Navendu Mishra
Main Page: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)Department Debates - View all Navendu Mishra's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Hancock
My message to everybody in the NHS is that they should do what they need to do to keep people safe in front of them. We are reducing a whole load of the bureaucracy that gets in the way —for instance, with measures from the Care Quality Commission—to ensure that people just do what is right in front of them. As the hon. Lady says, GPs cannot work from home. Some GP appointments do need to be face to face, but increasingly they can be over the phone or over Skype, and so they should be.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
Several Members have raised concerns about care staff. As we all know, many of them are on zero-hour contracts and work for multiple providers. That means that they struggle to prove that they are eligible for statutory sick pay, forcing them to choose between protecting their clients and paying their bills. What action will the Secretary of State take to help healthcare staff who are not eligible for statutory sick pay and cannot prove their eligibility?
Matt Hancock
This is an issue that I discussed with the hon. Member for Leicester South, the shadow Health Secretary, earlier today. The package of measures in the Budget addresses it as much as is possible, and we are prepared to go further if that is what is needed.