NHS Long-Term Plan

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right not to use the word “bung” in his question and to correct that very quickly indeed. He is also right to talk about productivity. The last Labour Government made important progress in bringing down waiting times. That required significant extra resources. When Alan Milburn had a 10-year plan, there was not a big productivity element to it. This time, when resources are much tighter, we have to make sure that productivity and efficiency gains are at the heart of the progress we make.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State is right that more funding is urgently needed, because he knows better than anyone that the percentage of NHS trusts in deficit rose from 5% in 2010 to 44% last year. Today, he has talked repeatedly about prevention, but he has failed to say directly what will happen to public health. Will he therefore clarify whether any of the settlement he has announced today will go towards public health services, vital for prevention and tackling health inequalities, which are being cut by £800 million over five years?

[Mr Hunt]

Today’s settlement covers NHS frontline services. As I explained in the statement, it does not cover public health, but we fully recognise its importance. The hon. Lady talks about the increase in trust deficits. It is true that the number of hospitals in deficit has gone up, but that is because we deliberately decided to be very careful in the way that we performance-managed trusts with deficits. In Mid Staffs, getting rid of the deficit was one of the reasons why the number of nurses in wards was stripped down to totally inappropriate levels. We have to make sure that we handle this in an appropriate way.