Mental Health and NHS Performance

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State could not resist making his customary political attack on the Welsh NHS. This weekend, I had cause to visit my local hospital A&E department with a family member, and we received a brilliant, speedy and expert service. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the staff at the Royal Glamorgan hospital? Will he also congratulate the Welsh Labour Government on not having to call the Red Cross to any hospital in Wales, and will he further congratulate them on their long-standing emphasis on mental health? Wales spends more on mental health provision per capita than England or, indeed, any part of the United Kingdom, notwithstanding the £2 billion that he has cut from the Welsh budget in the past six years.

[Mr Hunt]

In the hon. Gentleman’s long list of statistics, what he was not prepared to say is that people wait twice as long for a hip replacement in Wales, more than double the proportion of the population is on a waiting list for NHS care—that is one in seven people in Wales, compared with one in 15 in England—and those in Wales are 40 times more likely than those in England to be waiting too long for a diagnostic test result.