Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Ben Howlett

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, what was secured in the Budget was £2 billion for social care, which is £2 billion more than his party was promising at the last election.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

T6. Following the publication of the report of the all-party parliamentary group on rare, genetic and undiagnosed conditions on the UK rare diseases strategy, what plans does the Minister have to introduce an implementation plan for NHS England?

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Ben Howlett

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I find these questions about funding curious coming from members of the Labour party, as, had we followed its plans, we would be spending £1.3 billion less on the NHS this year than what the NHS is actually getting, and I just say to them that the reason why we are able to spend that extra money on the NHS is that we know how to run the economy.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

All too often, mental health patients have wondered whether this issue has enough leadership, and I am incredibly pleased that the Prime Minister made one of her earlier speeches on this issue, but while no one in this House would oppose an extra £1.4 billion being invested over the course of this Parliament, may I echo the words of the chief executive of Mind that the proof will be in the impact this investment has on patients’ day-to-day experiences? So will the Secretary of State ask the relevant Minister to meet me to discuss plans to build a new psychiatric and dementia care unit at Bath, to service the whole of the south-west?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy, on my hon. Friend’s behalf, to ask the Minister responsible to meet him to discuss that psychiatric unit. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but this is the first time that I can remember that a Prime Minister has made her first major speech on the NHS about mental health and indeed talked, on the steps of Downing Street as she arrived, about the importance of sorting out mental health. That is a sign of the commitment coming right from the top.

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Ben Howlett

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to some of the things that I have said, he would have heard me say repeatedly that I do not think that that dichotomy exists. As he says, it is a false dichotomy because, in the end, what is right for patients is also right for doctors. The thing that demoralises doctors, nurses and everyone working in our hospitals in different parts of the NHS is when they are not able to give the care that they want or that they think is appropriate to the patients in front of them. That is why hospitals that have moved closest towards seven-day services are also some of the hospitals with the highest levels of morale in the NHS. He is right that it is a false dichotomy and that we need to do both together.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State knows, my brother and his wife were junior doctors when they made the decision to move to New Zealand a long while ago because of the long-standing cultural problems within the NHS. They will be very pleased indeed about the announcement yesterday about couples potentially being able to work together in hospitals. I have a question for the Secretary of State from my mother. She wants to know what he can do now to encourage my brother, his wife and their friends back into the NHS.

[Mr Hunt]

Let me say to my hon. Friend’s mother that I hope that the message of this new agreement will go right the way around the world. Any doctors who have moved to New Zealand and Australia are always welcome to come back. The thing that must unite this Government and the good doctors who work, or have worked, in the NHS is our commitment to make NHS care the safest and the best in the world. We had a terrible shock with what happened at Mid Staffs, but we are using that as a moment of decisive change in the NHS, and we are well on our way to higher standards of care than are available in many other countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Ben Howlett

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

None whatever.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

In the previous Parliament, many people who suffer from a rare disease were pleased with the publication of the Government’s rare diseases strategy. What progress is the Minister making on publishing the ultra-rare diseases strategy?

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Ben Howlett

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I hope that the hon. Lady will understand that, because I very much hope that the BMA’s junior doctors executive committee will agree to go ahead with the agreement we have made with its negotiators, I do not want at this stage to go into further details about its contents. Obviously, the agreement will be published as soon as it is made, but I think that I would be pre-empting that decision by going into detail. It is a reasonable period of time for negotiations to take place.

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—it appears that I need to bob more often.

I am pleased to hear that all parties might be back around the table. I join the Secretary of State in hoping that the strike action is called off. Following a meeting with Bath junior doctors this weekend, it was clear to me that they, too, will be delighted. Will he confirm that safeguards will be a central part of the renegotiation?

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely. We want to reduce the number of doctors working unsafe hours and make sure that we have binding ways of ensuring that hospitals cannot ignore the intention of any agreement we make and ask doctors to work extra hours that they do not want to work and that might be unsafe, or indeed to trade on the good will that means many doctors work extra hours unpaid. That is an important part of the discussions that I hope we will now be able to enter into.