Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Burns Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

2. What steps he is taking to ensure the provision of acute services in Trafford district.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

This is a matter for the local NHS. Every NHS trust has a duty to provide the best quality care for its patients. The Government believe that the delivery of health services should be led locally, with clinicians working with GPs and patients to ensure that their needs are met.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful for that answer and for the Minister’s letter to me last week, but, having already lost paediatric and maternity services recently, and with the decision not to provide trauma services in Trafford, local people are understandably anxious about further services being lost. Is the Minister confident that sufficient independent oversight is in place to ensure that the needs and wishes of local people are adequately met?

[Mr Burns]

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady, because if there were to be any reconfigurations in the future—I put that in the conditional tense because the relevant trust is confident that there will not need to be any—quite clearly the four tests that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced last May would have to apply. There would have to be full consultation with local people and with clinicians, GPs and others in the health economy.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

3. What processes he has put in place to allow lay members of the public and elected public representatives to contribute to discussions on the reform of the NHS.

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[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

5. How much his Department allocated to the provision of out-of-hours surgeries in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Government do not allocate centrally how much money is spent by local NHS providers on out-of-hours services. However, in 2009-10, the last year for which figures are available, £403.8 million was spent on out-of-hours GP services in England and £1.6 million was spent on out-of-hours services in Coventry. We plan to give GPs and other health professionals greater powers to commission out-of-hours care to achieve high quality, integrated services that are focused on the needs of patients.

[Mr Cunningham]

Given that waiting times in emergency units are increasing, what will the Minister do to protect out-of-hours clinics?

[Mr Burns]

It was, of course, the hon. Gentleman’s Government who did so much to undermine the provision of out-of-hours services. We propose not only to review the existing framework, but to ensure that there are the real improvements that benefit patient care, which are so badly needed.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that there are no artificial constraints so that GPs, even though they may be commissioners, can ensure that they provide out-of-hours services in combination with clinics and ambulance services?

[Mr Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important issue. I assure him that there are mechanisms in the Health and Social Care Bill to provide protection so that there are not the problems that he anticipates.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

6. What discussions he has had with Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government on the cross-border implications of the Health and Social Care Bill.

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[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What arrangements he has made for continuity of provision of existing hospital services under his proposed reforms of the NHS; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

Commissioners would remain responsible for securing continued provision of NHS services to meet the needs of their local populations. We are proposing to support commissioners in this by introducing a comprehensive system of regulation at national level and additional regulation for designated services.

[Luciana Berger]

The Minister told the Bill Committee that some accident and emergency services might be undercut by private providers, which could force them to close. Will the Government bring forward amendments to the Bill to safeguard existing A and E services in all areas, including Merseyside?

[Mr Burns]

I know that the hon. Lady does not want to mislead the House, but she is totally, factually incorrect in how she paraphrased what I said in the Health and Social Care Bill Committee. As any hon. Member who was there will know, I tried to be helpful to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall)—it is the last time I will—and gave her an illustrative example of how designated services would work. However, I did not say what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) attributed to me.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

Clinicians at the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds are concerned that they will get the same tariff for an operation as a private sector provider, even though the NHS has to carry the cost of training whereas, on the whole, the private sector does not. What steps will the Minister take to address this perceived unfairness?

[Mr Burns]

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend. As he will know, we do not propose to introduce price competition into the NHS; rather, we propose to introduce competition based on quality. His clinicians are correct that the price will be the same. However, they must remember that we are going to stop the practice of the last Government, who, with independent sector treatment centres, paid the private sector over 11% more per operation than they were prepared to pay the national health service.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Derek Twigg.

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[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

15. Whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the 111 non-emergency number; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

NHS 111 is currently being piloted in County Durham and Darlington, Nottingham city, Lincolnshire and Luton, and a full independent evaluation of these pilots will be available in spring 2012.

[Helen Goodman]

In Durham, 111 calls are being answered by telephone receptionists without any medical training. They run through a list of pre-scripted questions and frequently divert ambulance paramedics away from 999 calls. Clearly that is risky. Will the Minister look into that before the number goes nationwide?

[Mr Burns]

I am sorry, but the hon. Lady is a little bit confused. She says, rather dismissively, that the calls are being answered by telephonists. These are non-medically trained people who have nurses and GPs available to give them help and advice as and when the callers demand it, because of the complaint or problem that they are raising. The beauty of the 111 service is that people do not have to wait to be called back, as they do with NHS Direct. Instead, the people trained to help callers will point them towards the appropriate care—which in some cases will be the emergency services—and they are right to do so when this has been clinically determined.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that 111 telephone operators will be trained to the same level as 999 telephone operators?

[Mr Burns]

Yes, absolutely.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What amendments he plans to table to the Health and Social Care Bill.

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[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

22. What steps he is taking to extend the choice that patients have over the treatment they receive from the NHS.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Government have consulted on proposals to give patients greater choice and control over their care and treatment. We have deferred publication of our response to take into account the results of the listening exercise.

[Mr Evennett]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and refer him to the King’s Fund paper, “Patient choice”, which was published in March 2010. Does he agree that people value being able to choose and that the exercise of choice raises standards and encourages NHS providers to design services around patients and their needs?

[Mr Burns]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am certainly aware of the King’s Fund publication. The report was cited as a key source of evidence in the consultation document, “Liberating the NHS”. The Department of Health welcomes this significant contribution to the evidence base, which will inform how we implement the choice commitments set out in the White Paper, “Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS”.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

When I was first elected, I regularly received letters from constituents who were concerned about how long they had to wait for treatment. During the years of the Labour Government, those letters went away, but they are coming back again. What I know from my constituents is that their main choice is not to have to wait. Is that a choice that this Government are going to offer them or will waiting times increase?

[Mr Burns]

The choice this Government will offer them will make sure that they get the finest quality health care, where they can exercise their choice of which hospital to go to, which consultant to see, which GP to see, without having to wait unduly for that treatment.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

T3. According to recent press reports, hospitals have used money earmarked for front-line NHS services to pay salaries to trade union officials. Does my right hon. Friend consider it acceptable to spend taxpayers’ money on paying union hatchet people, and will he order an investigation?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Government consider it right for NHS staff to have access to trade union representatives at work, but that should not be abused. Arrangements for reimbursing staff for trade union activities should be agreed locally between trusts and unions. There are no current plans to review union facility time.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T6. Given that, according to the King’s Fund, waiting times are increasing as a result of the reorganisation, does the Minister expect things to improve now that the financial squeeze is starting to bite?

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[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Given that Department of Health officials are actively discussing the privatisation of my local trust behind closed doors and are signing secret documents, will the Minister publish all those documents and will he make a statement in the House about the Government’s plans to privatise some of our NHS hospitals?

[Mr Burns]

I am afraid that I do not accept the premise of the question. May I tell the hon. Gentleman that this Government are not seeking and will not ever seek to privatise either the whole of the NHS or an individual trust? St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is, like all other health trusts, currently agreeing plans to achieve foundation trust status by April 2014. That involves ongoing discussions with the North West strategic health authority and the Department of Health to determine the issues the trust faces and the actions needed to address them.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

May I join my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) in supporting the children’s heart unit in Leeds? If the review fails to take full account of, and reflect on, the issues raised, what steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that that is done so that we can fully understand the problems that would face families in Yorkshire?