Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent work with the all-party group and for the group’s constructive response to our consultation on the outcomes strategy. I am more than happy to meet him and other representatives of the all-party group. With an ageing population and rising levels of obesity, we cannot be complacent about cardiovascular disease and have much to do.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister promised before the election that there would be no reconfigurations or closures unless there was clinical and local support. Why then has the Secretary of State decided to break up the existing vascular network centred on Warrington hospital, meaning that emergency patients face a trip to Chester by ambulance, when this has neither clinical support nor support in the local community? When did that policy change, or was it just an election promise that the Conservatives never intended to keep?

[Mr Hunt]

We believe in the clinical networks, including the network for cardiovascular disease. We have increased the funding for those networks by 27%. However, we want them to include mental health and maternity services. We think that it would be wrong to do what the Labour party wants, which is to concentrate that funding on cardiovascular disease and cancer, and deprive of the clear benefits of such networks the 700,000 women who give birth on the NHS every year and the nearly 1 million people who will be diagnosed with dementia.