Oral Answers to Questions

James Duddridge Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. We know the importance of good perinatal mental health not just for the mother but for the life chances of the child. That is very important if we are to ensure that we get the commissioning of maternity services right in the future. There is a commitment in the Health Education England mandate that by 2017 all maternity units will have specialist perinatal mental health staff available to support mums with perinatal mental health problems.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I am pleased to tell the House that on 19 June the Prime Minister hosted a very successful global dementia summit as a follow-up to the G8 dementia summit. We are currently diagnosing and treating 70,000 more people every year with dementia, but the big challenge is, as he set out at the G8 summit, finding a cure or disease-modifying therapy by 2025. We had useful discussions on what barriers need to be eliminated to ensure that the research happens to find such a cure.

[James Duddridge]

What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the need for a single hyper-acute stroke unit in south Essex?

[Mr Hunt]

I know that discussions are going on on that very topic and the CCGs are very interested in putting a hyper-acute stroke service at Southend hospital, which I know has excellent stroke services. We still need further improvements in the ambulance services for the east of England if we are going to do that and that is what we are currently discussing.