Gosport Independent Panel: Publication of Report

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

There can be no justice unless the truth is put on the table. That is the crucial first step, and now justice must proceed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his campaign for Mrs McKenzie. Perhaps the best words I can use are these of the panel in the report:

“Yes, we have listened and yes, you, the families, were right. Your concerns are shown to be valid.”

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I echo the tributes to the work of Bishop James Jones and the integrity and diligence that he and the panel have shown in conducting this inquiry. The Secretary of State has rightly focused on the impact on families, and I was pleased to hear in his statement that there will be a helpline for families who suspect that they have been affected—not least because the immediate catchment area around Gosport includes a lot of retirement homes, and many families whose elderly relatives went to the area to retire may live some distance away. Given the publicity that the report has given rise to, a considerable number of people may need to get in touch. Will he ensure that the helpline is adequately resourced?

[Mr Hunt]

Yes, I will absolutely do that. I ought to say that I know my hon. Friend met many families and relatives during his time as a Minister in my Department, and he always dealt with those cases with a huge amount of compassion. The facts of the matter are, according to the report, that 650-plus people had their lives shortened, but we are in touch with only about 100 families, so we are expecting more people to come forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman wrote his question before yesterday’s announcement. I thought that he might have started by welcoming the additional £2 billion of investment that Scotland’s NHS will be receiving. We are making historic investment in recruitment, which is why we are opening five new medical schools in England, training 1,500 new medical doctors, taking initiatives such as on apprenticeships and opening new pathways into clinical roles.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

While I welcome yesterday’s announcement and the workforce strategy that is coming out in the autumn, will the Minister comment on the Home Office’s new proposals to allow greater flexibility for professional clinicians coming to work in the UK, and on what impact that might have on filling vacancies?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention both to the Home Office’s welcome announcement on tier 2 visas and to the work on the workforce strategy, in which he played a key role. It will ensure that we have the right workforce for the NHS for the next 10 years.

NHS Long-Term Plan

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

It is funny, isn’t it: the hon. Lady says that this is not enough, but she did not say that when her own party was offering almost half the amount at the last election. She also says that every economic expert says that it is not enough. Let me tell her about one economic expert that does not say that—the Institute for Public Policy Research, left-leaning, in a piece of work done by Lord Ara Darzi, a former Labour Health Minister, who says that 3.5% is enough.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

May I wholeheartedly congratulate my right hon. Friend on this historic achievement in securing a long-term funding increase for the NHS? I suspect that it is because he is now the longest-serving Health Secretary that he has the credibility within Cabinet to secure this achievement. I also congratulate him on proposing to get the NHS to develop a 10-year plan alongside a long-term workforce plan—which is such a critical element of this—and a long-term capital funding plan, because this needs to be seen coherently alongside the social care Green Paper. Bringing them all together at the right time must be the right thing to do. Will he, as part of the deployment of this new-found funding, look to use the data revolution to innovate to ensure that we have world-class data driving better patient outcomes?

[Mr Hunt]

As usual, my hon. Friend speaks very perceptively. When he was a Minister in my Department, he did a fantastic job in getting our capital funding and our workforce planning into a much, much better place. He is right. Although this is a big opportunity for the NHS, we must not make the mistake of solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow. A huge data and tech revolution is about to happen in healthcare all over the world, and we must make sure that we are at the forefront of it.

NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me make a bit of progress and then I will try to let others in.

If the Secretary of State brings forward legislation, we will work constructively with him.

The latest and perhaps most pernicious consequence of underfunding is the move to so-called wholly owned subsidiaries. Many are saying that this is a VAT scam. Hospital trusts feel that, because of underfunding, they have no option but to transfer staff to these so-called subsidiaries, set up at arm’s length but still owned by the trust. We have trusts paying management consultants a total of £3 million, according to freedom of information requests, for advice on setting up these new arrangements. That is money that should be going on patient care. It will mean a two-tier workforce as new joiners no longer need to be on “Agenda for Change” terms and conditions. That looks to many like forcing staff to pay for the Government-imposed financial crisis in the NHS.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is under a lot of pressure, rightly, in this debate. When he selected the motion for the Opposition debate today, was he aware, given the liturgy of supposed privatisation that he has alleged has taken place under this Government, that the proportion of spend on the independent sector under the Conservative Government in the last year was zero and that the proportion of spend on the independent sector in Wales, run by the Labour Administration, went up?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am grateful to the former Minister of State. We do miss him during our exchanges at the Dispatch Box. The figures that he has quoted are different from those provided by the Library. The Library says that the percentage of the total budget spent on private providers has gone up to 1% in Wales, but it has gone up by 2% in England in the past year. The Department of Health and Social Care may have different figures, but those are the figures from the Library.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Obesity has rightly had a strong outing today. We know that it is a leading cause of type 2 diabetes; supporting people to live healthier lifestyles can only reduce the incidence of the disease. So far, more than 170,000 people have been referred to the national diabetes prevention programme. Those who are referred receive tailored, personalised help, including education on healthy eating and lifestyle choices, and bespoke physical exercise programmes.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that following his decision to make the capital allocation to Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust before Easter, that trust has had sufficient confidence to successfully appoint five additional consultants in 10 days in April, thereby improving resilience in acute healthcare in Shropshire?

[Stephen Barclay]

I very much welcome the progress that my hon. Friend has shared with the House. Many of us will also want to pay tribute to his leadership during his time at the Department in recognising the opportunity for reconfiguration that the capital would unlock and is now delivering.

Breast Cancer Screening

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady has asked some important questions. I am sorry if what I said was not clear, but I do not think I said that there was no need to diagnose early. It is obviously incredibly important for cancer to be diagnosed as early as possible. What I said was that I had been advised that in many cases, because of advances in breast cancer treatment, it would not make a difference to the particular women affected in this case. I fully accept that in some cases it will, and of course it is very important to diagnose all cancers as early as possible.

I will find out from Oxford University the dates on which it expects to report the full outcome of the AgeX trial. Obviously we all want to hear the results as soon as possible. I will also inform the hon. Lady of the exact date on which Scottish Government officials were informed. Let me reassure her that if there are any additional costs to the Scottish health system, it will of course be recompensed.

We do not think that major pressures will be created in the Scottish screening programme, and we are confident that we will be able to contact everyone in the UK who is registered with a GP—whether in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England—by the end of May. We have had very productive discussions with Scottish officials about the IT exchange that will be necessary to ensure that women living in Scotland also receive their letters by the end of May. We cannot guarantee that every single one of them will have been contacted by then—some will have moved abroad, and some will not be registered with a GP for whatever reason—but we think that we can contact the vast majority, and the helpline will be open for anyone to call if they think they may have been affected.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I think that Members on both sides of the House have appreciated the measured way in which my right hon. Friend has come to the House and revealed detailed commitments to helping the women who have suffered as a result of this terrible, unfortunate IT event. I also think that the measured response from the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) properly reflected the concern that everyone shares.

My right hon. Friend referred to additional screening capacity to ensure that there is no impact on other, younger women. What undertakings can he give to any women who have been affected, and who find that they are suffering from a malignant growth in their breast, that they will be able to receive the appropriate treatment as rapidly as possible?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he did on cancer when he was working at the Department of Health, and for his broader work in supporting the hospital sector. He is absolutely right: additional people will come forward for treatment, so one of the other matters that we have been looking into is our treatment capacity. We certainly intend to ensure that people are treated within the normal short period if a cancer is detected, and the first step in that process is to ensure that everyone has a scan in the next six months. During that period, we will make certain that they are able to look forward to the same rapid treatment that all other people whose cancers are detected can be confident of receiving.

National Bereavement Care Pathway

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and for the considerable work that she has put into both the formation and the ongoing work of the all-party group. She makes a really good point. Those services are not always religious, although most of them tend to be in some way, shape or form, and they are hugely important and comforting to families. I know that she has organised several, and various charities organise them too. They are about not just the religious element but people being able to come together and pay their respects to the children they have lost. They bring about a community and show people that they are not alone and that there are others who have gone through the same or very similar experiences. Long-lasting friendships often flow from them. I remember a service that I attended with my wife—I think it was the year after we lost our son. There was a lady there in her 80s who still came to the service every year to remember the child she lost in her late teens. That shows that the experience stays with people forever, and that these services are really important.

With the evidence showing that the pathway is making a really big difference in improving the quality of bereavement care in the hospital trusts in which it is being piloted, the aim is to roll it out across the country in October. As I said at the beginning, 11 sites launched last October and a further 21 last week, and a nationwide launch in October is very much the ambition. Sands established the project on behalf of the core pathway group, entirely thanks to £50,000 of funding from the Department of Health and Social Care. I am extremely pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), the former Care Quality Minister, in his place, because he did so much with the Secretary of State to help secure that funding.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I hesitate to rise after that generous tribute, but may I say that I am absolutely convinced that without the work of my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the all-party group, we in the Department would not have given this issue the prominence that it has achieved under their leadership? In particular, I wish to mention the role that Sands has played in driving this agenda forward. I pay tribute to that organisation and all the bereaved parents that it represents, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing yet another debate on this topic.

NHS Staff Pay

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We would have more nurses in mental health if we had not had to deal with the crisis at Mid Staffs and pronounced short staffing in our acute hospitals. Since I have been Health Secretary, we have 15,000 more nurses in the NHS and we are also finding more money to go into mental health. It is time that the hon. Lady recognised that, rather than trying to paint the opposite picture.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I add my voice to those congratulating the Secretary of State and his ministerial team on a tremendous achievement in discussions with the Treasury to secure this additional funding. I invite him to comment on the work that has been done by the health unions and the Royal College of Nursing, in particular, in helping to deliver this agreement and particularly to give many of the people on starting salaries a significant uplift, which he referred to earlier. This will make it easier to attract people to the vital starting roles for future generations.

[Mr Hunt]

I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend because, when he was working in my Department, he laid a lot of foundations for this deal. He chaired some very important meetings. In particular, one of the most important areas of consensus that has emerged, which he should take enormous credit for, is that we are saying today that the minimum salary for anyone working in the NHS will go up by £2,000. That is going to make a huge difference—100,000 people will benefit from that important change—and he should be very proud of that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but he is saying something that is a big exaggeration. What the NHS has committed to is that by the end of the year coming up more than half of the trusts in the country will meet the A&E target and that we will go back to meeting it across the whole country in the following year. So we are absolutely committed to this target. We recognise there are real pressures, which is why it is going to take time to get back to it, but we will get there.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on securing the £10 billion capital commitment in the Budget at the end of the last year to spend on the NHS. May I take advantage of my position on these Benches to urge him for the next allocation of STP funding to adopt the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) and ensure that the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust gets the Future Fit funding it needs?

[Stephen Barclay]

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did in the Department and the high esteem in which he was held by those working in the NHS? On Shrewsbury and Telford, I very much appreciate the importance of the reconfiguration of the trust. We expect a decision shortly on that, although I am not in a position to announce it today.

NHS Winter Crisis

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will make a little bit of progress.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I give way to the former Minister.

[Mr Dunne]

In relation to the incident at Pinderfields Hospital, it is completely unacceptable that people should be lying in corridors, but the hospital informed me before I made the statement on Monday that the patients who were photographed had been asked whether they wanted to sit down on a seat and had decided not to do so.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity to clarify the situation for the House. Perhaps he should have done so on Monday. I do not know, but he may well still have been in place as a Health Minister if he had said that on Monday.

There have been huge pressures on the North East Ambulance Service, because of which it has been asking some patients, where appropriate, if they have alternative transport options, such as a family member. The East of England Ambulance Service has said that some patients were being sent taxis to get them to hospital, with paramedics stuck in ambulances queuing at hospitals for more than 500 hours in the past four days. Of course, clinicians have spoken out. Richard Fawcett of the University Hospitals of North Midlands warned that his hospital had

“run out of corridor space”.

He also felt compelled to apologise for, in his words, the “third world conditions”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I am sorry, but 3 million additional jobs have been created, so we do have a strong economic record, and that is why we have increased funding for social care recently. We have increased NHS funding significantly. As for slashing funding, the hon. Gentleman’s local trust received £9.7 million before Christmas.

[Mr Dunne]

Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the issue of beds? As a result of the measures that he has taken in recent weeks, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in my area managed to release an extra 120 beds to help it to cope with the significant winter pressures that it faced. Does he agree that community hospitals such as my area’s Bridgnorth Community Hospital and Ludlow Community Hospital, which have community beds, have a role to play in releasing pressure on acute hospitals from patients who no longer need acute care?