 12,000 additional GP sessions booked over the festive period. A huge amount of work has been done, with a particular focus on distressed areas. Many of those distressed areas coped extremely well—not all of them, which is why there is more work to do.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

When the Health Committee in the previous Parliament looked at children and adolescent mental health services, one of the main concerns was the distance travelled by patients—sometimes halfway across the country—to get treatment. Will the Secretary of State expand on his plans to reduce attendance at A&E? Does he envisage a new form of gatekeeper and does he intend to try to keep drunks out of A&E?

[Mr Hunt]

I would probably use the word “streaming”, rather than gatekeeper, to ensure that we have good, alternative offers for people who do not need to be in A&E. Frankly, it is not safe for an A&E department to have people there for six, seven or eight hours with a minor injury and no urgent health need. It is distracting for staff and can make it more difficult for them to deal with people who have more immediate needs.

On distances travelled, as the Prime Minister said this morning it is completely unacceptable for people to have to go 400 miles for a mental health bed. What is the solution? We are commissioning more beds, but the actual solution is to intervene earlier so that people do not get to that stage in treatment where they need in-patient care. We know that if we intervene earlier we can in many cases head off that need and help people to get better more quickly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was incredibly impressed with the staff I met at Peterborough hospital—there was incredible commitment to patients and some fantastic work going on in the oncology and renal departments, which I visited. He is right: PFI was a disastrous mistake, saddling hospitals up and down the country with huge amounts of debt, which cannot now be put into front-line patient care. We are doing everything we can to sort that out and not repeat those mistakes.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the NHS spends only about £400 million a year on homeopathic medicine and treatments through the 400 doctors who have trained in homeopathy and are members of the faculty. If he wants to reduce antibiotic prescribing, may I suggest that he increases that budget, because there are very good scientific trials now showing that upper respiratory tract infections can be treated using homeopathic medicine? May I write to him about that?

[Mr Hunt]

May I commend my hon. Friend for his great persistence in flying the flag for homeopathic medicine? While we must always follow the science in the way we spend our money on medicines, as I know he agrees, he is right to highlight the threat of antibiotic resistance and the need to be open to every possible way of reducing it.

NHS: Learning from Mistakes

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a range of initiatives, including the independent healthcare safety investigation branch, but I remind him that some of the problems that we face are staring him in the face, not least the difficulties in Leicestershire with the ambulance service. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), for seeing the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and me to discuss the problems that occur when 15 out of 25 ambulances in the county are queuing to discharge patients. The Under-Secretary talked about bringing in troubleshooters to resolve problems. Will the Secretary of State enlighten the House on what he proposes to do about these very evident problems? They require little investigation; they require action.

[Mr Hunt]

We do have a system-wide problem in Leicestershire and we are looking into it urgently. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. He is absolutely right that when we talk about safety and being open about mistakes, that has to apply to the ambulance service as much as to every other part of the NHS.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

As a result of the changes the Government have made on welfare reform, we have 2 million more people in work and nearly 500,000 fewer children growing up in households where nobody works. Part of that is making important reforms, including having independent medical assessments of people who are in the benefit system. I think everyone should welcome that.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

T8. Comparative research has shown that proton therapy is as effective as radiotherapy for certain cancers, but has fewer side effects. Do Her Majesty’s Government accept the use of comparative evidence in deciding the availability on the NHS of emerging treatments such as proton therapy?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her excellent question. I know that the whole House is thinking of Pauline Cafferkey and her family and that it is proud that, under Dr Mike Jacobs and his team, she is getting the most outstanding care that it is possible to get anywhere in the world. We all wish her a speedy recovery. With respect to winter pressures, I know that the Royal Free had a difficult winter but I also know that it has a very good management team and made heroic efforts. I know that the whole team of doctors and nurses will do an excellent job, and we will want to support them in any way we can.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

As part of my right hon. Friend’s plans for dealing with winter pressures, will he look at making greater use of the 63,000 practitioners on the Professional Standards Authority’s 17 accredited registers covering 25 occupations? Has he found time yet to read the authority’s report, “Accredited Registers—Ensuring that health and care practitioners are competent and safe”?

[Mr Hunt]

I must confess that I have not yet read that report, but my hon. Friend has reminded me of how important it is that I should do so. I will read it carefully while thinking about whether it could help us to get through the winter pressures this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to read the report by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, which says that pressure would be taken off doctors and nurses if greater use were made of the 63,000 practitioners that it regulates on 17 separate registers covering 25 occupations? Will he look at the report and write to me?

[Mr Hunt]

I am very happy to do that. My hon. Friend is right to point out that the solution to the problem is not just about expanding the number of appointments offered by GPs, although we are doing that; it is also about looking at the very important role that pharmacists and other allied health professionals have to play in out-of-hospital care.

Health and Social Care

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We do need to make important changes to the training of medical staff, and I shall give the hon. Gentleman one example of where that matters: creating the right culture in the NHS so that doctors and nurses feel able to speak out if they see poor care. In a lot of hospitals they find that very difficult, because they are working for someone directly responsible for their own career progress, and they worry that if they speak out, that will inhibit their own careers. We do not have that culture of openness. The royal colleges have been very supportive in helping us make that change, but yes, medical training is extremely important.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

To build on the point made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), is not a critical aspect—something that the Health Committee has looked at—what doctors are learning now? More needs to be done about prevention. Has my right hon. Friend seen early-day motion 1 about reducing levels of obesity, and is not reducing the amount of sugar in fizzy drinks a key challenge for him?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The big change we need to see in the NHS over this Parliament is a move from a focus on cure to a focus on prevention. In this Parliament, we will probably see the biggest single public health challenge change from smoking to obesity. It is still a national scandal that one in five 11-year-olds are clinically obese, and I think we need to do something significant to tackle that in this Parliament.

NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

It takes seven years to train a GP, so the long-term solution is to train an additional 5,000 GPs, which is what the Government have decided to do and have announced. While they come on stream, this additional money will fund up to 20,000 additional posts, a number of which will be in the community.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his emphasis on prevention. Has he had a chance to read Public Health England’s report “From evidence into action”? It encourages him to place greater emphasis on risk factors that contribute to an early death, such as tobacco, blood pressure, diet, inactivity and alcohol, rather than the actual conditions that people die from. That would cut demand for services.

[Mr Hunt]

That document is very powerful and I have said before that I hope that in our lifetimes this will become a smoke-free country. It is shocking that we still have 85,000 deaths every year linked to smoking. However, we are a free country so this is about supplying the information, incentives and nudges and not about compelling people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We will not take any lessons from the Labour party about general practice. It is not just the disastrous 2004 GP contract. The president of the Royal College of General Practitioners says that the shadow Health Secretary’s plans

“could destroy everything that is great and that our patients value about general practice and could lead to the demise of family doctoring as we know it.”

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to increase patient choice.

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

This Government are committed to patients having greater choice and control over their health care, and decisions as to which treatments are available on the NHS are taken by GPs on the basis of available scientific evidence.

[David Tredinnick]

Does my right hon. Friend have any plans to increase personal health budgets, and will he ensure that there is greater awareness of the health professions that are regulated by the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, the Health and Care Professions Council and the Professional Standards Authority, which has recently accredited the Society of Homeopaths and the British Acupuncture Council?

[Mr Hunt]

I am a strong supporter of personal budgets. People who have complex medical needs want, above all, to have personal control over their own health care, and they will be extremely worried that the Labour party has now said that it wishes to abolish personal budgets.

Five Year Forward View

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I talked about having a more measured debate, but I think I was speaking a trifle too soon, judging by what we have just heard. The right hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening to what I actually said, so let me just repeat to him that the Government warmly welcome this report. I talked about it as a “blueprint” for the future. He did not agree with setting up NHS England, and I do not think he agreed with the appointment of Simon Stevens as the chief executive, but we did that so that we would have a body that would think strategically about the long-term future of the NHS at arm’s length from the Government. That is what it has done, and the report is excellent.

The right hon. Gentleman and I have a sometimes slightly fractious relationship, but I would like to congratulate him this morning on his Houdini-like spin in the way he is approaching this report. He has been constantly telling this House that the NHS is on the point of collapse, but the chief executive of NHS England says that the NHS has been “remarkably successful” in weathering the pressures of recent years. The right hon. Gentleman has told this House constantly that the biggest threat to the NHS is privatisation and competition. This report, a five-year forward view, by bodies at arm’s length from the Government, contains not one mention of competition and privatisation as a threat, yet he says this report endorses Labour’s plans.

The right hon. Gentleman says, as has his leader, that the first thing he would do in government is repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and strip clinical commissioning groups of their powers. He really should read the report carefully on that. He now says he welcomes the report, but it begs him not to carry out further big structural changes; it does not call for the repeal of the 2012 Act, and this is the report which he warmly welcomes today.

Then we need to consider money. The right hon. Gentleman told this House repeatedly that it was irresponsible to increase spending on the NHS, but now we have a report that says that the NHS needs real-terms increases, along the lines that this Government have been delivering in this Parliament. What does he say? He says, “It is great to have our plans endorsed by NHS England.” This report does not endorse Labour’s narrative; it exposes it for the shallow party politicking that we have had from him.

Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that the really important message of this report is something we can agree on, and he should be talking about that. We both agree about the integration of health and social care, which is now happening. We both agree about improving investment in primary care. We both agree that we need more GPs. We both agree that we need more care closer to home. I think the public would say that we would have a more measured, intelligent and sensible debate—the kind of debate they want to hear—if we started talking about the things we agree on a bit more instead of constantly pretending there are vast disagreements.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has welcomed this report, which says, among other things, that there have to be new ways of working and breaking down barriers. The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine—part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust—which is about a mile away from here, is Europe’s largest public sector provider of integrated medicine. Will he go there and see its 13 care pathways, which use qualified complementary and mainstream practitioners, because then it will be clear to him how we can reduce costs in the health service and take the pressure off practitioners? Will he make that part of his package?

[Mr Hunt]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on finding every opportunity to promote integrated care. What the report says is that we need much more person-centred care. It welcomes the kind of models that we see in Tower Hamlets, where the new clinical commissioning groups, led by inspiring leaders such as Sam Everington, are carrying out social prescribing. GPs are actually prescribing social solutions to problems as well as medical ones. This report is a big stepping stone towards that type of integrated care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As the hon. Lady knows, local service changes are the responsibility of the local NHS, but when they get referred to me, through local authorities, I will never take a decision that is against the interests of patients, including her constituents. Were such a proposal to come to me, I would indeed listen to any representations that she makes.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a critical problem that A and E units will face in the future is antibiotic resistance? Is he aware that the Science and Technology Committee, of which I am a member, has been looking at this issue, and it also interests the Health Committee, of which I am also a member? Can he assure me that he is talking to the Prime Minister about how to stimulate new antibiotic research, and will he also remember that nature has its own remedies, such as tea tree oil?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right about the seriousness of the issue of antimicrobial resistance. Some 25,000 people die in Europe every year as a result of the failure of antibiotics—more than die in road traffic accidents. I raised the issue at the World Health Assembly and I have discussed it closely with the Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

In his travels to the People’s Republic of China, what has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State learned about the integration of western medicine with traditional Chinese medicine?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

What I have learned is that the most important thing is to follow the scientific evidence. Where there is good evidence for the impact of Chinese medicine, we should look at that, but where there is not, we should not spend NHS money on it.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We want to ensure that no hospitals are penalised and that we end up with a solution for the whole local health economy that is sustainable for the long term. The comfort that I think the hon. Gentleman can draw from today’s announcement is that, as a result of the openness and transparency and the rigorous independent inspections that will be happening at all the hospitals his constituents use, poor care, where it exists, will come to the surface and be dealt with much more quickly.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The improved transparency and increased accountability will do much to right the wrongs of the past. When will the health care certificates for nursing assistants be introduced, and has my right hon. Friend considered giving hospital managers discretion to appoint individual nurses to the under-75s?

[Mr Hunt]

We are looking at improving care for people in all age groups, but we started the focus on the over-75s because they are the most vulnerable older people. Implementation of the care certificate is a very big change that will apply to several hundred thousand people, so it will not be an immediate process, but we want to get on with it. I think that it will give them a big boost and more professional confidence. We also want to improve the pathway into nursing, which is why we will be encouraging use of the phrase “nursing assistants”, rather than “health care assistants.”

Urgent and Emergency Care Review

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Mr Speaker, I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what complacency is: it is refusing to have a public inquiry into Mid Staffs, where staff in A and E departments were bullied and harassed when they tried to speak out. He did not think it was worth having a public inquiry into the poor care that his Government swept under the carpet and which we are doing something about. There is one figure that he refused to mention: the A and E performance figures published last week of 96.4%—hitting the target, higher than the previous week, higher than this time last year. That sums it up: in a good week he wants to run down the performance of hard-working staff whereas this Government are backing them.

Why are we having an A and E review? It is to clear up the mess and confusion caused by 13 years of Labour mismanagement of our emergency services. The right hon. Gentleman talks about walk-in centres. Why were they introduced? Because of the disastrous mistake over the GP contract. The brave thing for his Government to have done would have been to admit they got that wrong and reverse it, but they did not. They introduced a whole new raft of services, which confused the public: A and E, walk-in centres, GP surgeries, telephone helplines. Tomorrow we will sort out those problems. Yes there are difficult decisions, but they are decisions his Government ducked and left the public exposed as a result.

Before the right hon. Gentleman runs down our A and E services, let me just gently remind him that he talked about a recruitment crisis, but we have 300 more A and E consultants than when he was Health Secretary, we have nearly 2,000 more people—[Interruption.] I am sorry that this is difficult for those on the Opposition Front Bench to listen to. We have nearly 2,000 more people being seen within four hours every single day than when the right hon. Gentleman was Health Secretary —that is some 700,000 more people every year. We have more hospital doctors, more hospital nurses, more treatments and fewer long waits than when he was Health Secretary, and he should celebrate that improvement in our NHS’s performance, instead of trying to run down the people on the front line.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman something else we are doing. We are tackling the long-term causes of pressure in A and E that his Government absolutely failed to do: not just the GP contract but also the integration of the health and social care system, the lack of which means that hospitals are not able to discharge people from their beds on time, causing huge pressure. Today, the shadow Health Secretary has shown his true colours. The man whose Government made so many wrong decisions about A and E is exposed as trying to make political capital while this Government sort out his mess.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

How many extra lives does my right hon. Friend expect to save through consolidating the A and E facilities in London, by having a smaller number of hospitals with more doctors? Does he expect to replicate that across England?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The changes we announced in north-west London will save hundreds of lives, by using principles that we will hear more of from Sir Bruce tomorrow. In particular, we are putting 800 extra people into out-of-hospital care, which will help the frail elderly, many of whom should never go to A and E—it is the most confusing place that someone with advanced dementia can go. If we can treat them at home, it is better for them and for our hard-working A and E departments.

Hospital Mortality Rates

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We welcome and accept the Francis report’s recommendations on safe staffing and we recognise that that involves having doctors. We recognise and are pleased that our protection of the NHS budget means that there are 6,000 more doctors than when the hon. Gentleman’s Government were in power. If he looks at what is happening in his own Wales, he might find that there are a few lessons that the NHS in Wales could learn.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Sadly, the problems at George Eliot hospital go back well over a decade, so these special measures will be very welcome, but is not one of my right hon. Friend’s fundamental problems dealing with a culture of secrecy, where in the past a board with a problem would talk to a strategic health authority board and nobody would know what was going on? Is not sunlight the best disinfectant?

[Mr Hunt]

It is, absolutely. That is the big change. My hon. Friend speaks wisely. That is the big change that we have to make in our NHS. When there is failure, we must be open about it. It has to be public—we have to keep the public in the picture, because that is the best way of putting pressure on the system and on the politicians to make sure that they sort it out. That is not what happened before; it is going to happen now.

Children’s Heart Surgery

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The answer is this needs to be a mix of both; this needs to be about clinical excellence and issues such as accessibility and travel. A wide range of factors are involved. I accept, and this is widely accepted, that it is particularly difficult with specialist services to interpret mortality rates in a meaningful way, but that does not mean we should not look at them and seek to learn what we can.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s statement will have given great hope to all those in and around Leicestershire who campaigned to keep Glenfield hospital, and we welcome the acceptance that the original site selection was flawed and the implicit acceptance of bias against the east midlands and against the east of the country in general. On a positive note, if we are going to have the clinical case for change accepted and consolidation in the future, what is his understanding of the number of lives that would be saved if we have to go through this painful process?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not want to pluck a number out of the air; I want to listen to the clinical evidence on that. However, it is important to say that as a result of the excess mortality identified at Bristol the Kennedy report said that up to 170 lives could have been saved over a 10-year period in just one location. That is why it is so important that we get this decision right.

A and E Departments

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I have not seen any plans for the closure of St Helier. I know that NHS London is looking at possibilities to improve services in those areas, but, as the hon. Lady will know and should take comfort from, if a major reconfiguration is proposed and then referred to the Secretary of State by the local overview and scrutiny committee, I will not approve the change unless I am convinced that it will improve patient care.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we could make better use of the ambulance service and that if we had more fully trained ambulance men who could assess whether a patient needed to go to hospital, we could reduce A and E admissions that way?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the importance of the ambulance service, which is also feeling the pressure on A and E departments. We need to help the ambulance service to do its job better too. One thing that it always strikes me would make a huge difference to ambulance services is if staff could access the GP records of someone they were picking up on a 999 call, so that they would know that the patient was a diabetic with mild dementia and a heart condition, for instance. That kind of information can be incredibly helpful. I hope that by sorting out the IT issues with which the last Government struggled, we can help ambulance services to do that.

Health and Social Care

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

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

In challenging circumstances, the NHS is performing extremely well. Front-line staff are making heroic efforts to control costs as they cope with the pressures of an ageing population and when 1 million more people are using A and E every year than at the time of the last election.

The Opposition run down NHS performance, but the reality is a service delivering more than it ever did on their watch: 400,000 more operations every year than under Labour; the number of people waiting more than a year for an operation down from over 18,000 in May 2010, to just 665 at the end of February; MRSA infections halved; mixed-sex accommodation nearly abolished; dementia diagnosis rates going up; and more than 28,000 people receiving life-saving drugs from the cancer drugs fund that Labour refused to set up. As we debate health, care and support today, I take the opportunity to commend and thank all the dedicated professionals who work extraordinary hours, day in, day out, for their part in making this happen.

If we are to prepare for the future, however, we need to do more. In our generation, the number of over-85s will double, the number of people with dementia will pass the 1 million mark, and 3 million people will have not one, not two, but three chronic conditions to cope with, on top of the other pressures of old age. We must be there for each and every one of them—the founding values of the NHS would accept nothing less—and to do so we must be able to answer three big questions: how can we be certain that people receive compassionate care even when they are not able to speak for themselves; how can we deliver joined-up care to people who use the NHS and social care system on a regular basis; and how can we ensure that sustainable funding is in place for care and support?

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of widespread concern among the herbal medical community that there is no statutory regulation on that area in the Care Bill. Does he agree that if polymorbidity is to be dealt with we must have firm regulation, and that just licensing herbs, as the European Union wants, would destroy the industry?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend follows such matters extremely closely and I reassure him that the Government will update the House on that issue very soon.

The Care Bill will take a critical step forward in addressing each of the big questions that I raised, so let us consider how. First is compassionate care. Labour’s target culture led to warped priorities in our NHS and appalling human tragedy. No one disputes the value of targets, and the four-hour target played an important role in improving A and E departments. We do not, however, need targets at any cost, as we saw at Stoke Mandeville, Maidstone and Mid Staffs.

NHS Commissioning Board (Mandate)

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We will publish a sexual health strategy at the end of this year that will look at variation in services across the country and at the kind of problems the hon. Lady raises. It will be led by the public health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who will be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the issue further.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend’s statement will be widely welcomed, especially his emphasis on an integrated system based on the needs of people. Does he not agree, however, that there is far too little use of complementary medicine outside private health care, and that greater use of herbal medicine, acupuncture and the much under-utilised resource in this country of homeopathic medicine, homeopathic doctors and the Society of Homeopaths, would be a good thing? Seventy per cent. of pregnant women in France use homeopathic medicine.

[Mr Hunt]

There are parts of the country where acupuncture is available on the NHS. This will be clinically led. It needs to be driven by the science, but where there is evidence, and where local doctors think that it would be the best clinical outcome for their patients, that is what they are able to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Tredinnick and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

We have a clearly set out programme for all those trusts, to make sure that they get back to the proper financial controls and proper governance structures that they need. We do not want to get into the business of bailing them out; we want them to stand on their own two feet. That is the vision of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, passed by the hon. Gentleman’s party when it was in government.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend extend the scope of personal budgets? They help not only patients, giving them wider choice, but carers, allowing them to leave their post.