Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

Wherever we can avoid it, we do not want to use locum GPs or nurses or agency doctors, because they are much more expensive—our spend on that is far too high—but sometimes when there are issues of patient safety we need a quick solution. That is what has happened in response to the Francis report: as well as recruiting 5,000 additional nurses on a permanent basis, we are using extra agency nurses. However, we hope to bring those numbers down.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

T5. I congratulate the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care and support, on securing the introduction of NHS waiting times for mental health for the first time next year. How will he ensure that the resulting treatment is not only timely but evidence-based and effective?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

Last week, Mike Richards told me how waiting-time standards had transformed cancer care, and I think the same can happen for mental health. It is outrageous that somebody with a suspected cancer gets seen by a specialist within two weeks, but that if someone has a first episode of psychosis, who knows what will happen to them. That discrimination has to end, and we are delivering that.