Oral Answers to Questions

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee is right that investment is vital, but so is reform. We tasked ICBs with leading the development of the new neighbourhood health service. We are removing their responsibility for performance management of trusts in order to free up their focus, so that primary and community services have the attention that is desperately needed. In the coming weeks, we will be talking to the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners about how we ensure the investment announced by the Chancellor leads to improved patient care and a reformed neighbourhood health service.

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Goff’s Oak, in my constituency of Broxbourne, has seen a lot of development. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that GP surgeries are delivered before hundreds of new homes are built?

[Wes Streeting]

Of course we need to deliver both new homes and GP surgeries, but the previous Conservative Government delivered neither. We have a housing crisis and an NHS crisis in this country; I would have thought Conservative Members might have shown some humility and responsibility for those facts before challenging a Government who have been in office for only four months.