NHS 10-Year Plan

Debate between Sam Rushworth and Wes Streeting

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I thank the hon. Member for the outstanding way she has represented her constituents since she arrived in this House—not only on this issue, but on many others. I reassure her that we will work with families in a spirit of co-production to ensure that we identify what has gone wrong, so that families receive truth and accountability for failures and the reassurance of knowing that improvements will be made so that other families do not have to suffer in the way that they have. Things have gone so badly wrong, but I am confident that, with the approach we are setting out, we will be able to make rapid improvements, and I will keep the House regularly informed.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for this wonderful statement, delivering on a commitment that we made together at the Richardson community hospital in Barnard Castle two years ago to move services back into the community. I want to ask him about the use of bank staff in the NHS: not only is it a massive waste of money, but it has created a situation where only one in five of this year’s midwifery graduates feels confident of getting a job. On behalf of Mrs Rushworth, who is one of those, her friends, and nurses and midwives in the north-east who have contacted me about this issue, what will the Secretary of State do to ensure that those who have given 2,300 hours of unpaid labour to the NHS and are graduating with tens of thousands of pounds of debt can get a job?

[Wes Streeting]

I remember that visit to Barnard Castle—unlike visits by some people from Westminster, I was not there to get my eyes tested and my visit was perfectly within the rules. My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance of neighbourhood health, which is in the plan, and of reducing the cost of agency spend in the NHS. I want staff to feel that they are part a team and for there to be more flexible working, so that people do not feel that they have to resort to agency work to receive flexibility. I am proud that within our first year we have saved a billion pounds in agency expenditure, getting better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers.

Government Policy on Health

Debate between Sam Rushworth and Wes Streeting

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

First, my right honourable friend, Alan Milburn, does not have a role in the Department. Secondly, of course we will publish, in the routine way that we do, details of meetings held in the Department and who attended them. I gently suggest that if the hon. Member has not made his way there already, there are plenty more interesting things to read in the House of Commons Library.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I think Opposition Members may be making the mistake of judging this Government by their own standards. I wish to ask the Secretary of State this: after my constituents and many others have suffered from the economic disaster that was caused in part by dodgy covid contracts and VIP fast lanes, what will this Government do differently?

[Wes Streeting]

I am delighted to see my hon. Friend here representing Bishop Auckland. The people of his constituency will be struck by the fact that this afternoon the Conservative party has chosen to create a mountain out of a molehill about a former Health Secretary coming in to lend his advice and experience to a Labour Government. On covid corruption, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to be angry, as indeed the country is, too. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been very clear that, when it comes to cronyism and corruption in covid contracts, we want our money back and the covid corruption commissioner is coming to get it.