NHS Shared Business Services

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mike Gapes

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks wisely. Many members of the public will be faintly amused to hear Labour Members say how important it is that we move to electronic health records. The NHS IT project was an absolute catastrophe, costing billions of pounds. The intention was right but the delivery was wrong, and that is what we are trying to sort out.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I understand that large numbers of patients in north-east London were affected by this failure of the service. How many of my constituents were affected, how many of them were cancer patients, and how many would have been subjected therefore to an inordinate delay in receiving referrals for treatment? Can the Secretary of State give that itemised breakdown to all Members of Parliament who will have constituents affected by this?

[Mr Hunt]

I am very happy to write to hon. Members in the areas affected with any extra information that we are able to provide. However, I reassure the hon. Gentleman that to date we have not been able to identify any patient in any part of the country who has come to harm as a result of what happened.

Mental Health and NHS Performance

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mike Gapes

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right on both counts. We need to look carefully at where the tier system is not working, and that should be part of our work on the Green Paper that the Prime Minister announced this morning. It is unacceptable for people to be told that they are not sick enough to get the care they urgently need. All the things we have announced and intend to announce to improve mental health will fail if we do not get the recruitment and training of new staff right. Along with the commitment we are making today to invest more in mental health must come some important strategic workforce planning, which I hope will benefit my hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State referred to temporary assistance being given to distressed trusts, but is there not a more fundamental ticking time bomb in the form of the sustainability and transformation plans? I draw his attention to the debate I led on 16 December on the north-east London plan, which envisages a deficit of £578 million by 2021 and says that on a “business as usual” case model, with normal-type reductions and savings, there will still be a £240 million gap. That will mean poorer services. There is no capital provision for the closure of the King George hospital A&E and its re-provisioning at Queen’s hospital. Will he look into this matter urgently? There is going to be a massive crisis in my area unless urgent steps are taken to provide more resources.

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to look into that issue. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the staff of both Queen’s and King George hospital, who have not only done very well over the winter but have made great progress in turning around the trust, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is in special measures. We are hopeful that it might be able to come out of special measures at some stage this year under its new leadership, but that is obviously a decision for the CQC.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Mike Gapes

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the hallmark of this Government’s approach to the NHS has to be honesty about where we have too many avoidable deaths, and where there is the weekend effect for people admitted to hospital at the weekends. We have a big responsibility in that regard. The reason why we discharge that responsibility is that we believe in the NHS. We want the NHS to be the safest, highest-quality system in the world. Just as this Government have pioneered reforms that have dramatically improved the quality of state education, so too we need equal reforms in the NHS. That is why it is absolutely right to say that we have to focus on these things and debate them in this House. We should not automatically say that there is someone who must be blamed when we are dealing with these difficult situations. Unfortunately, one of the things that has led to feelings running high in this dispute has been the sense of blame being tossed around, when what the Government want to do is try to solve the problem.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I tell the Secretary of State about my admission to hospital in the early hours of a Saturday morning? I spent five and a half weeks in intensive care. I had many conversations with doctors during the time I was in St Mary’s hospital, Paddington. I ask him to look at the circumstances of those doctors today, as they do work weekends. We do have a weekend NHS. It is not true to say that the lives of people like me who are admitted at the weekend are not saved, because it is the doctors who make it possible for us to survive. Will he stop talking down the medical profession and start defending the doctors?

[Mr Hunt]

With respect, that precisely encapsulates the problem. The hon. Gentleman has interpreted the fact that I want to do something about excess mortality rates, which mean that a person admitted at the weekend has an 11% to 15% higher chance of death than if they were admitted in the week—that is proven in a very comprehensive study—as an attack on the medical profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was actually the medical profession—the royal colleges and Professor Sir Bruce Keogh—that first pointed out this problem of the weekend effect. We are simply doing something about it.