Margaret Greenwood
Main Page: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)Department Debates - View all Margaret Greenwood's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Steve Barclay
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Patient safety should come first for all parties in this dispute. That is why I urge the Royal College of Nursing to wait for the NHS Staff Council decision on the offer. Voting is still ongoing, and it would be premature to announce strike action ahead of that decision.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Nurses and junior doctors are being pushed to breaking point, because there simply are not enough of them, and the Government have failed to plan the workforce properly. A nurse I spoke to at the weekend told of the terrible queues in corridors, and said that patients were waiting in pain, and not in the dignified environment that they should be in. She also spoke of the lack of care packages to enable the safe discharge of many patients. Why are we still waiting for the NHS workforce plan, which the Government promised? Can the Secretary of State tell us on what date we can expect to hear a statement on it? Also, what urgent action will he take to address the social care crisis?
Steve Barclay
On social care, which relates to the hon. Lady’s point about discharge, she will recall that in the autumn statement the Chancellor put additional funding into adult social care—funding of up to £7.5 billion over two years, which is the largest ever increase in funding for social care. Also, I announced at the Dispatch Box in early January a reprioritisation of funding in the Department—it was a £250-million package—in the light of urgent and emergency care pressure. That included funding to support greater discharge, to get more flow. I touched on the workforce plan earlier. We will publish it shortly; in the autumn statement, the Chancellor committed to doing so.