Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Layla Moran and Wes Streeting(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Wes Streeting
The Conservative party lauded that plan during the general election, when I think the public delivered their verdict on the progress that it had made. NHS dentistry is non-existent in huge parts of the country. We will stick with some aspects of the previous Government’s dental recovery plan because they are the right solutions, but there are gimmicks that we will not proceed with. We will come forward with a serious plan to reform the dental contract, which the Conservatives committed to in 2010 but failed to do in every single year of their 14 years.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I have a constituent who has been trying to get a dentist appointment for a year. They have painful abscesses, cannot sleep and cannot eat using the right side of their mouth. We need to get on with this. I note that a review of the NHS has been launched, but the British Dental Association is concerned that that review will delay the changes to NHS dentistry that are so desperately needed. Will the Secretary of State give us a timeline for when we will see change?
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the hon. Member for her question and congratulate her on her re-election to the House. She is right to point to the detrimental impact that the Conservatives’ failure is having on people’s lives. In fact, in 1948, when the national health service was founded, Nye Bevan received a letter from a woman who had worked her entire life in the Lancashire cotton mills about how the dentistry she was given by the national health service had given her dignity and the freedom to associate in any company. What a tragedy that 76 years later, the Conservative party has squandered and destroyed that legacy to the point where people are suffering not just pain and agony, but the indignity of being unable to find a job and unable to socialise in polite company because they are ashamed of the state of their rotting teeth.
The hon. Member is absolutely right: Lord Darzi is conducting a review on the state of the NHS, and it will report in September. That is not preventing us from making progress, talking to the BDA and working within the Department and across the sector to get those 700,000 appointments up and running as a matter of urgency. I look forward to reporting the progress to her and other right hon. and hon. Members.
Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry
Debate between Layla Moran and Wes Streeting(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Wes Streeting
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will conclude my speech by talking about what a Labour Government will do, but let me answer his direct point about the range of options through which people should be able to access their GP. I value patient choice. Thinking back to my experience of accessing NHS services last year—as many people know, I did quite a lot of mystery shopping on the NHS—I had a range of interactions with GPs. Some were face-to-face. Some interactions at my GP surgery were not with my GP but with a nurse, which was entirely appropriate and much appreciated. Some of my engagements with my GP were over the telephone. I also had a video consultation with a dermatologist. I really valued that flexibility and range of approaches.
I think that the future for primary care has to be different courses for different horses. Of course, people should have a right to see their GP when they want to see their GP—I am clear about that—but there is also a range of ways in which we can offer more flexible access to GPs, particularly for working people who do not necessarily want to traipse down to the GP surgery in the middle of the afternoon if it is something that could be dealt with over the phone or on a video call.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The shadow Secretary of State is making a powerful speech. I commend in particular the point he made that people still trust their doctors. They are desperate to see them, even if it is online. A 74-year-old constituent of mine contacted me and said that he asked for an online appointment but it would take him 30 days to get there. He appreciates that the issue is not with GPs but with the Government’s lack of planning for the number of GPs who can provide that service in Oxfordshire.
Wes Streeting
The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. How is it that the NHS can be one of the largest employers in the world—it employs 1.2 million people—but does not have a workforce plan and strategy that says, “This is the workforce need that we have today, this is what the workforce need will be in the foreseeable future and, in the longer term, this is how we need to change the shape of the workforce to take into account advances in medicine and modern technology, and the changing demographics of our society”?
We gave the Government the opportunity to commission such a report when we debated the Health and Care Bill. It was supported on a cross-party basis, including by the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—sadly, he is not able to be with us at the moment—yet the Government voted against it. What is it about the ostrich mentality of the Secretary of State and his ministerial team—or, I suspect even more, that of the Treasury—that they would rather bury their heads in the sand, pretend there is no problem with workforce and not even count the numbers of doctors and nurses needed because they worry that the Treasury might face up to the reality of what they need to provide?