Health Infrastructure Plan

Debate between Edward Argar and Andrew Jones

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady refers to piecemeal announcements. I have to say that the reason we are now coming up with an approach—a new approach—that delivers rolling capital investment to a strategic vision linked to investment elsewhere in the health service is that, singularly, the previous Government utterly failed to do that. On criteria and process, as I mentioned, the bids considered were put forward by individual NHS trusts and we have considered them against the usual bidding process value-for-money criteria. If it is helpful to her, as with other colleagues to whom I have committed to write, I will be happy to write to her about process rather than the specifics of individual hospitals. If there is a particular trust that she wishes to highlight to me, if she writes to me, I will include the response on that in the letter.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement, which is so encouraging because it demonstrates our long-term ambitious plans for the NHS? I was particularly pleased to see the investment in CT scanners as technology and medicine are moving so fast. Does he agree that the screening programmes in the NHS, supported by the capital budget that he is announcing today, are helping to save lives and that we must do all we can to encourage these programmes?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are investing to make sure that, when people need care, that care is there for them, but he is absolutely right to highlight that prevention is always better than cure. The investment that we are making in these CT scanners and X-ray machines and, indeed, the steps forward that we are seeing in the research and development of new technologies, all contribute to improving our ability to prevent illnesses.