Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point. Of course, future allocations of capital are for the spending review. I look forward to working with her to try to sort out the problems in Torbay and across the board.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

A consultation is taking place about the closure of Faith House GP practice on Beverley Road in Hull. It is partly about the premises being less suitable for delivering modern healthcare, but also about how difficult it is to recruit GPs. What will the Secretary of State do about GP services being removed from communities? How will he support the development of GP services in those areas?

[Matt Hancock]

The £4.5 billion extra in the long-term plan that is going to primary and community care is absolutely targeted at solving problems like that. As it happens, I know Beverley Road in Hull quite well; I had family who lived there. It is very important that the services in primary care and in the community are there and are available to people to ensure that that crucial element of our prevention agenda is strengthened to keep the pressure off hospitals, too.