Oral Answers to Questions
Karl Turner Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Wes Streeting
That would be a matter for the right hon. Gentleman’s ICB. I know that he is new to the area, so I am happy to make some introductions.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
My constituent Craig Eskrett was diagnosed with motor neurone disease 12 months ago. He says that the services are there in the local NHS trust, but there is a distinct lack of co-ordination. Will the Minister meet me to discuss what improvements can be made to co-ordinate those services for sufferers of MND?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend raises a real issue about how we join up the whole of the patient journey. Once diagnosed, patients need appropriate treatment and wraparound care. I am more than happy to meet him and his constituent.
National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Karl Turner Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Karin Smyth
The SNP has been in charge in Scotland for something like 20 years now—I forget exactly how long, but it seems like a very long time. Again, the Scottish people gave us an excellent result at the general election, and I am delighted to have so many Scottish colleagues here with me now. However, the SNP has the opportunity to make decisions in Scotland around health and social care as well, so I suggest that they do a better job.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is disappointing to put it mildly that the Opposition spokesperson was unable to mention the record funding committed in the Budget.
Mr Speaker
Order! The shadow Minister has been granted an urgent question. He asks the questions; he does not answer them from the Front Bench.
Karl Turner
Does the Minister agree that it is also disappointing that the Opposition ignore the fact that they completely disregarded and ignored social care when they were in office?
Oral Answers to Questions
Karl Turner Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The wonderful staff we have working across health and care ensure that our constituents receive, within a very tightly constrained health service, the best possible care that we can give them. The NHS is broken. We have to fix our broken health service, and having good-quality staff at the heart of it is how we are going to achieve that aim.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
Waiting times are wholly inadequate in our country. That is because the previous Conservative Government took a golden inheritance of the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history and left behind the worst crisis in the NHS’s history. What is more, they accept no responsibility and cannot even bring themselves to say sorry.
Karl Turner
I pay tribute to my own family GP, Dr Islam at the East Hull family practice, who goes above and beyond for his patients. However, I know that GPs are troubled by the amount of time patients have to wait to see them. The disparity between GP numbers in different areas is utterly shocking. In Kingston upon Thames, for example, a GP looks after 1,800 patients, but in Kingston upon Hull it is more than double that number. What is my right hon. Friend doing to sort out the Tory mess of the last 14 years?
Wes Streeting
May I first, through my hon. Friend, say thank you to Dr Islam and to GPs right across the country who, against the backdrop of the extraordinary challenges they are working through, have none the less managed to deliver more appointments now than when there were thousands more GPs? My hon. Friend is right to point out that we do not have enough GPs in this country. That is why, within weeks of taking office, this Government found just shy of £100 million to put into the frontline to employ 1,000 more GPs who will be seeing patients before the end of this financial year. That will make a real difference, and the shadow Secretary of State should have the humility and to grace accept that.