Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If the right hon. Gentleman would face the House, it would greatly avail us. I understand the natural temptation to look backwards—[Laughter.]—as in, behind him! But he must face the House.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

On 20 June, I wrote to the Secretary of State informing him of the claims of doctors in Cumbria that unless drastic action were taken to reduce the pressures on GPs’ work loads, patients could die. I have not even received a response. Why, having being given such a stark warning, is the Secretary of State sitting on his hands? There are fewer GPs today than there were during Labour’s last year in office. How can standards in general practice be improved when surgeries are dealing with a recruitment crisis?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman his answer now. According to the Royal College of General Practitioners, 40 million more appointments with GPs are being made in every single year than were made when Labour was in office, and we have 1,000 more GPs than we had when his party was in power.

Let me say very clearly that the way in which we will deal with this problem is by increasing the capacity of general practice and the capacity of primary care. The hon. Gentleman should be supporting that—and he might just think about the 48-hour target that Labour has been talking about. If a new target for GPs is introduced, they will simply cut the amount of time that is available for them to deal with the most frail and vulnerable patients, and that would be wrong.