Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents

Debate between Helen Whately and Aaron Bell

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s account at all. If she looks back at one of the legal cases that has looked into this question, she may find more accurate information about some of the conversations that went on behind the scenes. I can assure her that, as she would expect, in my capacity as social care Minister, I fought the corner for people receiving care—both home care and in care homes—throughout the pandemic.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Leaked WhatsApp messages will be partial and selective, but in reading even those I note that the Minister was doing her job on behalf of my constituents. In a message on 8 April, she spoke up for a care home in Newcastle-under-Lyme and raised it with the Government and her fellow Ministers. Everyone was doing their best. I served in the lessons learned inquiry, and there are lessons that can be learned with the benefit of hindsight, but the hindsight that we have seen from the Labour Front Bench is opportunistic. Does she agree that the Government were doing everything they could to respond to an unprecedented situation under severe pressure and severe supply and capacity constraints?

NHS Workforce Expansion

Debate between Helen Whately and Aaron Bell

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I will make a bit of progress, so that there is the opportunity for Back Benchers to speak.

We have heard and will no doubt continue to hear about how we have been in power for 13 years so far, so it is only right to look at some of the figures since 2010. Since 2010, we have 35,000 more hospital doctors and 46,000 more nurses and health visitors, not to mention a nearly 50% increase in medical consultants and a near 60% increase in paramedics. That is what we have done.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. In addition to the excellent point she made about the absence of social care in the motion, does she agree that the figures the Opposition have chosen to use in the motion do not give the whole picture at all? They do not include vacancies filled by bank staff, very often from the same hospital.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the selective use of figures by Opposition Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I know that the hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about the issue; we have talked about radiotherapy. He will know that we have invested more than £160 million in improving radiotherapy equipment. This year, we are investing an extra £50 million in the cancer and diagnosis workforce. We are continuing to work hard with the NHS on reducing the backlogs that we have seen since the pandemic, when people did not come forward for cancer treatment as they would have in normal times.

[Aaron Bell]

The Minister mentioned non-dom status under the previous Labour Government, and what they said about it. Is she aware that Alistair Darling said that

“such a charge could discourage men and women—doctors and nurses, business men and women—from coming to this country…and we do not want to turn them away”?—[Official Report, 9 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 171.]

Gordon Brown considered a five-year cap and abandoned it. Ed Balls said that it would end up “costing Britain money”. The supposed heir to Blair is sitting at the Opposition Dispatch Box, opposite the Minister. Is it not surprising that he has not learned more lessons from new Labour?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We hear about this source of funding again and again—we hear that non-doms will provide all this money—but plenty of the shadow Health Secretary’s predecessors in Labour have said that they do not think the policy he suggests would generate any more income whatsoever.

It will imminently be time to give Back Benchers an opportunity to speak, so let me end by saying that it has been an honour to open this debate on behalf of the Government and to respond to the array of misrepresentations from Labour Front Benchers. The NHS exists to care for patients, and they should always be our first priority, but the NHS’s greatest asset is its workforce.

From a lifetime of talking to staff, I know that what they want is to care for patients in a way they feel proud of. They can do that only if they themselves are cared for, feel valued, are looked after and have enough colleagues to support them. The Government are working flat out on every one of those areas. We are hiring more staff, harnessing new technology, joining up health and social care, and building bridges between parts of the system like never before. I know how tough it has been and, on too many days, how tough it still is on the frontline. I am determined that we will continue to do what is right by health and social care staff, for them and for the people they look after.