Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I think my hon. Friend is right that that was the big sticking point. It was the BMA’s willingness to be flexible and negotiate on that that ultimately made an agreement possible, but it is also fair to say that the Government recognise that there are many other non-contractual issues in the way that junior doctors are trained and treated by the NHS, and we want to use this opportunity to put them right.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on putting patients first, but does he recognise that there are still people out there whose operations were cancelled due to industrial action? Will he look to the future and consider whether front-line medical staff should have the right to strike and so put people’s health on the backburner or postpone their medical care?

[Mr Hunt]

I know that that is a view that some colleagues share. Doctors have obligations even now under the Medical Act 1983 not to take action that would harm patients, and under their responsibilities to the General Medical Council; they have to be aware of those. What I hope is that that question simply does not arise again. We are now having constructive discussions with the BMA; I think that is the way forward and I hope that neither I nor any future Health Secretary has to go through what has happened in the past 10 months.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree that the strikes are putting patients at risk. I think that what my hon. Friend means by the second part of his question is: what would have happened if we had just allowed the current contracts to roll over? The answer is that we would not have made progress towards a safer seven-day NHS, which will be of enormous benefit to his constituents and mine.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State use the Dispatch Box this afternoon to appeal directly to junior doctors to ignore the militant BMA, to turn up to work tomorrow, to acknowledge that the Government have met the BMA over 70 times and made more than 70 concessions round the negotiating table, and to put patients first and make sure that my constituents get the level of health service, seven days a week, that they so deserve?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks extremely wisely. I say to every junior doctor in the country that what they want from our NHS—safe service and safe care for patients across every day of the week—is what we want as well. This Government are committed to the NHS. We are this year putting the sixth biggest increase in resources into the NHS in its history, so we are putting our money where our mouth is. We want to sit down with the medical profession and make this work for patients.

NHS: Learning from Mistakes

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The prize for perseverance and patience goes to Mr Mark Spencer.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, even if my knees are not.

I congratulate the Secretary of State on providing a protected space for doctors, so they will be able to be honest and upfront when things go wrong, and on striking the right balance so that relatives and people who suffer wrongs in the NHS get to the bottom of what went wrong, why it went wrong and why it will not happen again.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is the heart of what we want to do. He of course has been very closely involved in the improvements we are trying to make at his local trust. If his knees are in pain, I can recommend a very good GP surgery in his constituency, one he very kindly showed me during the election campaign.

Junior Doctors’ Contracts

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am going to make some progress before taking any further interventions.

The question for a Government and for a Health Secretary is this: when we are faced with this overwhelming evidence—six studies in five years—should we take action or ignore it? We are taking action. That is why in July I announced that we will be changing the contracts for both consultants and junior doctors as part of a package of measures to eliminate the weekend effect. If we believe in the NHS, and if we want it to be there for everyone, whatever their background or circumstances, we must be able to offer every NHS patient the promise of the same high-quality care, whichever day of the week they need it.

Let me set out for the House what I have proposed. We announced ambitious plans to roll out seven-day services across the country, with better weekend staffing across medical, diagnostic and support services in hospitals, as well as better integration with social care and seven-day GP access. That will reach a quarter of the population by March 2017, and the whole country by 2020. For consultants, we proposed an end to the right to opt out of weekend working, replacing it with a maximum obligation to work one weekend in four. To its credit, the BMA’s consultants committee has agreed to negotiate on that.

For junior doctors, we proposed to reduce the high overtime and weekend rates, which prevent hospitals from rostering enough staff at weekend, and increase basic pay to compensate. We have made a commitment that the pay bill as a whole would not be reduced, and today I can confirm that not a single junior doctor working within the legal limits for hours will have their pay cut, because this is about patient care, not saving money. Incidentally, I made it clear to the BMA at the beginning of September that that was a possible outcome of negotiations, in an attempt to encourage it to return to the negotiating table. Rather than negotiating, it chose to wind up its own members and create a huge amount of unnecessary anger.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Given the Secretary of State’s assurance, is there any reason why the BMA should not come back to the table and negotiate with him to solve this problem so that patients are safer at weekends?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the solution to the pressure in A and E is providing good alternatives, and in the last year for which we have figures, the 111 service took 12 million calls, which is three times more than the 4 million calls that NHS Direct took in its last year of operation, and 27% of people said that had they not called 111 they would have gone to A and E. That is a huge success.

[Mr Spencer]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the additional pressure on Sherwood Forest hospitals trust as a result of the £40 million a year disastrous private finance initiative deal signed by the last Government. Will he meet me, my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and representatives from the hospital to discuss how we might move forward and deal with this terrible PFI deal?

[Mr Hunt]

I am aware of the problems with that deal, signed back in 2005, which is now consuming 17% of the trust’s income. It would like to spend that income on more doctors and nurses, but it cannot because of the shockingly bad deal signed. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what is possible in the current circumstances.

NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The funding I have announced today—the £1.5 billion for front-line NHS services—is recurring, as is the additional Treasury funding of £1 billion. That is being added to the NHS baseline so that it can be invested in long-term increases in staff numbers, among other things.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

What impact will the extra money have on hospitals in special measures, such as the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust? Could he assure the House that any extra moneys will reach clinicians and patients and will not be swamped by the disastrous private finance initiative that the previous Government signed?

[Mr Hunt]

Of course, that has been a huge problem for Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. I have met the chief executive, who is doing a very good job in turning around the trust, but there are huge challenges. What doctors and nurses in failing hospitals or hospitals in special measures want to know is that they have a Government with a long-term commitment to the NHS and who will deliver the economy that can fund the NHS. They also want to know that they have a Government who will tell the truth about problems so that they get sorted out, which never used to happen before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mark Spencer

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

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

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

It is my privilege to serve as Health Secretary responsible for the national health service. I have identified four priority areas where I hope over the next two years to make the most progress. They are improving mortality rates for the major killer diseases so that we are among the best in Europe, which we are not at the moment; improving the way we look after people with long-term conditions such as diabetes and asthma; improving the way we deal with dementia, both as a national health service and as a society; and, perhaps most important of all, transforming the attitude to care throughout the NHS and social care systems so that the quality of care is seen to be as important as the quality of treatment.

[Mr Spencer]

What assistance can the Secretary of State give to the newly appointed chairman of the Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust as he begins to wrestle with the private finance initiative signed under the previous Government and attempts to find repayments in excess of £40 million a year?

[Mr Hunt]

The first thing I would say to my hon. Friend about Sherwood Forest is that I know everyone in the House will join me in saying that our hearts go out to the families of the women who were misdiagnosed for breast cancer. We expect the local NHS to come up with a serious package of measures to make sure that that kind of thing cannot happen again.

My hon. Friend is right to talk about PFI. We inherited an appalling scandal. In order to tackle the PFI debts of just seven institutions, we are having to put aside £1.5 billion over the next 25 years, but we are working with all institutions to deal with this appalling debt overhang.