Departmental Update

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I am responding on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the 46th report of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB). The report has been laid before Parliament today (Cm 9670) and a copy is available online. I am grateful to the chair and members of the DDRB for their report.

I am today announcing pay rises for doctors and dentists working across the NHS.

This is a pay rise that recognises the value and dedication of hard-working doctors and dentists, targeting pay as recommended by the DDRB, and taking into account affordability and the prioritising of patient care.

Supporting the NHS workforce to deliver excellent care is a top priority. Following this one-year pay rise, we want to open up a wider conversation on pay and improvements. This is the start of a process whereby we will seek to agree multi-year deals in return for contract reforms for consultant and GPs. We want to make the NHS the best employer in the world.

In June this year nurses were awarded a multi-year award as part of a pay and contract reform deal and it is only right that pay rises are targeted at the lowest paid workers.

Including the announcement of today’s pay award, from October 2018 a consultant who started in 2013 will have seen a 16.5% increase in their basic pay, rising to a salary of £87,665 from £75,249. Today’s pay award is worth:

Between £1,150 and £1,550 for consultants

Between £1,140 and £2,120 for specialty doctors

Between £1,600 and £2,630 for associate specialists

Between £532 and £924 for junior doctors

Around £1,052 for a salaried GP with a median taxable income of £52,600.

GPs face a significant challenge in numbers and we need to recruit large numbers over a short period, meaning any pay rise needs to be balanced against our aim for a growing number of practitioners. The 2018-19 pay award is worth £2,000 per year to a GP contractor with a median taxable income of £100,000.

The Government’s response to the DDRB’s recommendations takes account of:

Affordability in 2018-19 in the context of a spending review that budgeted for 1% average basic pay awards

The importance of prioritising patient care, and the long-term funding settlement which increases NHS funding by an average 3.4% per year from 2019-20, and which will see the NHS receive £20.5 billion a year in real terms by 2023

The three-year contract reform agreement on the Agenda for Change pay contract for 1 million non-medical staff, which delivered significant reforms as part of 3% pay investment per year, including progression pay reforms that end automatic annual increments; and

the case for contract reform for some of the DDRB’s remit groups, in particular for consultants and GPs.

The Government’s response is as follows:

Consultants

I am committing to negotiations on a multi-year agreement incorporating contract reform for consultants to begin from 2019-20.

From 1 October 2018:

A 1.5% increase to basic pay

The value of both national and local clinical excellence awards (CEAs) to be frozen

0.5% of pay bill to be targeted on the new system of performance pay to increase the amount available for performance pay awards from 2019-20. Employers will be able to choose to use the 0.25% of funding available in 2018-19 as transitional funding to manage the costs of running the required CEA round this year or to invest it additionally should they choose to do so.

Doctors and dentists in training

As agreed in the May 2016 ACAS agreement, we will discuss changes to the pay structure as part of the 2018 review of the contract, re-investing any existing funding freed up as transition costs reduce.

From 1 October 2018:

A 2% increase in basic pay and the value of the flexible pay premia

Introduction of a flexible pay premium for doctors on training programmes in histopathology of the same value as that currently provided for doctors on training programmes in emergency medicine and psychiatry.

Specialty doctors (new grade 2008) and associate specialists (closed grade)

I take note of the DDRB comments about the particular issues of morale in relation to this group that led to its pay recommendation and its observation on the need for a review of the salary structure for these grades as part of a wider review of their role, their career structure and the developmental support available to them. It is intended that this will follow the agreement of reformed arrangements for consultants.

From 1 October 2018:

Increase basic pay by 3%

General dental practitioners

From 1 April 2018 (backdated):

Increase expenses by 3%

From 1 October 2018:

Increase dental income and staff costs by 2%

General medical practitioners

I intend to ask NHS England to take a multi-year approach to the GP contract negotiations with investment in primary care linked to improvements in primary care services.

From 1 April 2018 (backdated):

Add a further 1% to the value of the GP remuneration and practice staff expenses through the GP contract, supplementing the 1% already paid from April 2018 and making a 2% uplift in all. This will enable practices to increase the pay of practice staff.

From 1 October 2018:

The recommended minimum and maximum pay scales for salaried GPs will be uplifted by 2%

The GP trainer grant and GP appraiser fees will be increased by 3% and we will apply the same approach to clinical educators’ pay; GP and dental educators.

From 1 April 2019:

The potential for up to an additional 1%, on top of the 2% already paid to be added to the baseline, to be paid from 2019-20 conditional on contract reform, through a multi-year agreement from 2019-20. This would be in addition to the funding envelope for the contract negotiation for 2019-20 onwards. This would be reflected in respect of GP remuneration, practice staff expenses and the recommended minimum and maximum pay scales for salaried GPs.

Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament. uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-07-24/HCWS917/

[HCWS917]

Care and Support

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry that the right hon. Lady does not seem to recognise that in addition to what I have announced today, about three months ago the Prime Minister launched the dementia challenge. It provides resources in the NHS, through the commissioning for quality incentive, for the identification of patients with dementia and for follow-up assessments and support. It is doubling research into dementia and supporting a programme for the creation of dementia-friendly communities. As part of that dementia challenge, local authorities and the health service will work actively together to make communities far more dementia-friendly and more effective in treating dementia.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Like carers and many vulnerable people across the country, I warmly welcome the White Paper and the progress that is being made. People are keen to see a continued political consensus, which existed, and on which the Opposition were to be congratulated, until about half an hour ago. May I urge the Secretary of State to do everything he can to ensure that that consensus continues? Will he also set out a bit more about what the national minimum eligibility threshold will mean, so that people across the country know what they are entitled to?

[Mr Lansley]

On the latter point, my hon. Friend will be aware that the national eligibility threshold that we are legislating for will come into effect in 2015. We will of course make it clear before that at what level it will be set. I cannot provide that information at the moment, not least because we have reservations about the overall effectiveness of the classification of need under the fair access to care services system in the intervening period. If we can improve the eligibility framework, we will set out to do so.

I say to the right hon. Member for Leigh and his colleagues that I am very happy to continue to talk. I know that he did not want us to proceed on a unilateral basis from the progress report, but in truth what we published did not represent our making decisions unilaterally but instead reflected the point that we had reached. I am happy for further talks to take us beyond that point.

EU Working Time Directive (NHS)

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Leslie]

I suspect that that is a problem in hospitals in colleagues’ constituencies, and I look forward to hearing about those. It is not just politicians in the Houses of Parliament who say these things, but, crucially, clinicians on the ground, whose prime concern is looking after patients. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend’s point.

One area in which the restrictions of the working time directive become apparent is in the case of a flu pandemic. The guide to the implications of the European working time directive for doctors in training makes it clear that even in a flu pandemic there are no exemptions from, and there is no flexibility about, the 48-hour rule. It is true that individuals can opt out of the directive, but they are still limited by the previous Government’s new deal to working 56 hours a week. However, there is no mechanism to compel doctors to opt out of the 48-hour working time directive.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such a powerful case. Can she explain why this is an EU issue at all, since the directive is meant to engender a single market, but the NHS is a British-only institution?

[Charlotte Leslie]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. That issue was contested to some extent when the directive was first introduced, but the previous Government saw it as a health and safety issue, and therefore the NHS was included in it. There are many reasons why we need not be in this position. There are many aspects of the negotiation that are deeply regrettable, and I agree with my hon. Friend. Although this is going over old ground, it is vital to look at that to find out how to get out of our current situation and secure patient care.

NHS Future Forum

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I repeat: from the public’s point of view, we know that what they wanted was genuine accountability, in the sense that the doctors, nurses and other health professionals who care for them should be able directly to design and influence the shape of services locally to meet their needs, but they also want a patient voice and a public voice. That has not existed in the past; we will enable it to happen. They will come together at the health and wellbeing board, where they will establish a strategy for their area.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

In the commendable listening exercise, was it not clear that there is now broad support for the principles of reform? Is it not better that we now take that forward, rather than being opposed to reform and opposed to the resources for the NHS, as the Opposition are?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is indeed the message that came through to us from the NHS Future Forum and its extensive engagement with the NHS and beyond. I will not go down the path urged on us by the Opposition, which for the NHS seems to be spend less, do nothing and let the crisis happen when it will.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), I do not profess to have any high degree of expertise. I was approached by a couple of my constituents, who hit me with what can be described only as a moral sledgehammer. They movingly recounted profound stories of their youth and their lost childhoods, which others have mentioned, and of their inability to form full relationships with loved ones. Some victims have had to keep their condition secret owing to a fear of being shunned by people who have a naive attitude towards HIV. The heartbreaking accounts are seemingly endless. Very often, sufferers get into the habit of not telling friends and even relatives, and now find it impossible to divulge the truth. Many victims were children. Some never made it to adulthood.

We fight and argue in this Chamber over a range of issues, but we would struggle to find a more poignant debate than this. The contracting of HIV through blood transfusions is one of the most profound, disturbing and dreadful episodes in 20th century health treatment. According to my calculations, on average, one person a week has died as a result of being infected with HIV. Those who survive do so only because of a cocktail of drugs that keeps them hanging on to life. That treatment has been described as being on low-dose chemotherapy for the rest of one’s life.

An additional difficulty is that victims must cope with their inability to obtain life insurance—Opposition Members have mentioned that—and they also have difficulty with travel insurance and medicals. I therefore welcome the terms of reference for the review. Surely some help can be offered to the remaining survivors. I use the term “survivor” deliberately, because that is exactly what the remaining sufferers are.

A further tragedy is the fact that some sufferers were not told of their condition even when it was known by others, leading to the infection of partners. On other occasions, it was felt unnecessary to engage with sufferers as they were not expected to live very long anyway. The treatment that is available today for HIV sufferers was not envisaged in the 1980s, so it was believed that victims had a life expectancy of about five years. Thankfully, that has not been the case in many instances. Understandably, some who were told that they had only five years to live went out and spent their financial award pretty quickly, and enjoyed life to the full without considering investing for the future. Many such victims have consequently been left financially short.

We are familiar with the root cause of the infection: blood was imported for transfusion when the UK was not self-sufficient. Perhaps we need to look further into that. Safeguards that should have been implemented in both the UK and the US were not. Indeed, it appears that the UK was slow to act on minimising the chances of haemophiliacs contracting HIV. Clearly, mistakes were made, and they must be recognised.

More important than embarking on a witch hunt is deciding where we go from here. How can we achieve insurance for sufferers and support those who need it most? Infection from tainted blood was indiscriminate. Young and old, haemophiliacs and those who underwent operations were not spared. Nobody was spared.

The situation affects not only male haemophiliacs; some female cases have been reported. It is very much a matter of regret that the issue of adequate compensation was not tackled some time ago. I suspect that the sheer sums of money are part of the reason why the cause was not picked up by the previous Government. I look to this Government to do what they can to make the situation for sufferers and their families easier.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Like me, my hon. Friend has constituents who are affected by this issue. Does he agree that although it is important to get the numbers and the money right, there is an important principle at stake too? From this debate, it would appear that the House wholeheartedly supports that principle.

[Gareth Johnson]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a good point. A range of principles is at issue and we need to ensure that people who are affected by this tragedy are properly looked after as best the Government can achieve. We live in times of austerity, and there is a limit on what the Government can do, but it is incumbent on them to do all that they reasonably and practically can to help sufferers.

Hospital Car Parking Charges (Hereford)

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, who has certainly succeeded in achieving what he intended. No doubt tomorrow, when Hansard is published, his cogent point will be marked. The only disappointment is that as there are no Opposition Members here, they will not be aware of his intervention, but I am sure he will use his skills to ensure that his point is given a wider audience.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Before my hon. Friend concludes, will he address the point about renegotiating the PFI? Will he take up the offer of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) and try to squeeze some more value out of the PFI, and to help? He has made an eloquent case about how tight the money is.

[Mr Burns]

I thank my hon. Friend for that extremely helpful intervention. I am grateful for his kind offer for me to try to intervene and use my good offices to facilitate a renegotiation. It is late at night, but I do not want to be churlish and I do not want to upset my hon. Friend. However, gone are the days when politicians and bureaucrats sitting in Whitehall interfere and micro-manage local health services. The Government’s vision, new policy and ethos is for a localised health service, responding to local needs, not hamstrung by interfering Ministers, including—I know that my hon. Friend will find that difficult to believe—me. I must therefore say that it is a local matter, which would have to be taken up and sorted out locally, though, from my extensive knowledge of the position, I would not, were I a betting man, put a considerable amount of money on the suggested course of action being adopted.

Having said that, during a review of car parking at the hospital, it is important that all those with an interest or a concern about the charges play a full part. Ultimately, as I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) will appreciate, it is for the NHS trust to manage its car parking to suit best the needs of its patients, the visitors and staff.

However, I hope that, given the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire and my hon. Friends in the surrounding constituencies, who have played their part not only in recent months but for a considerable time in representing their constituents and trying to get a good deal for them, they will continue to open dialogue with the local trust and do all they can to pursue the matter and ensure that they get a better and fairer deal, which is mutually satisfactory to the trust, the PFI and my hon. Friend’s constituents.

Question put and agreed to.