NHS Long-Term Plan

Mike Gapes Excerpts
Monday 18th June 2018

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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Of course I agree with that. My hon. Friend campaigns extremely vigorously on behalf of his own hospital in Cheltenham. Recruitment will be one of our top priorities. One way we want to tackle that is very simply by giving hope to people in the NHS and to people thinking of going into medicine that there is a long-term plan that has the support of the NHS, and which is at one remove from the party politics that we always get around the NHS. I think that is something doctors and nurses overwhelmingly want.

Mike Gapes Portrait Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
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How much of this welcome additional money will be used simply to pay off accumulated debt and current deficits, and how much will be a real increase?

Jeremy Hunt Portrait Mr Hunt
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The think-tanks who pore over the numbers disagree on that. Some say that it is about enough to stabilise the current situation—that is what Paul Johnson of the IFS says—and others say there is enough room to transform. Who is proved right will depend on how much we do on productivity and efficiency to create the headroom for the real changes we all want to see. That is why we have to get that bit of the equation right.