NHS Pensions: Frontline Patient Care Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
John Slinger
Main Page: John Slinger (Labour - Rugby)Department Debates - View all John Slinger's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
NHS Pensions: Frontline Patient Care
John Slinger Excerpts(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Karin Smyth
As I outlined in my initial response and further to the written ministerial statement, we have asked for an independent review of the process and will report back as soon as possible with a realistic deadline for that. With regard to the strikes, we will continue to be open to discussing the avoidance of those strikes, and I hope that the Opposition will support us in that.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Given that the summer recess is imminent, will the Minister use this opportunity to update the House on the number of additional appointments and, more importantly, the number by which the NHS waiting lists have fallen under this Government? Does she agree that it would be very nice if the Conservative party addressed the crisis in which they left our NHS? It is a mess that this Labour Government are proud to be clearing up.
Karin Smyth
I thank my hon. Friend, who is a superb advocate for his constituents. I met him again yesterday as he advocated for services in his constituency—that is the focus of Labour Members. He is absolutely right; as I said in my statement, this is part of the overall mess that we inherited from the Conservatives. As I said in my previous response on this issue, the problems outlined by Lord Darzi are wide and deep. It is still shocking, after a year in government, to be faced with the level of disaster that was left to us after a complete abdication of responsibility for sorting out the problems. We will continue to focus on getting more of the appointments that people so need and on reducing waiting lists, which is what our constituents expect.