Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Yes, I do. Let us be clear: this is about patient safety, about which every single doctor and nurse in the NHS is passionate. The problem is that the doctors whom the hon. Lady has met have been misled by their own union. This is not about cutting the pay bill for junior doctors, as the BMA has suggested. This is about safer care at weekends, reducing unsafe hours and doing the right thing for patients, and that is the right thing for doctors as well.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T4. It emerged earlier this month that North East Lincolnshire CCG was operating a primary care incentive scheme intended to reduce outpatient referrals. Understandably, this has met with a hostile reception from my constituents, who fear it may affect decisions on their care. Will Ministers look into this scheme and either offer some reassurance or instruct the CCG to reconsider?

[The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)]

The north Lincolnshire scheme is designed to try to encourage doctors to make sure that there are no inappropriate referrals to secondary care; it is not designed to prevent appropriate ones. Over the past five years we have seen an increase of 600,000 in urgent referrals for cancer care, for example. We want to see that continue. It will not be helped if there are inappropriate referrals, and that is what the scheme is about.