A and E Departments Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Seema Malhotra
Main Page: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)Department Debates - View all Seema Malhotra's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I recently visited the London ambulance service. When ambulance staff cannot hand over a patient to A and E, the patient is kept waiting in the ambulance. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the number of handover delays lasting more than 30 minutes has doubled to 200,000 in the past three years? Will he also update the House on when he expects that trend to be reversed?
Mr Hunt
Handover delays are unacceptable, and the short-term and longer-term measures that I am putting in place will, I hope, help to reduce them. The hon. Lady might want to talk to her own Front Benchers about this, however, because they seem to be setting their face against improving primary care as a way of reducing the pressures on A and E departments, even though that goes against the grain of what the public and the NHS want.