Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

3. What representations he has received on exemption of the NHS from the provisions of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership.

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

The Government will not allow TTIP negotiations to harm the NHS. Any suggestion to the contrary is both irresponsible and false. I am grateful to the former Labour shadow Health Secretary for confirming that.

[Grahame M. Morris]

That is an interesting answer but, without specific exemption from TTIP, how can the Secretary of State give any reassurance that predatory organisations such as the Hospital Corporation of America, which was prosecuted for fraud in the US, will not use the TTIP provisions to seek contracts in our NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

The best assurance I can give the hon. Gentleman is not what I have said, but what the EU Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht—I challenge colleagues in Hansard to spell that correctly without looking at my notes—has said. In an interview in September, he said:

“Public services are always exempted—”

from TTIP—

“there is no problem about exemption. The argument is abused in your country for political reasons but it has no grounds.”

[Mr Speaker]

Colleagues in Hansard may not even rely on the Secretary of State’s notes; they may have their own source material. They are very special people those reporters.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that concise answer. I reiterate the message to the unions, which are sticking up billboards in my constituency, that Cameron and Hunt are not selling off the NHS.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I was quite amused to see that I have a future career as an estate agent, along with the Prime Minister, when our hopefully long careers in politics are over, but the point is that this is scaremongering and it is wrong to scaremonger about something as important as the NHS. To suggest that the NHS is being privatised is fiction. What is not fiction is Labour’s legacy of poor care.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s definition of “harm” is not the definition that Labour Members have. My Bill, which was passed overwhelmingly on Friday, would require the Secretary of State to bring the matter back to this House should TTIP apply to the NHS in any way whatsoever. Will he support my Bill going into Committee without delay, so that we can discuss the detail and answer the questions he has?

[Mr Hunt]

No, I will not support the hon. Gentleman’s Bill.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Given the uncertainty of the French and German Governments on the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, as well as the indication by EU Commission President Juncker that he will not back it, why have this Government not done more to protect the health service from a practice that would leave it vulnerable to private sector intervention?

[Mr Hunt]

This is what the EU chief negotiator said to the former Labour shadow Health Secretary, who is chair of the all-party group on TTIP:

“the rights of EU Member States to manage their health systems according to their various needs can be fully safeguarded…There is no reason to fear either for the NHS as it stands today or for changes to the NHS in future as a result of TTIP.”

It could not be clearer than that.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

4. How many patient episodes there were at Kettering General Hospital in (a) 2010 and (b) the last year for which figures are available; and what assessment he has made of the reasons for the change in the number of such episodes.

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[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

6. How many patients have received treatment through the cancer drugs fund since the inception of that fund.

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

More than 60,000 patients in England have received treatment through the cancer drugs fund since its inception in October 2010. They and their relatives will be very concerned at the suggestion made by the shadow Health Secretary last month that a Labour Government could abolish the fund.

[David T. C. Davies]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on that very high figure. Is he aware that some of those people who are being treated have had to sell up their homes and move here from Wales, where they are routinely denied life-prolonging cancer drugs by the Labour-run Welsh Assembly Administration. What does that teach us about the respective differences between the health services in England and Wales?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. The last Labour Government did leave us with one of the lowest cancer survival rates in western Europe, which is one of the reasons why we introduced the CDF. Unfortunately, the current Labour Government in Wales are continuing with those policies, which is why 6,500 Welsh cancer patients were admitted for treatment in English hospitals last year. [Official Report, 12 January 2015, Vol. 590, c. 5-6MC.]

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

So will the Secretary of State then publish the assessment of the CDF by the chemotherapy intelligence unit before 7 May 2015?

[Mr Hunt]

We are, on the NHS, the most transparent Government in history, and I can see no reason why we would not publish that. We are very proud of what the CDF has achieved. We are very proud that the level of cancer diagnoses has increased by more than 50% compared with what it was under the previous Labour Government, and so we are finally starting to win the battle against cancer.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

We all remember the horror stories before the CDF existed locally, and all Government Members certainly support its continued use. Before any drugs are delisted from the CDF, will the Secretary of State make available the scoring of those drugs? Will he also outline what the provisions will be for consultation with patients and their families?

[Mr Hunt]

We will absolutely go through a transparent process on that. My hon. Friend is right to talk about the CDF’s success, which is why we have put its budget up by 40%. As part of the fund’s success, we want to make sure that it is allowing access to the latest drugs and to drugs that really work. Obviously, science has moved on since the fund was set up four years ago, which is why we want to make room for new drugs and take off existing drugs where there is evidence that they are not working as well as possible. However, the process must be transparent.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister denied that there is a problem with cancer care, yet the target for cancer patients to start their treatment 62 days after a general practitioner referral has been missed for nine months in a row. Cancer Research UK says that this target is vital for ensuring swift diagnosis and treatment so that we have the best survival rates in the world. Some 15,000 patients have already waited too long. This is a serious problem requiring serious action, so what is the Secretary of State going to do?

[Mr Hunt]

I think cancer patients in the hon. Lady’s constituency will welcome the fact that under this Government Leicester hospital has 194 more nurses and 120 more doctors, many of them involved in cancer care.

Let me answer the hon. Lady’s question directly. There is pressure on one of the cancer standards, and that is because every year we are now diagnosing 460,000 more people than happened under the last Labour Government, who left us with such a disappointing survival rate. When that many people are being diagnosed, it of course puts pressure on the diagnostic labs and the people doing those processes. But Cancer Research UK is also saying that we are seeing record increases in survival from cancer, and that is happening because of this Government’s policies.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

7. Whether the Government have made a final decision on whether to introduce standardised packaging of tobacco products.

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[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

12. What progress has been made in improving access to GPs.

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

The Prime Minister’s £50 million challenge fund is improving GP access for more than 3 million patients across England, helping them to get evening and weekend appointments.

[Lorraine Fullbrook]

Many people in South Ribble will be able to see their GPs in the evening and at weekends, thanks to a locally led initiative by Chorley and South Ribble clinical commissioning group and Greater Preston CCG to extend GP surgery opening hours this winter. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such initiatives, which will give greater flexibility to patients and alleviate pressures on other areas of the NHS, particularly A and E, are exactly what is needed in the busy winter months?

[Mr Hunt]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. I took my own children to an A and E department at the weekend precisely because I did not want to wait until later on to take them to see a GP. We have to recognise that society is changing and people do not always know whether the care that they need is urgent or whether it is an emergency, and making GPs available at weekends will relieve a lot of pressure in A and E departments.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am afraid it is yet more spin from the Government. Everybody knows that it is getting harder not easier to see a GP under this Health Secretary. He has as much as admitted today that emergency departments across England have failed to hit the Government’s A and E target for 70 consecutive weeks, and that is in part because people are struggling to get a GP appointment in the first place. Will he now get a grip on this problem, and call on his Chancellor of the Exchequer in next week’s autumn statement to use £1 billion from banking fines to help ease pressure on the NHS this winter, as the Labour party has pledged?

[Mr Hunt]

We will not take any lessons from the Labour party about general practice. It is not just the disastrous 2004 GP contract. The president of the Royal College of General Practitioners says that the shadow Health Secretary’s plans

“could destroy everything that is great and that our patients value about general practice and could lead to the demise of family doctoring as we know it.”

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to increase patient choice.

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

This Government are committed to patients having greater choice and control over their health care, and decisions as to which treatments are available on the NHS are taken by GPs on the basis of available scientific evidence.

[David Tredinnick]

Does my right hon. Friend have any plans to increase personal health budgets, and will he ensure that there is greater awareness of the health professions that are regulated by the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, the Health and Care Professions Council and the Professional Standards Authority, which has recently accredited the Society of Homeopaths and the British Acupuncture Council?

[Mr Hunt]

I am a strong supporter of personal budgets. People who have complex medical needs want, above all, to have personal control over their own health care, and they will be extremely worried that the Labour party has now said that it wishes to abolish personal budgets.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

With regard to reducing patient choice, can the Secretary of State explain the sudden move to remove dialysis from being regarded as a specialised commissioning service, which is of great concern to a constituent of mine who is a renal patient and to the renal community? Will the Secretary of State now agree to a proper consultation—not over the Christmas holidays—and will he think again about that risky move?

[Mr Hunt]

We hope to have a public consultation on the matter. We are not seeking to restrict access to dialysis—far from it. We want to make it easier for people to access those vital services, and we have been putting more money into the NHS budget because we recognise just how important they are.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

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

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

As we look forward to world AIDS day next Monday, the whole House will want to pay tribute to the 30 NHS volunteers who left for Sierra Leone at the weekend to help in the fight against Ebola. They stand for the very best of the NHS and make us all proud. Last week I formally launched the MyNHS website. It contains 395,000 pieces of information and is the first website of its kind anywhere in the world. It will help people compare vital information about the performance of their local hospitals, GP surgeries, councils, mental health trusts and residential care homes. It will be a vital way to ensure that patients are not kept in the dark about the quality of their NHS services.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Further to the Secretary of State’s answer to the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), he must know that treating renal failure requires complicated, integrated care and that no one part of it can be separated. He must also know that there are 23,000 dialysis patients in the UK, and transplant patients have overlapping clinical needs. Handing responsibility for commissioning dialysis to commissioning groups is unacceptable, especially as it has been done without any consultation. Can he explain the rationale for all this, and will he meet me and colleagues from the all-party kidney group to discuss the matter?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to arrange a meeting between either me or one of my Ministers and members of the APPG to discuss the matter. I stress that we recognise how important those specialised services are. We want to get the benefits of nationally co-ordinated commissioning with the local integrated care that CCGs are in the driving seat to deliver. That is why we are having this discussion.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

T2. Public Health in Cornwall has estimated that 300 people in Cornwall might die from the cold this winter because they are living in cold homes. Last week the Government introduced the first proper fuel poverty strategy to eradicate that totally unacceptable situation by 2030. Will my right hon. Friend join me in praising the work being done in Cornwall by a partnership of over 30 organisations in the Winter Wellness programme to ensure that people stay warm and well this winter?

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[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago, news emerged of serious problems at Colchester hospital. People there still do not know the precise details, as Ministers have not made a statement and the Care Quality Commission has not published its report. But Colchester is not the only hospital in difficulty; we have learnt that hospitals in Scunthorpe, Middlesbrough and King’s Lynn have been turning patients away and others are already on black alert, and that is before winter has even begun. We do not have an accurate picture of what is happening in the NHS right now, because NHS England was due to begin publishing weekly reports on 14 November but has failed to do so. Why has that information not been published, and will the Secretary of State today instruct NHS England to do so without delay?

[Mr Hunt]

That information is published at the decision of NHS England—[Interruption.] It has said that it will publish it in a fortnight’s time. Let me just say to the right hon. Gentleman that it was this Government who decided to publish that information on a weekly basis, something he never did when he was Health Secretary.

[Andy Burnham]

I am afraid that is just not good enough. Who is in charge here? It is not just A and Es that are under pressure; there is a knock-on effect on ambulance services. Reports are now surfacing of serious failures in patient care. Last month, a six-year-old girl from Sunderland was left for three hours with a suspected broken back despite five 999 calls. At the weekend, it was reported that a 56-year-old stroke patient from Huyton was taken to A and E by police on a makeshift stretcher made from window blinds from the man’s home, and he later died. Yesterday, it emerged that a 57-year-old cancer patient from Bishop Auckland died after three ambulances were diverted to other calls. Is it not clear that the situation in the NHS right now is far more serious than the Government have acknowledged, and should not the Secretary of State now make an urgent statement to Parliament setting out what he is doing to reduce the risk of harm to patients this winter?

[Mr Hunt]

There are huge pressures in the NHS. That is why we have put a record £700 million into the NHS to help it to get through this winter. May I gently suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should not try to politicise every single operational problem? When the NHS is all about politics, patients get forgotten—as he should know, because that is what happened when he was Health Secretary. Whether in Medway, Colchester, Burton or George Eliot, patients were forgotten because for Labour it was politics before patients every time.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

T6. Will the Secretary of State look again at the funding formula for hospital trusts so that some adjustment can be included to recognise the issues in trusts such as University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust which cover large and difficult geographical areas?

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise those issues, and I am very happy to take that suggestion away. I particularly want to put on the record that the scare stories put out by Labour in Lancaster about the potential closure of Royal Lancashire Infirmary are false. It is totally irresponsible to scare people in Lancaster in that way.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T3. My constituent Corron Sparrow was left lying in the road for two hours with a compound fracture of his leg despite a call from a policeman to the North East Ambulance Service pleading for help. Eventually the service responded by sending an ill-equipped St John Ambulance team who then had to call for professional assistance. There are many more failures. It is now three weeks since I wrote to the chief executive, Yvonne Ormston, asking for an inquiry into this, but she has not even acknowledged my letter. Will the Minister intervene and tell the North East Ambulance Service that it cannot just ignore these matters?

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[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

T7. Eighteen NHS trusts have been placed in special measures, while so far six have come out. What progress is being made with the other 12?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to answer that, because for the first time we have a proper independent inspection regime. Labour tried to vote that down so that we could not have it, but we pressed on. A third of these trusts have been turned round. We are making good progress across most of the other 12 hospitals in special measures, including 1,500 more nurses, 200 more doctors, and 53 changes at board level. Where there were problems before, we are sorting them out.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T4. Patients with mental health problems who are referred for psychological therapies wait, on average, less than 40 days for treatment, but in York the wait is 125 days. My constituent, Laura Goodacre, has now waited nearly 350 days. Will the Minister look at this worrying case and the need for our mental health trusts in York to reduce waiting times?

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

T8. After all the cover-ups of the past, what is being done to ensure that the culture of the NHS is always improving, particularly in that patients are treated with dignity and respect and always have the highest standards of safety?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. After the Francis report, we now have 5,000 more nurses on our hospital wards. The scores that patients themselves are giving for whether they are treated with dignity and respect are up by 10%. We want to put poor care behind us and behind the NHS. It is time that Labour got on board with this agenda instead of constantly saying that we are running down the NHS by sorting out poor care.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

T5. Recent reports indicate that the extent of child sexual exploitation and abuse is more widespread than previously recognised. The trauma of sexual abuse can have massive, life-long consequences on the physical and mental health of victims. Will Ministers consider designating child abuse and child sexual exploitation as a public health priority in the same way as smoking, alcohol, drug use and obesity?

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[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

T10. When I asked the Prime Minister two weeks ago about the financial crisis facing Devon NHS, he seemed completely unaware of it, so could the Health Secretary please explain why Devon NHS faces an unprecedented £430 million deficit and what he is doing to stop the rationing, cuts and total withdrawal of some services that is now being proposed?

[Mr Hunt]

We are not rationing services. In fact, we are doing 1 million more operations every year than were done under the previous Government. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why that financial pressure exists: we have an ageing population, with nearly 1 million more over-65s than four years ago, and huge pressure to deliver good care in the wake of the Francis report. The NHS will be supported if we have a strong economy that can fund real-terms increases in health spending—something that never happens if the deficit is forgotten.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

My constituent, six-year-old Sam Brown, is one of 100 people with the rare disease Morquio. His family live in a state of anxiety because they do not know whether the drug Vimizim will be approved for further use on 15 December. Will a Minister please meet me and Katy and Simon, Sam’s parents, to give Sam the Christmas present he needs and to keep Sam smiling?

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (UKIP)]

Last month one patient waited 35 hours in Medway’s A and E, and in the past year 10 patients have waited more than 24 hours. I was grateful to the Secretary of State for taking up my invitation to visit the hospital. What progress has been made specifically on turning around the A and E department?

[Mr Hunt]

There are more doctors and more nurses operating at Medway hospital and I know that when the hon. Gentleman was sitting on this side of the House he was very pleased with the progress that was being made in turning it around from special measures, but, like UKIP’s policy on the NHS, everything changes.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

May I welcome the recent launch of MyNHS? Does my right hon. Friend agree that transparency of NHS performance, whether it be that of hospitals, GPs or surgeons, will be a major driver in improving patient care, as international evidence suggests, and help us avoid a scandal such as Mid Staffs, which happened under that lot over there?

[Mr Hunt]

Two thirds of the information we are publishing on MyNHS was actually collected by the previous Labour Government, but they refused to publish half of it. That is the difference.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Do Ministers agree that it is a scandal that cold homes are costing the NHS in England more than £1.3 billion every year, with kids growing up in cold homes twice as likely to contract diseases such as asthma? Do they also agree that it is hugely disappointing that not one penny of Treasury infrastructure funding is devoted to energy efficiency? Will they speak to their Government colleagues about that?