Urgent and Emergency Care Review

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

Health Services (North-West)

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Today is a sitting Thursday and we have followed parliamentary procedures. I am doing everything I can to help the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) to have as much engagement as she needs given that she was not able to be here at the start of the process. With regard to stability, the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If he wants stability and wants decisions to be taken decisively, then he has to support the Government when they take difficult decisions like today’s and not be opportunistic, in the way that the shadow Secretary of State was.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) about the apparent benefits of relocating to Blackburn and concentrating resources, but despite seemingly being a beneficiary of this reconfiguration, I am worried about the treatment of Lancashire and Cumbria MPs. What notification was given to those Members, and what consultation took place with them on the decision?

[Mr Hunt]

The process has taken a long time because we have consulted extensively with the local community and local Members. There have been debates in the House about it, and Members have regularly asked about it during oral questions. I asked for hon. Members to be given advance notice of today’s statement. Consultation is important, and we asked for advice from the Independent Reconfiguration Panel—

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. As he is well aware, it is down to local commissioners—local doctors—in Littlehampton to decide, in consultation with local communities, what is good health care. Of course, we must not get fixated on buildings in the NHS. I know there is a local campaign to support the re-establishment of Littlehampton district hospital, and although that may be a very desirable end, there may be many other ways in which high-quality health care can be provided for his constituents closer to home.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

From April, my local health centre will be transferred to a national property company, a quango, in Whitehall. How can local people in Hyndburn regain some influence over this health centre and its use after April?

[Dr Poulter]

Part of reorganising services and delivering good health care is about clinical leadership—I hope that is supported across the House—and local doctors, nurses and health care professionals saying what is important for their patients and what local health care priorities are. Obviously, local communities need to be engaged in that process, but what really matters is what is good for patients and delivers high-quality care for them. We need to deliver more care in the community, and in doing so we have to recognise that some of the ways we have delivered care in the past—picking up the pieces in hospitals when people are broken—need to change. We have to do more to keep people well at home and in their own communities.