Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that centralising cardiac services in particular into acute cardiac hospitals is having a significant impact on improving access to treatment by reducing the time it takes to get diagnostic tests and initial treatment, and is therefore saving lives. Specialisation is working in London and in other parts of the country where it is being applied. I am sure that he would welcome the recent allocation to Kingston Hospital of up to £1.3 million to help with winter pressures.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Minister visited Kettering General Hospital earlier this year and saw for himself that a record number of patients are being treated with increasingly world-class treatments. Will he confirm that the hospital will get £2.6 million to cope with winter pressures this year?

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend never fails to highlight the success of Kettering General Hospital. I am delighted to confirm that £2.6 million will be available for that hospital this winter. We are working hard with the hospital management, through the special measures regime, to improve performance in that trust.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to reaffirm the commitment of the NHS, from the centre through to every organisation for which EU citizens are working, that these people are welcome here. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union yesterday made it very clear that we are looking to have a simple, straightforward and cheap means for those who are here at the point of departure to be able to register to stay here. We want to encourage all those who are working for our NHS, wherever they come from, to continue doing so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

During his visit to the hospital in April, the Minister will have seen that Kettering General has a long and proud record of recruiting medical staff from outside the EU, and in numbers. Is it not the case that the NHS has always recruited from outside the EU and will continue to do so after Brexit?

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend is right to say that there has been a long-standing tradition of this country welcoming professionals from outside, through various waves of migration that go back several decades. It is important to point out to him that the Secretary of State announced a year ago a 25% increase in the number of doctors in training in this country and earlier this autumn a 25% increase in the number of nurses to be trained in this country, so that we become less reliant on overseas clinicians at a time of a shortage of some 2 million worldwide.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I was pleased to welcome my hon. Friend to a meeting a few days ago to discuss the situation, together with his Opposition constituency neighbours. One of the things that we will be looking at in the coming weeks is the allocation of the new doctor training places. As part of the criteria, we will be looking to ensure that some of those places are allocated to areas where it is difficult to recruit, such as rural and coastal areas.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Minister has visited Kettering General Hospital and knows the wonderful work that the doctors and nurses there do. The problem that the hospital faces, however, is that too few of the doctors and nurses are full-time permanent members of staff, and too many locums are being hired, at great expense to the hospital budget. What is my hon. Friend’s advice for Kettering hospital on tackling the issue?

[Mr Dunne]

When I visited Kettering General Hospital we discussed excessive agency staff costs. One of the measures announced last week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was a drive to invest more in both regional and local bank agencies within the NHS so that we can reduce the reliance on more expensive agency staff.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Kettering general hospital would be better able to deal with winter pressures were it given permission to develop its urgent care hub. The hospital tells me that its application has been with NHS Improvement for nine months now. Will the Minister prod NHS Improvement to get a move on in approving this application?

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend held an Adjournment debate recently which I was pleased to respond to. We discussed the status of Kettering general hospital and the foundation trust that runs it. He is correct that it is discussing with NHS Improvement the development of a business case for an urgent care hub, and this is being considered in the context of the wider sustainability and transformation plan. Mr Speaker, I accept your admonishment in respect of my answer to the previous question. Of course, one of the primary solutions to winter excess deaths is the flu vaccination programme.

Kettering General Hospital

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, extends an invitation, too. I am grateful to all three hon. Friends. I am relatively newly in post, and the demands at present are to visit hospitals that are in greater difficulty than any of these cases, but I will endeavour to see what I can do during next year possibly to visit Kettering.

[Mr Hollobone]

One visit to all three of us would kill three birds with one stone.

[Mr Dunne]

I have responsibility for the acute sector, not the community sector, so initially my visit would be focused on Kettering hospital. I will certainly do what I can, but I think that it will have to be some time next year. My hon. Friend has previously met my predecessors to discuss health services in his constituency. He has raised a number of issues today, and I will attempt to address most, if not all, of them in the time that I have.

I wish to start with my hon. Friend’s concerns about the underfunding of his local clinical commissioning groups. That was a point also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. NHS England is working to move CCGs towards their target fair share of funding, but this has to take place at a pace that maintains stability in the system across the country at a time of significant financial challenge. I feel that quite acutely as a local Member of Parliament representing a rural constituency that has been consistently underfunded. We are taking steps, as I mentioned to the House in a debate earlier this week, to look at introducing a fairer share of funding for rural areas and addressing other issues such as social deprivation. A consequence of that has been to try to bring those CCG areas that are recognised to be underfunded closer to the target.

The point was made that Nene and Corby CCGs have been beyond 5% of the target. I am pleased to confirm the figures that were mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering: Nene and Corby CCGs received cash increases of 5.2% and 9.4% respectively in the current year. Those increases are significantly above the average for English CCGs and bring them both within 5% of their target allocation in this year. I think that 9.4% is one of the highest increases in allocation that we have seen this year across the country, so I hope that he recognises that we are moving to right that historic challenge. This year, more than £757 million will go into my hon. Friend’s local area, and allocations over the next few years should bring both Nene and Corby CCGs even closer to their funding target.

I will take a moment to touch on the national pressures that are affecting the NHS. The NHS is very busy, but hospitals are generally performing well. The latest figures for August 2016 show that more than nine out of 10 people were seen in A&E within four hours. During 2015-16, nearly 2,500 more people were seen in A&E each day within four hours compared with 2009-10.

Paramedics respond to the majority of life-threatening cases in under eight minutes. More than 567,000 emergency calls received a face-to-face response from the ambulance services across England in August 2016 alone—an average of 18,300 a day. Ambulance services are busy, which is why we are increasing paramedic training places by more than 60% in this year alone, on top of the 2,300 extra paramedics who have joined the NHS since 2010. That allows more than 200 additional ambulances to be deployed by the NHS compared with 2010.

[Mr Dunne]

I would agree with my hon. Friend in the event that the hospital in Wellingborough were able to cope with the condition, but many of the most serious conditions need to go to the best place to deliver the service, even if it takes a bit longer to get there. The quality of treatment in our ambulances now, with the skills of the paramedics who are on board in almost all cases, is such that very few people die while in transit. They are kept stable, and they need to go to the best place for treatment.

Going back to the national picture, the NHS last year treated, on average, 21,000 more outpatients a day and performed more than 4,400 operations a day compared with 2010. There is substantially more activity across the NHS, which is one reason why we have recruited so many more clinicians to help cope with this activity. We now have over 8,500 more doctors and over 2,700 more nurses, paid for in part by having nearly 7,000 fewer managers. Ultimately, we want to reduce pressure on services by reforming the urgent care system and caring for people better in the community, and that is where I think some of the things being done and being planned for the Kettering area are so interesting. It is clear that the NHS in the constituency understands the scale of the challenge and is taking action to address it.

[Mr Hollobone]

We understand the scale of the challenge. The problem is that the urgent care hub proposals, which are really exciting and could be rolled out across the country, are now with NHS Improvement, and its say-so is required to go to the consultancy phase.

[Mr Dunne]

Indeed, and our plans for improvement and integration among collaborative NHS areas across the country, including the Kettering area, through the sustainability and transformation plans are being delivered for each area today. NHS England will review those plans and decide to prioritise those that meet the national objectives and are best thought out.

In the past three years, including the current year, the Department has provided just over £37 million of interim revenue support and over £15 million of emergency capital to the trust. Since May 2010, capital expenditure on the hospital has amounted to £68.7 million, so it is receiving quite substantial support from the Department. The intention of the transformation work is to move to a position where the ability to cope with the remaining additional pressures on A&E and across the patient flow in the hospital is built in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said that the trust’s emergency department was too small and too limited in scope, and he touched on the new construction completed this year to extend the scope of the A&E department. It was originally built 20 years ago for 40,000 attendances a year, but is now dealing with more than 82,000. But the trust has had some success in reducing A&E attendances; there are more than 3,000 fewer than six years ago. The measures to integrate with the surrounding area are therefore having an effect on reducing attendances, despite the growing demand overall.

The trust has recruited and trained additional medical staff. Since 2010, the trust has increased its doctors by 77, or 24%, to 394. That is one of the most significant increases I have seen thus far. Some of this has come from the recruitment of staff through the certificate of eligibility for specialist registration scheme, involving doctors who have, for example, completed their specialist training overseas and chosen to practice in this country.

My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby referred to proposals to develop the urgent care hub at the hospital. The aim is to develop a one-stop shop, which will enable patients to use primary care facilities, rather than A&E, by having these services co-located on the Kettering general hospital site. These services would enable rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment by appropriate health and social care professionals. Patients would be streamed into appropriate treatment areas to minimise delays and reduce the need for admissions. This is an example of best practice across the NHS; it is what we are trying to introduce to relieve pressure on clinicians in the A&E department.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering raised the possibility of capital investment to develop this hub. The Department’s position has not changed. We are looking to the trust to take responsibility for developing and taking forward its own capital investment proposals. Foundation trusts, such as Kettering, can apply to the Department’s independent trust financing facility for a capital investment loan. They need to work closely with local planning authorities to ensure that developer infrastructure contributions can be taken into account as a source of funding.

I hope that these plans will be successful as they emerge through the STP, and as I have said, I hope that I will find an opportunity to visit Kettering on one of my visits north if I am allowed to do so on a suitable day when not required here in the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Shipbuilding on the Clyde

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I hope that some of the remarks I made earlier will provide some reassurance to the families of those who work on the Clyde. Part of the contracts we have already signed with BAE Systems will help to provide shore test facilities both on the Clyde and through the supply chain, so some investment is going into facilities. The overall level of facilities investment will be part of the overall contract, so I cannot update the hon. Lady further at this point.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Our Type 45 destroyers have world-class capability, but they cost £1 billion each. One of the reasons they cost more and took longer to build than we thought they would is that they kept being redesigned after construction had started, and we now learn that there have been major problems with the power plant. Will the Minister assure the House that these mistakes will be avoided with the Type 26 frigates?

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend makes a really valuable point. There is no doubt that before starting the construction of a complex warship, it makes an enormous difference if the design is more complete than otherwise. He is right to point out that the Type 45 programme began with a less advanced design than the Type 26 will have, and we hope we are learning lessons from that. We have certainly learned lessons in relation to the power and propulsion, and we will have a different system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

As the hon. Lady might be aware, last July we announced the defence cyber-protection policy, which works in conjunction with industry to develop awareness of cyber-defences across the 13 largest defence contractors and with the SME representatives, the trade associations. We are working closely with industry to develop cyber-defensive capabilities.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

2. How much humanitarian assistance has been provided by his Department to (a) the Philippines and (b) other parts of the world in 2013; and how much funding for such assistance has been reimbursed to his Department to date.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Philip Hollobone

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

The hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that the programme is currently in its assessment phase. A decision on main gate assumption is due to be taken in a few years’ time, and the build programme will roll forward from that point. The Government have made some assumptions in the equipment plan, which we will publish shortly, and the hon. Gentleman will be able to glean more information from that once it is available.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

7. How many UK service personnel are based in the Gulf; and whether reserves are earmarked for deployment to the Gulf in the event of military action against Iran.