A and E (Major Incidents)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am very happy to do that and I am aware of the significant pressures at the Princess Alexandra. I thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he is supporting staff in his local hospital, getting behind local plans. It is a mistake to say that there is always a new national initiative. Lots of people in the NHS have been saying over the past few days that they do not want new national initiatives. They want exactly what my hon. Friend is doing; they want people to support their local NHS and not to turn it into a political football.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

On Monday evening, the trust of Salford Royal hospital, which, as the Secretary of State knows, is an excellent hospital, declared a major incident. I am pleased to say that the pressure has been dealt with and it has now been lifted, but it is clear to me that many of the thousands of elderly and frail people in hospital have dementia, which means that they stay longer and are readmitted more often. I welcome the better care fund, but it will not be enough. There needs to be a whole systems change to prevent people from being admitted in the first place, with better support and more action by GPs. We need to get on with that urgently.

[Mr Hunt]

I agree entirely with the right hon. Lady. The better care fund is a first step, but it is only a first step. It is happening from this April, but we have the NHS England five-year forward view, which is the long-term plan to improve community care. I agree that Salford Royal is an excellent hospital. It had £3.5 million to help it deal with winter pressures this year, but it is also a good example of how integrated care between the acute trust and local community services can make a real difference, and it is delivering some of the safest care in the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on the campaigning work he does in his constituency on health matters? I commend the Eastern Cheshire clinical commissioning group for its “Caring Together” programme and for the fact that Cheshire was selected as one of the 14 integrated care pioneers. I hope that it will blaze a trail in joining up the barriers that have bedevilled our health and social care system for too long, so that his constituents are not pushed from pillar to post because of arguments about budgets and people can be discharged on time. I think his area is blazing a trail.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The national dementia strategy has been fundamental in improving care for many frail and elderly people with dementia living in the community. The strategy is due to expire in April—in two months’ time. Will the Secretary of State give a commitment to the House now that the national dementia strategy will be renewed? I understand that we have the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, but, like many of us, Prime Ministers come and go. We need a strategy and not simply the Prime Minister’s challenge.

[Mr Hunt]

I can assure the right hon. Lady that this Prime Minister is here to stay. Indeed, I can also reassure her that the national dementia strategy is here to stay. As she has announced that she is stepping down at the end of this Parliament, may I thank her for her campaigning on dementia, which, I think, came from a family connection with the issue? She has attended many of my dementia meetings and the G8 dementia summit. She has made a really important contribution, and I thank her for that.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I want to make some progress.

At Committee stage, we intend to table amendments to enable the creation of a £3.8 billion better care fund in 2015-16. That represents the first significant step any Government have ever taken to integrate the health and social care systems.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

rose—

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

I will give way in a moment, but let me make some progress first.

I commend the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) for championing integration, although he chose not to do anything about it when he was in office. How, then, when a Government take steps to do that for the first time, can he possibly justify not supporting it?

[Hazel Blears]

At a time of austerity, when there is very little public money around, the need for innovation and creativity is much greater. On reflection, does the Secretary of State regret not being more ambitious in the Bill about the full integration of health and social care in order to maximise the impact for those who need care and support—unlike my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Health, who has talked about whole person care and full integration?

[Mr Hunt]

With the greatest of respect to the right hon. Lady, who, I know, played a good role in the G8 dementia summit last week, the Bill is extraordinarily ambitious. Nearly £4 billion is going into a merger of the health and social care systems. The previous Government had 13 years to do something about this and they did nothing. We are delivering. I hope, if she believes in this, that she might at least support the Bill in the Lobby tonight and not decline to support it, as her party’s amendment suggests.

The fund will ensure joint commissioning and the seamless provision of services, preventing the nightmare of people being pushed from pillar to post with no one taking responsibility. It has led to the unprecedented step of the NHS and local authorities working together in all 152 local authority areas to plan joined-up services.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that he will be encouraged by today’s announcement, because if in such a situation, which was an appalling tragedy, a trust is found not to have been open and transparent about something serious that has gone wrong, the fact that it risks becoming financially liable for any award made will be a major disincentive to trying to cover things up. That is a profound change, so I hope that it will comfort John’s parents to know that the kind of culture they had to fight so hard against will not be allowed to continue.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right to highlight the need for fundamental culture change, but it is still the case that some of the most vulnerable people in our hospitals today—those with dementia—stay longer and are more likely to be readmitted and more of them die. My local hospital, Salford Royal, has recently implemented the Royal College of Nursing’s system called the triangle of care, which fully involves patients, carers and their families in the care of those with dementia. Will the Secretary of State take steps to ensure that that kind of system is implemented across the NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely want to encourage that. I know that the right hon. Lady has campaigned a great deal on the needs of people with dementia, and I share her desire to do much better for them. Salford Royal is one of the best hospitals in the country and we should always learn from what it does, but 25% of people in hospitals now have dementia. The tragedy of what happened at Mid Staffs and of many of the stories of poor care in other hospitals that we read about is that very often they involve people with dementia, because they are the kinds of people who have been deprioritised when hospital managements have decided, for example, that they want to cut nursing inappropriately. We absolutely have to change that culture. There is now a very good system at several hospitals. People with dementia, in particular, must be helped to eat and drink at meal times. Many of us have been shocked by the stories of full trays of food being taken away because someone is unable to eat unaided. That, in particular, we need to stamp right out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can reassure my hon. Friend, as I am meeting some Yorkshire GPs later this week who have concerns about that very issue. The most important thing about the difficult issue of the funding formula is that it should be fair. That is why under the new legislation we have given the decision to an independent body so that it is taken at arm’s length from Ministers and so that it strikes the right balance between the issues of rurality, age and social deprivation.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The NHS, with its massive purchasing power, can make a real difference to local areas through jobs and through supply chains. Some hospital trusts are enthusiastically implementing the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, including Barts and King’s. Will the Minister ensure that his new procurement strategy recognises the importance of social value?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

Last week, the all-party parliamentary group on dementia published its report, “Dementia does not discriminate”, which deals particularly with the impact of dementia on people from black and minority ethnic communities. There are now 25,000 people from those communities living with dementia—far more than we expected—yet they often receive their diagnoses even later than people with dementia in the rest of the population. Will the Secretary of State fund an awareness campaign through Public Health England aimed at those communities to drive up the diagnosis rates? Will he also ensure that the clinical commissioning groups are commissioning appropriate support services in those communities so that we can provide proper services for everyone living with dementia?

[Mr Hunt]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady, who is a long-time campaigner on dementia issues. She has raised a really important issue, and I will certainly talk to Public Health England about raising awareness. For those groups, as for everyone, we need to ensure that there is a good care plan in place when they are diagnosed. There is some resistance in the GP community to giving a dementia diagnosis, partly because many GPs worry that not much will happen as a result. We need to ensure that there is a good plan in place, and that is particularly the case for ethnic minority communities.

Social Care Funding

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Hazel Blears

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is the main point of what is being announced today. We are not able, with the public finances as they are, to offer a huge amount of support, but what we can do is give the certainty that means that for the first time people will be able to plan and make provision for their social care costs. We will be one of the first countries in the world that does that, which is why this is a very encouraging and very important day for people who care about the tremendous uncertainties associated with growing old.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The Alzheimer’s Society has said today that capping care costs is a step in the right direction, but a £75,000 cap is so high that it will help only the few. The Secretary of State knows that there are 800,000 people in this country living with dementia now, and his announcement today, however welcome it is, does not deal with the community care costs that those people face day to day. This costs a billion pounds in, but there is £1.3 billion out of community costs to local authorities. How will he fill that gap?

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Lady knows well the challenge and the crisis that we face because of dementia, and she has spoken movingly on the issue. What I would say about what the Alzheimer’s Society is saying is that to look at the cap in isolation is to misunderstand these proposals. For many people with dementia, the most significant thing will be the increase from £23,000 to £123,000 in the threshold at which they get state support. That is a big step forward.

The cap is not saying that we expect people to pay £75,000 towards their care costs. We are saying that that is the maximum anyone will have to pay, which makes it possible for people to make provision in their pensions and in insurance policies. One in three of us will get dementia, and we do not know whether we will be among those one in three. This proposal will allow people to put some certainty in place—to make plans now, which means that when they are dealing with the nightmare of either themselves or someone in their family having to cope with dementia, they will not have the double whammy of having to worry about losing their house as well.