National Health Service

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

What we can see is that this decline began when the Government made the monumental misjudgment of bringing forward a top-down reorganisation that should never have happened, that nobody voted for, and that took 1.5 million eyes off the ball in the NHS. The Government should have been looking at the front line and maintaining standards there, instead of which they looked backwards, and focused on the reorganisation and the jobs merry-go-round that then carried on. It is really disgraceful that they did that and plunged the NHS into the chaos that it is today.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Last Friday evening, I spent time at Whiston A and E talking to doctors and nurses, who do an unbelievable job. I heard about the problem of getting elderly people back into the community when they have undergone treatment. There were also issues around recruiting and retaining nurses and the tariff there, but there does not seem to be any answer coming from the Government.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend describes the problems well. I know the hospital because I have been there with him. He is right that older people are becoming trapped in hospital. The support is not there for them in their own homes, and nursing home places are not available. I will come back to that theme in a moment.