Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Because, as we have said many times, post-Brexit this country will remain open to the brightest and the best.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

My constituent, Nicola Johnson, has had primary breast cancer. The secondary was discovered at 10 months. Will the Minister meet me and Nicola, because she falls within the six-month to 12-month period? She is eligible for neither pertuzumab nor trastuzumab emtansine.

NHS and Social Care Funding

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is absolutely the point, and the last point I want to make before concluding on funding is that we miss a trick—I think the shadow Health Secretary is in some ways more reasonable than his leader on these issues, which is probably terminal for his career—if we say that this is just about money. We forget the debate we went through on schools in this country 20 years ago, when there was, again, a debate about money, but we realised that the issue is actually also about standards and quality. That is what has happened in Sherwood Forest, and I congratulate the trust. It is important that we do not let debates about funding eclipse that very important progress that we need to make on standards.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

I am going to conclude now because lots of people want to come in, I am afraid.

The shadow Health Secretary’s central claim—these are his words—was that the culpability for what is happening in the NHS “lies at the door of Downing Street”. I owe it to the country and this House to set the record straight on this Government’s record on the NHS. It is not just the fact that there are 11,000 more nurses and 11,000 more doctors; not just the fact that, on cancer, we are starting treatment for 130 more people every single day, and have record cancer survival rates; not just the fact that we have 1,400 more people getting mental health treatment every day and some of the highest dementia diagnosis rates in the world; and not just the fact that we are doing 5,000 more operations every day and that, despite those 5,000 more operations every day, MRSA rates have halved. We have an NHS with more doctors and more nurses, and despite difficult winters, with patients saying they have never been treated more safely and with more dignity and more respect.

Next year the NHS will be 70 years old. This Government’s vision is simple: we want it to offer the safest, highest quality care anywhere in the world. When we have difficult winters and an ageing population, of course that makes things more challenging, but it also makes us more determined. It means that we are backing the NHS’s plan; it means more GPs and better mental health provision; and it means an NHS turning heads in the 21st century just as it did when it was founded in the 20th century.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with the hon. Lady that the way this case was handled was by no means satisfactory. The truth is that it took some time to establish precisely what had gone wrong at Southern Health. As this House knows, because we made a statement at the time—I think it was an urgent question, actually—there was a failure to investigate unexplained deaths. I do not think the NHS handled the matter as well as it should, but we now have much more transparency and we do not have a situation where people go on and get other jobs in the NHS, which happened so often in the past.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

T4. What will the Government do to scrutinise and assist the London ambulance service, which has had an appalling and consistently poor record on call-out times for category A emergencies?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am somewhat surprised at the complacency of the hon. Gentleman’s question after Audit Scotland identified in the autumn that performance against seven of the nine key targets for the Scottish NHS had deteriorated in the past three years, that spending since 2009 had fallen in Scotland while increasing in England, and that spending on private sector providers was increasing. The hon. Gentleman should think about that before he criticises what is happening in England.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

T5. Successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation often involves people knowing where the nearest public access defibrillator is located. In my constituency, however, it is difficult to find out exactly where such defibrillators are located. Will the Minister ask the Department of Health to carry out a live mapping of public access defibrillators as well as ensuring that every workplace with a first aid point has a clear sign showing where the nearest defibrillator is located?

NHS: Learning from Mistakes

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As ever, I commend the right hon Gentleman’s interest in mental health. May I reassure him that this is very much about what happens in mental health and also the area of learning disabilities? In fact, some of the thoughts were prompted by what happened at Southern Health. It is absolutely vital that we investigate unexpected deaths in mental health as much as we do in physical health. The measures we take will go across those areas, and I am more than happy to meet him to discuss the very laudable aim of zero suicides.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

May I applaud the Secretary of State for this culture of safety and learning? Will he consider increasing the use of exit interviews in the NHS? I have worked in the NHS, aid organisations and charities, and the NHS is the only one where I have not had an exit interview. May I suggest that decreasing the use of agency and locum staff, as we hope to do, provides an opportunity to learn from good staff about sharing good practice and avoiding bad practice? I absolutely applaud the world summit on patient safety, and I very much hope the Secretary of State has invited St John of Jerusalem eye hospital, from East Jerusalem. If that was somehow forgotten, please will he ensure that it is invited to the Berlin summit next year?

[Mr Hunt]

I feel prompted by my hon. Friend’s question to investigate what I am sure is excellent practice at St John of Jerusalem eye hospital. If I may, I will take away her very good point about exit interviews. We also heard a good point about agency staff. Part of the thing that inhibits a learning culture is if a large percentage of staff are in an organisation only on a provisional or temporary basis, rather than being part of regular teams and therefore not being able to transmit lessons learned. That is why we have to deal with the virus of an over-reliance on agency staff in some parts of the NHS.

NHS Reform

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Tania Mathias

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman why so many places are going into deficit. They have looked at the lessons of Mid Staffs and said, “We don’t want that to happen here.” That is why, in the past two and a half years, hospitals have employed 8,000 more nurses on hospital wards to deal with the scandal of short staffing that they faced and wanted to do something about. In the end, if it is not sustainable, it is not quality care, so we have to find smart ways to control deficits—not by reducing the staff and making care unsafe, but by making changes to process and through efficiencies, such as making sure that nurses do not spend too long filling out forms and can spend more time with patients. In terms of funding, I would just say that the only way to fund a strong NHS is to have a strong economy, and that is why the country voted in a Conservative Government in May.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a member of the BMA.

I absolutely agree with all the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I like the reforms of leadership, but will the Secretary of State recognise the existing great leadership in the NHS? A safe NHS is one in which staff morale is at its best. If every leader in the NHS was at the level of Professor Sir Peter Morris, we would already have the best and safest health service in the world.

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend obviously speaks with huge knowledge—I am wondering whether she is the first Conservative MP who is also a member of the BMA —and is extremely welcome for the insights she brings to the House.

Leadership and morale are absolutely crucial. One of the ways in which we can improve morale is by giving patients and doctors alike the sense that we are honest about the problems and have good plans in place to tackle them. Nothing eats away more at morale than people going in day in, day out and not giving patients the care that they want to give and feeling that nothing is being done about it. That is why the move towards transparency, which I know my hon. Friend supports, is so important.