Accident and Emergency Departments Debate
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Marcus Jones
Main Page: Marcus Jones (Conservative - Nuneaton)Department Debates - View all Marcus Jones's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Accident and Emergency Departments
Marcus Jones Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
We have designed the immigration rules so that they are flexible enough to make sure that NHS hospitals can recruit trained staff where they are needed and where we cannot find people with those skills in the UK. I say to the hon. Gentleman that although some challenges may be the same in England and Wales, one challenge is very different in Wales, because Labour there decided to cut the budget by 8%, which has made life a great deal harder for NHS trusts.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Since May 2010 an extra 300 clinical staff are working at the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, which is now recruiting more nurses and more A and E consultants in response to the Keogh review. Does that not show that under this Government more resources are being directed towards front-line patient care?
Mr Hunt
It absolutely does. There are nearly 4,000 more front-line staff under this Government than there were under the previous Government at the time of the last election. More importantly, where there are problems in hospitals—my hon. Friend’s hospital has had a number of problems—this Government are not sitting on them or seeking to cover them up. We are addressing them and I hope that by the time of the next election we will be able to demonstrate that we have turned around my hon. Friend’s hospital and a number of others and that finally these serious problems are being addressed.