Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Audited 2011-12 figures on NHS exit packages, including redundancies, are not yet available. The data will be available in the summer, once the Department’s annual report and accounts are laid before Parliament.

[Alex Cunningham]

The latest figures from the Department show that the cost of reorganising the NHS on Teesside is more than £50 million, including £9 million in redundancy payments to hundreds of staff who have lost their jobs. At the same time the Minister is demanding massive cuts of £40 million from the local hospital trust. Will he apologise to the people of Teesside for wasting their money and confirm that none of those made redundant will be re-hired in the new structures?

[Mr Burns]

No, of course I will not. What the hon. Gentleman fails to recognise is that the NHS must continually evolve to meet challenges and that this is the best chance the NHS has to improve and drive up standards. What he fails to mention in his question is that the £1.2 billion to £1.3 billion cost of the reform will lead, between now and the next election, to £4.5 billion of savings, £1.5 billion every year thereafter until 2020, and every single penny of that money will be reinvested in front-line services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns]

The straightforward answer is no, because the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts has said that it intends to appeal. This is an independent review. It would be inappropriate for me or any other Minister to interfere in such a review, because we could be accused of compromising its independence.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister promised a bare-knuckle fight to save A and E and maternity units at King George hospital, Chase Farm hospital and other hospitals that the Secretary of State now plans to close. When will that fight take place, and where can hon. Members purchase tickets for ringside seats?

[Mr Burns]

I heard what the hon. Gentleman said, and I was disappointed that we did not reach his question on the Order Paper earlier, because he has been extremely concerned about the A and E in his own area in Hartlepool. That decision was taken on safety grounds. Emergency care has been provided at the One Life centre. The decision was taken with the support of the local overview and scrutiny committee, which he will appreciate has democratic accountability. That was the right decision. Where there are clinical reasons for taking such decisions, they should be taken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

16. What estimate he has made of the average amount of time per week GPs will allocate to the administration of commissioning consortia under his proposals for NHS reform.

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

We anticipate that GPs will focus on the aspects of commissioning that will benefit most from their clinical expertise and understanding of patients’ needs. Only a minority of clinicians will play a hands-on, executive role in consortia. Moreover, they will be able to secure support services to assist with their administrative and commissioning duties.

[Alex Cunningham]

At present, GPs are able to spend only about eight or nine minutes on average with each patient. How can the Secretary of State expect GPs to be meaningfully engaged in commissioning when, unlike him, they are putting patients first?

[Mr Burns]

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State actually understands the situation. It is not true that doctors see patients for only eight minutes; GPs see their patients for the length of time that they feel they should see them. The concept that GPs will have their time taken away from looking after patients to do commissioning is not right, because GPs will employ commissioners with expertise to work with them and do the commissioning for them, so that they can get on with looking after their patients.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

How can the Minister justify the already increasing delay in people having cancer diagnostic tests?

[Mr Simon Burns]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was here earlier, but we explained in great detail about the target that never existed. The latest figures show that the median time has gone from 1.7 weeks to 1.9 weeks, but that is because those figures were for the period between June and August—the holiday time—when many people changed their bookings or appointments to fit in with the school holidays or their own holidays. The figures for September are already on course to get us back to the median for that time of the year.

Hospital Services (North-East)

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Burns]

I will certainly explain that when I get on to the specific point about Hartlepool because, unfortunately, as will be unveiled to the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Hartlepool, their comments today are based on a false premise and show that they do not fully understand the previous speeches on the issue, or the meeting we had at the Department of Health. All will be unveiled shortly, and I hope that the shadow Minister will understand the reasoning behind the decision taken.

As I was saying, as part of the vision, and the moving forward on the White Paper, we want every hospital trust in the country to become a foundation trust. We want to direct every aspect of the national health service at delivering clinical outcomes that are as good as, or better than, any in the world. The north-east is already ahead of the game in many respects. In November 2009, it became the first and only region in England to have all of its NHS hospital and mental health trusts awarded foundation trust status. When the Care Quality Commission reviewed hospital services in the region last year, every single hospital trust and every ambulance service was rated either good or excellent for the quality of their services. That gave the north-east the highest score in England for the third year running.

Among those hospital trusts, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust all received double excellent scores for both quality of services and the use of resources. The high quality of services across the north-east is down to the skill, dedication, creativity and sheer hard work of the thousands of NHS staff across the region. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and wish them well in their continued success in providing first-class care and services to the people of the north-east.

[Alex Cunningham]

Would the Minister care to help us get a hat trick, and to go from double to triple excellence, by having a brand new hospital for the people of North Tees and Hartlepool?

[Mr Burns]

I admire the hon. Gentleman for his persistence. If he could have a little patience, I shall talk about the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, and will then come on to the hospital that has so dominated the debate.

My hon. Friend mentioned Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and its proposal to build a £75-million emergency care hospital in Cramlington. I am advised that planning permission is currently being sought for the proposed site and that further development work is under way. I hope that that goes some way to answering the point that he raised. I will make sure that I write to him during the next week or so on the other points that he mentioned to explain all the outstanding issues.

I shall now turn to the review of the hospital in North Tees and Hartlepool. The hon. Member for Hartlepool specifically raised the Government’s decision to cancel North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust’s proposal for a new hospital building. As I stated in the House in our last debate on this matter on 5 July, the original proposal for a publicly funded capital scheme received Treasury approval in March this year, in the run-up to the general election. In view of the shocking state of the public finances and the desperate need to reduce the £155 billion deficit, which I need not remind Labour Members was left to us by their Government, the Treasury and other Departments reviewed every significant spending decision made under the previous Government between 1 January 2010 and the general election on 6 May.

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust

Debate between Simon Burns and Alex Cunningham

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Burns]

I am very short of time, but yes.

[Alex Cunningham]

I have just one question. Will the funding for those two centres in Stockton and Billingham be guaranteed?

[Mr Burns]

As I understand it, the finance is in place, and I assume that the measures will proceed on that basis.

Any new proposals to develop local NHS services must be affordable, but they must also now take into account the further criteria on service reconfiguration recently set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I believe that it is vital that any proposals focus on improving patient outcomes, are based on sound clinical evidence, increase choice for patients, and have the backing of GP commissioners. I, like the hon. Gentleman, his hon. Friends and everyone else in this country, want a high-quality NHS that is accountable to patients and led and controlled locally. This Government have been elected on a platform of real-terms increases in the NHS budget for every year of this five-year Parliament. But hand in hand with that, we must have an NHS that puts patients at the centre of high-quality care and delivers care that is efficient, productive and, importantly, affordable. This must be the case nationally; it must also be the case locally, including for the people of Stockton North and Teesside.

Question put and agreed to.