Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

That is something that we are working on very actively. As well as financially supporting GPs to roll out new and better ways of managing their appointments, we are looking at what criteria we expect from GPs. We already set out some moves in our summer action plan, but we will be looking further at preventing the lamentable situation my hon. Friend describes of people being asked to ring back or being held in long phone queues. That is not acceptable.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T3.   The public are not daft. They know that the backlogs in the NHS existed well before the pandemic, they know that the NHS was already on its knees, and they know that it was this Tory Government who brought it to its knees. So why do the Government not take up Labour’s policy of scrapping non-dom status, use the £3.6 billion to train nurses, doctors and midwives, and get the NHS back on its feet? People in east Hull want nurses, not non-doms.

[Steve Barclay]

The data is very clear; in fact, it is very stark on the extent to which the backlog is driven predominantly by the pandemic. That is why we have a programme, through the extra investment in the autumn statement: the £6.6 billion over the next two years going into the NHS, but also the £2.8 billion next year and £4.7 billion the year after into social care, and £8 billion in 2024. We recognise the size of those backlogs, so we can fund the surgical hubs and diagnostic centres.