Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Danny Kinahan

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I am very happy to do that. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that the provision of mental health services to children is one of the biggest weak spots in NHS provision today. It is an area that we are putting a big focus on. I would be happy to talk to her about the situation in her constituency.

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

T3. I know that this is a devolved matter, but I look forward to the Union working together on it. In Northern Ireland, the health service is in crisis. To give cancer as an example, 6.7% of those with breast cancer are called in to be checked within 14 days—not 100%—and yet we have 392,000 people on the waiting list. Will the Secretary of State or his officials meet us to find a better way forward, so that we can all work together?

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Danny Kinahan

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I congratulate the Government and everyone involved on getting this deal in place. It will have a knock-on effect in my constituency in Northern Ireland. When I went around Antrim Area hospital, the concern was to do with the number of doctors, which we have heard about from other Members, and how to get seven-days-a-week cover from everything else that needs to go into the health service. Will the Secretary of State comment on how we will deal with that, and how we will work with the devolved Parliaments?

[Mr Hunt]

I agree. We need more doctors and we need more nurses. By the end of this Parliament, we will have over a million more over-70s in England alone, and I know that the demographic effects in Northern Ireland will be equivalent. We have a global shortage of about 7 million doctors, so we need to train more. We are training an extra 11,420 doctors over this Parliament as part of the spending review. The training is done on a UK-wide basis, so we will need to work closely with all the devolved regions on it.