Urgent and Emergency Care Review Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Graham P Jones
Main Page: Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn)Department Debates - View all Graham P Jones's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Urgent and Emergency Care Review
Graham P Jones Excerpts(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend speaks extremely wisely. We have talked about stroke, so let me give another example, which is trauma. We have cut mortality rates by 20% as the result of a strategy to specialise trauma care. Those are the difficult decisions that the Government believe that we should not duck and that we need to face up to. If I may say so, when the Opposition were in power, they took a slightly wiser approach to the issue than the party political posturing we are getting today.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Secretary of State earlier quoted the suggestion that GP walk-in centres were in the wrong places, where there was little demand. Last year, 33,000 people used the under-threat Accrington Victoria hospital walk-in centre, and now there is deep anger with the Conservative party. Will he explain how 36,000 people going to overstretched Royal Blackburn hospital A and E will help the situation there?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me extremely eloquently. Under the previous Government, we had a top-down, ham-fisted policy of opening walk-in centres everywhere as a sticking plaster solution to the disasters with their GP contract. Sometimes they were valuable services, sometimes they were not. We are clearing up the mess, but sometimes, when those centres are useful and important for the public, we will keep them.