A and E (Major Incidents)

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that that is an example of the politicisation of the NHS that people find so distressing. Those reforms were not enacted in Wales, which is run by the hon. Lady’s party, and A and E performance there is significantly worse. It does not make any logical sense to blame A and E performance on those reforms.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Royal Bolton hospital says that it is in crisis because it cannot discharge patients. The Secretary of State says that the hospital and local authority in Bolton are talking to each other, but Bolton council has had £100 million-worth of cuts. What will he do to reverse the cuts in social care that have created the crisis in our hospital?

[Mr Hunt]

If the hon. Lady is making a criticism, I would ask her what she is going to do, because the shadow Chancellor confirmed this week that he will not find extra money for social care. I will tell her what we are doing. We are merging the social care and local NHS systems to try to stop people being pushed from pillar to post, and to give them the joined-up, compassionate, safe care that we think is an absolute priority. That is happening in Bolton—I have visited facilities in Bolton that are displaying excellent care—and we should support such efforts, not criticise them.

Five Year Forward View

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has done for Medway Maritime. That was a very good visit: I met both management and staff, and gained a better idea of the challenges faced by the hospital.

The report makes it clear that we must become much better at tackling variations in care. Never again must we have a system in which hospitals are struggling and delivering poor care, and that poor care is swept under the carpet and nothing is done about it. The Government have put 18 hospitals into special measures—more than 10% of all the hospitals in the NHS—and that has been very challenging. We have been accused by Opposition Front Benchers of running down the NHS when we have done it, but do you know what has happened? Six of those hospitals have now come out of special measures, and nearly all the others have improved dramatically. It is time that the Labour party got behind what is a really good inspection programme, based on openness, honesty and transparency about problems.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Bolton clinical commissioning group is putting mental health services out to tender, which seems to involve a cut of between a half and a third on the basis of current spending. Are such cuts in mental health services what the Secretary of State means by his vision?

[Mr Hunt]

No, and that is why the Government legislated for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. As I said earlier, we have introduced maximum waiting times for some mental health conditions, and we have focused on improving access to psychological therapies—IAPT—and on dementia. Anxiety and depression and dementia are two of the most common mental health conditions in respect of which we can make a real difference, and we are doing more all the time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

No one could have campaigned harder than my hon. Friend and his hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) for improving the services at their local A and E department. A consultation is currently taking place. There is no question of closing both A and Es in that area, and I understand that a very good capital bid for £2 million for his local A and E has been put in which, subject to the usual value-for-money requirements, looks like it is very strong.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My constituent, 81-year-old Rita, was taken seriously ill on holiday and had to spend two weeks in hospital. She was discharged with a letter saying that she needed very urgent surgery, but has had to wait five weeks before she even sees a consultant, let alone getting any treatment. What can the Secretary of State do for Rita and others like her?

[Mr Hunt]

We are working extremely hard to make sure that people do not have those long waits. We are doing about 3.5 million more diagnostic tests, for example, every year in the NHS than four years ago. I am happy to look into the individual case and see what lessons can be learned and to see whether we can help the hon. Lady’s constituent.

Patient Safety

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am absolutely determined to make that the case. The biggest example—a number of them have been raised today—is the issue of hospitals put in special measures. Over the last year, we have put more than 10% of NHS acute trusts into special measures. That was a very difficult decision and was not welcomed at the time. The result, I am pleased to say, is that we are seeing real and significant change in all those hospitals. I hope as many of them as possible will get out of special measures quickly, but we can achieve that change only if we are honest about the problem in the first place.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Bolton hospital is having to go abroad to recruit qualified nurses this summer because there are no British-trained nurses available. Will the Secretary of State now take responsibility for cutting nurse training places by 10,000 since the last election and accept that the lack of qualified nurses is just making the problem of safety worse?

[Mr Hunt]

What I will take responsibility for is agreeing to a public inquiry into what happened at Mid Staffs—something rejected by the Labour party—that has woken up the whole NHS to the need for safe staffing in all our wards. We are implementing the report and that will indeed be reflected in the nurse training numbers going forward.

NHS

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes the strong performance of NHS accident and emergency departments this winter; further notes that the average waiting time to be seen in A&E has more than halved since 2010; commends the hard work of NHS staff who are seeing more people and carrying out more operations every year since May 2010; notes that this has been supported by the Government’s decision to protect the NHS budget and to shift resources to frontline patient care, delivering 12,000 more clinical staff and 23,000 fewer administrators; welcomes changes to the GP contract which restore the personal link between doctors and their most vulnerable patients; welcomes the announcement of the Better Care Fund which designates £3.8 billion to join up health and care provision and the Integration Pioneers to provide better care closer to home; believes that clinicians are in the best position to make judgements about the most appropriate care for their patients; notes that rules on tendering are no different to the rules that applied to primary care trusts; and, a year on from the publication of the Francis Report, notes that the NHS is placing an increased emphasis on compassionate care, integration, transparency, safe staffing and patient safety.”.

The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) today made some strong accusations. He talked about the worst winter in A and E for a decade. For months now, he has been predicting a winter crisis in A and E, but as ever, when we look at the facts, they simply do not stack up. Let us look at the last week available for A and E statistics, which is the week ending 26 January. Over 96% of patients were seen within four hours. At this stage in the winter, we have missed the target four times; at the same stage when he was Health Secretary, he had missed it 12 times. That is three times more. [Interruption.] He says the target is different. It is true: on the basis of advice from clinicians, the target was reduced from 98% to 95%, so let us strip out the targets altogether and just ask a simple question. How many people every day are being treated within four hours? Under him, it was fewer than 52,000; under this Government it is nearly 55,000. That is 3,000 more people every day.

The right hon. Gentleman did not just say that; he also said that people were waiting longer and longer to be seen, but that is simply not true. When he was Health Secretary, shockingly, people had to wait on average over an hour to be seen in emergency departments. With 350 more A and E consultants—as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) rightly mentioned—under this Government we have cut that to just 30 minutes. The right hon. Gentleman has the gall to stand up and criticise a record that is better than his.

[Julie Hilling]

In relation to those targets, the Secretary of State ignores the number of people who have not registered because they are in ambulances or because there is a huge queue to be registered. I wonder how that is factored into his claim that people are always seen within half an hour, when patently they are not.

[Mr Hunt]

With great respect to the hon. Lady, it was under her Government that we had the horrific tragedy of ambulances circling round hospitals because hospitals did not want to admit them in case they missed their four-hour A and E target. There is a lot of pressure in the system, but the fact is that 3,000 more people every day are being seen within four hours than when her Government were in power. That is something that A and E departments up and down the country can be rightly proud of.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

rose—

A and E Departments

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

If I recall correctly, the study said that there were multiple causes, but it was Nottingham university that said that poor out-of-hours GP provision was responsible for an increase in paediatric A and E admissions, so Nottingham university understands this issue.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

On Sunday, some of my constituents dialled 999 for an ambulance for an 83-year-old woman who had fallen in the street. They were told to ring 111, but after 15 minutes, with the operator saying he was still assessing needs and the lady still lying in the street, they abandoned the call and rang 999, when an ambulance was dispatched. Is that the norm for this service?

[Mr Hunt]

No, it is not the norm; it is totally unacceptable. That is why the changes we are introducing will hopefully eliminate the vast majority of those kinds of issues. No, we are not going to stand by failures such as that when they happen.

Social Care Funding

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I would be happy to do that and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman’s Committee for its work to date on pre-legislative scrutiny. He will understand why I was not able to go into details when we met to discuss the Bill last week. He is absolutely right: dealing with that threshold is one of the most important things and I am sure we will benefit from good scrutiny, as we have done to date.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I want clarity about what the costs include. My mother’s journey has involved eight months in residential care and she is now back home where carers visit her four times a day. Would either of those count towards the eventual £75,000 cap?

[Mr Hunt]

Yes, they would.

[Julie Hilling]

Both?

[Mr Hunt]

Yes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julie Hilling and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the potential legacy of the London 2012 Olympics for children and young people.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

There is a cross-party commitment to use the games next year to have a lasting sporting legacy for young people. That will partly be through the school games, which my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and the Olympics has talked about, as well as through the extraordinary sports facilities that will be built next year and a new youth sport strategy that is designed to boost participation among young people, which we will be announcing in the new year.

[Julie Hilling]

I saw first hand the real difference that a school sports partnership was making to the participation rates and, indeed, the performance of young people in Bolton West. Now that it has gone, how will the Secretary of State ensure that my constituents benefit from the Olympics?