Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

15. What fiscal steps he is taking to help reduce economic inactivity.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jeremy Hunt)]

If we had the same economic inactivity rate as Holland, there would be 2.7 million more people in work, filling every vacancy in the economy nearly three times over. That is why we focused on the issue in the Budget.

[Chloe Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, and for the measures he set out in the Budget. I support the fiscal measures he has taken regarding the pensions lifetime allowance, which doctors in Norwich tell me will enable them to deliver more appointments and more operations. Can I go on to ask him, though, what he expects to see in the forthcoming state pension age review?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for asking that question, and for all the work she has done in the Department for Work and Pensions on economic inactivity. As she knows, there is an ongoing statutory Government review of the state pension age, and that review will need to carefully balance important factors, including fiscal sustainability, the economic context, the latest life expectancy data, and fairness to both pensioners and taxpayers.

William Mead: 111 Helpline

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I understand what the right hon. Lady is saying, and of course I would listen to her because of her experience, but I reassure her that that is not the only thing that we are doing; we are doing lots of other things. The report makes many recommendations, one of which is to look at the algorithms that the call-handlers use to make sure that they are more sensitive to some of the red-flag signs of sepsis, meningitis and other conditions. There are lots of other recommendations. They include earlier access to clinicians where appropriate, and recommendations on the training of clinicians in the out-of-hours service, the training of GPs and the training of people in hospitals. So we will be undertaking a much bigger body of work as a result of this review.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to support CCGs to commission the 111 service and the out-of-hours service together where appropriate. He may be aware of some concerns in Norfolk about our out-of-hours service. What else is he doing to recruit, retain and support GPs in providing the round-the-clock care that people clearly need?

[Mr Hunt]

I have said before at this Dispatch Box that successive Governments of both parties have under-invested in general practice, and that is part of the reason why it takes too long for many people to get a GP appointment. It is why we have said that we want to have about 5,000 more doctors working in general practice by the end of this Parliament. That is an important part of what we want to do.

The other side is improving our offer to the public. When you have a child with a fever, and you are not sure, and it is the weekend, very often you have a choice between an out-of-hours GP appointment, a weekend appointment at your GP surgery, calling 111 or showing up at an A&E department. It is just confusing to know the right thing to do. If we are to improve standards of care, we need to standardise safety standards across the NHS, including for spotting potential sepsis cases, and that means a much simpler system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

9. What steps have been taken to support NHS hospitals in meeting increased demand in winter 2014-15.

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

The Government have prepared for this winter earlier than ever before, with a record £700 million to help the NHS through winter, including £3.6 million to help my hon. Friend’s local area.

[Chloe Smith]

The Norfolk and Norwich university hospital has declared a major incident and is also being examined by Monitor for its waiting times. Its medical director stresses that services are safe, but we all know that there is a need to ensure that people can move on from hospitals into other parts of the health care system. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that he would expect the use of the resources he has provided to be jointly planned out with social care?

[Mr Hunt]

Obviously this is very important, and that is what is happening now for the first time. We are seeing the true integration of health and social care through the better care fund and record working, and in my hon. Friend’s area, despite the pressures they have been feeling this winter, they have made some good progress. They have put an urgent care centre next to the A and E. They are seeing within four hours nearly 12,000 more people every year, and they are doing about 12,000 more operations every year as well.

A and E (Major Incidents)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that there are real pressures in A and E across the system, but it is important to remind the public that even under that pressure, nine out of 10 people continue to be seen, treated and sent home within four hours. That is an extremely impressive record for the people working very hard in our A and E departments.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

The Norfolk and Norwich hospital declared a major incident. Its medical staff say that care is safe. Will my right hon. Friend join me in supporting Norwich NHS staff and their innovative urgent care unit, will he urge Norwich GPs to apply to the access fund, and will he condemn some of Labour’s political leaflets in Norwich which carry fake NHS stories, as told to me by NHS workers?

[Mr Hunt]

It is important for all parties to behave responsibly when the NHS front line is under such pressure. My hon. Friend might want to remind her Labour opponents locally that in Norwich there are 97 more doctors than four years ago and 145 more nurses, all possible because of a strong economy.

Five Year Forward View

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The Government believe that the NHS has to live within its means, as do individual hospitals. We recognise that that is challenging, and one of the reasons it is challenging is that in the past it has been too easy for hospitals trying to balance their books to cut corners, for example on nursing numbers in elderly care and dementia wards. We have a new inspection regime that has made it much harder to do that, which I think is a good thing, because it means that older people are getting the care they need. It also means a harder road to getting those deficits under control, however.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

Page 26 of the document refers to

“an equal response to mental and physical health”.

Despite my right hon. Friend’s good leadership on this topic, I suspect that the document’s authors do not operate an equal funding formula for mental and physical health. Can my right hon. Friend give me any guidance on that?

[Mr Hunt]

We are looking at the issue very closely, and I think that we have made very good progress. We have introduced maximum waiting time targets for some mental health conditions, which has never been done before, and we have made a clear commitment to applying those targets to all mental health treatment during the next Parliament. However, my hon. Friend is right: ultimately, we need to look at funding differently. We need to look at it holistically. We need to understand that it is a false economy not to invest in proper mental health care, because it will only make the overall costs to the system greater in the long run.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady is right that operational pressures on A and E are happening throughout the United Kingdom. We have made good progress in recruiting 50 A and E doctors to help relieve pressure this year in A and E departments, but that is a short-term measure. The long-term issue is to get more doctors going into A and E from training, and we are looking at contract structures and at what we can do with training schedules to make that more attractive. We will certainly work with colleagues in devolved Administrations and tell them what we have learned.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that waiting times have halved under this Government, but the Norwich walk-in centre should stay in its city centre location to continue to move people away from A and E when they do not need to go there. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss urgent and primary care provision in Norwich?

[Mr Hunt]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend, and she is right to say that the long-term solution to pressures in A and E is to find alternatives in out-of-hospital care that are easy for people to find. That means improving GP access and any other alternatives, and I am sure we can find a good solution in Norwich.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

In the short term, a record £400 million has been assigned to help the NHS through this winter, with £250 million announced in August, much earlier than before. For the long term, we are restoring the link between GPs and vulnerable older patients by bringing back named GPs for all over-75s—something that was broken in 2004.

[Chloe Smith]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. My constituents, including a family who came to my surgery on Saturday, are frustrated by the brick walls that sometimes seen to exist between different bits of the health service, and which are all the worse in urgent and traumatic winter cases. Different health services in Norwich have come together in Operation Domino to improve services in the face of demand, and they have used winter funding money to run a new style of urgent care unit at Norfolk and Norwich hospital. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Norfolk is leading the way?

[Mr Hunt]

I congratulate the health services in Norfolk—and indeed in Norwich—on what they are doing to break down those barriers. That is the key issue, and this year I am working closely with the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), to merge the health and social care systems—a £4 billion merger—to ensure that medical records can be shared across all the different systems, and that there is a named accountable doctor for the entirety of people’s time outside hospital. I hope that will make a difference in Norwich as elsewhere.