Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Paul Burstow
Of course what the hon. Gentleman omits to mention in seeking to give an impression is this: the implication is that social services are not coping with delayed discharges and are the principal cause of them, but the figures do not bear that proposition out. [Interruption.] Indeed, the extra investment the Government are making in reablement services means that discharges in this area are being assisted and improving—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The question has been asked, and the Minister is giving his answer. Members may like it or dislike it, but they have a duty to listen to it with courtesy. While I am about it, let me emphasise that there is far too much sedentary noise coming from both Front-Bench teams. I think that the Minister has finished his answer; we are grateful to him.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
5. What assessment he has made of the availability of insulin pumps for young diabetics.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
Of course, it is not just Wythenshawe A and E that is facing difficulties. All Members throughout the House are grateful for the work our medical professionals do in extremely trying circumstances, but the truth is that the Government’s chaotic reorganisation has resulted in longer waits in accident and emergency. The Minister of State said last night that A and E departments were meeting the target, but figures published by his Department last week show that the Government have failed to meet the 95% target across major type 1 A and E units. If he cannot get his own figures right, he cannot expect to command the trust of patients or medical professionals. Will he now take this opportunity to show some respect for this House, for the public and for patients in general, and correct the record?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just explain that the Minister did not widen the parameters of the exchange and therefore they should not be widened, so he is perfectly within his rights, if he wishes, to focus his reply on Wythenshawe. I hope he is not going to be too disappointed. We’ll give it a go.
Mr Burns
I am most grateful.
Of course, the hon. Gentleman is playing with the figures. As he knows from previous discussions, he is talking about the SITREP—situation report—figures, which do not form the basis of the figures the Government use. [Interruption.] If he will keep quiet for a minute and listen, I will reiterate the point I made last night. Regarding A and E waits of under four hours and the percentile of 95, we are at 96%, which means we are within and above the level set down by the Government’s figures.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Last week, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust cleared an important milestone towards becoming a foundation trust. An historical debt remains, largely as a result of punitive accounting measures under Gordon Brown. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State do everything that he can to ensure that when the Royal Cornwall becomes a foundation trust, it is debt-free?
Mr Speaker
I think the hon. Lady was referring to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). For future reference, we do not refer to Members of the House by name.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will, I am sure, know that an application for foundation trust status from the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is currently being considered by my Department. The trust is being assessed on whether it meets the quality, service, performance, business strategy, finance and governance standards required if a trust is to be an FT. Once the trust has demonstrated that it has met those standards in all other regards, the Department will ensure that any outstanding liquidity issues are resolved in time for the trust to be authorised as an FT. The process of assessing FT applications will ensure that any remaining debt carried by the trust when it becomes a foundation trust is affordable within the trust’s forward plans.
Mr Speaker
Order. There is, frankly, too much noise on both sides of the House. It does not suit the Minister now for the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) to shout from a sedentary position, and I absolutely understand, similarly, that it does not suit Opposition Members when the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues chunter from a sedentary position. Let us have a truce, and the right hon. Gentleman can be a statesman—we look forward to it.
Mr Burns
As ever. I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the interpretation of what has happened with regard to the trust’s performance. There has been an historic problem with its performance, but I pay tribute to the staff, who have made tremendous efforts to improve performance, and have achieved some improvement. The trouble is that it is not sustainable not to put the trust on a sustainable financial footing. The hon. Gentleman said that he would like a meeting with me or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] As he will know, if he keeps quiet for a minute, I have written to him offering a meeting with my right hon. Friend, on 24 July; I hope that the hon. Gentleman can attend.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am grateful to Ministers and all colleagues, but as usual, demand has exceeded supply. I am sorry to disappoint some colleagues but we must now move on.
National Health Service
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. The Front-Bench winding-up speeches will begin at 7.10 pm, so the two remaining colleagues can divide the time if they wish, but not if they do not. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.
Adult Social Care
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. The Opposition Front-Bench speech must start at 9.40 pm, so the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) has a tiny window of time in which to make his contribution.
NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
On the whole, if at all possible, and it is not always possible, I prefer to avoid sibling rivalry so I shall now call Mr Keith Vaz.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I declare my interest as a type 2 diabetic and say how disappointed I am that the Secretary of State did not mention diabetes in his statement today? Fifty per cent. of adult diabetics have not had the nine care processes that are necessary. Will he ensure that commissioning groups are asked to ring-fence resources to help with diabetes prevention?
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should not keep shouting out. He has asked his question and had the answer. We will now move on.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the lasting achievements of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 will be the integration of health and social care, which will be excellent news for people recovering from strokes or meningitis?
Mental Health
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
At this stage, there is no time limit on Back-Bench contributions. Let us see how it goes.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Claire Perry
Will the Secretary of State help by telling me how we can communicate out this example so that other MPs can repeat this valuable exercise?
Nadhim Zahawi
The CCG covering my constituency is interested in improving patient care by looking at new methods of contracting and management, but it has been told that it must use a clinical support service set up by the primary care trust, staffed by ex-PCT staff and most likely based in Birmingham, rather than south Warwickshire, at a cost of £4 million a year. Could the Secretary of State—
Nadhim Zahawi
I apologise, Mr Speaker. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is no need for the CCG to use such an organisation and that it is free to form its own commissioning structure without incurring redundancy and wind-up costs from the PCT?
Mr Lansley
I spend more time in hospitals than the right hon. Gentleman has hot dinners, I suspect—[Interruption.] The weekend before last, I spent two days in hospitals and I did not require any policemen to be there.
Let me make it clear. In A and E, we have 96.6% of patients being seen, treated and discharged within four hours. More to the point, the latest data on A and E show that the average time spent there came down from 57 minutes to 49. On the question of referral to treatment, we inherited more than 209,000 patients across the NHS who were waiting beyond 18 weeks for their treatment. According to the latest data, that figure went down by nearly 50,000. We are delivering for patients better and improving care. I wish the right hon. Gentleman would get on his feet—perhaps he will do it now—thank the NHS and congratulate it on the improving care, rather than trying to find the one thing wrong with it—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not want to be unkind, but every month the Secretary of State’s answers are too long. Perhaps he can make this the first month in which he is rather more economical.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
2. What the cost to the public purse was of NHS staff redundancies in 2011-12.
Anne Milton
I heartily congratulate my hon. Friend on his considerable success, which he has put on the record. We have a number of initiatives, not least the NHS’s quit helpline. There has been a rise in the number of people phoning it and in the number of people who are attempting to quit. He is an example not only to his constituents, but to many Members around the House.
Mr Speaker
On both the Front Benches and the Back Benches in all parts of the House, I suspect.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
How do the Government intend to ring-fence the public health money that will be given to local authorities?
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
22. I congratulate the Secretary of State on yet another initiative that has helped to ensure that patients in England have a better standard of health service than their counterparts in Wales. What is his message to Welsh Members of Parliament who call on him to stop various reforms and expect him to impose the second-class standards of health service that we see in Wales thanks to the Welsh Assembly?
Mr Speaker
With reference purely, of course, to the public health responsibility deal.
Mr Lansley
Yes indeed. There are serious public health challenges to be faced up to in Wales, and it would be much better if the Labour Government in Wales, instead of cutting the budget by 6.5% as they are planning to do, increased it in real terms as the coalition Government are doing in England.
Mr Lansley
I must correct the hon. Lady. We did not say that we would legislate in the current Session. What we made clear was that we would publish a White Paper—which we will do—and that we would publish a progress report on funding reform. We were also clear—as we still are—about the fact that, as part of the coalition programme, we would act urgently, and we will continue to do so.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Department of Health is to be asked to sign off the business case for the transfer of services from Lambert Memorial community hospital to the new extra care housing scheme—sometimes called an extra sheltered accommodation scheme—in updated community facilities. Will the Secretary of State give me a personal assurance that there will be no sign-off until the future of Thirsk’s community hospital is guaranteed for its current purposes?
Points of Order
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The Minister is literally falling over himself to do so. We must hear from the Minister.
Mr Burns
I hope that I am not falling over, Mr Speaker.
It may be useful to the House if I correct the shadow Minister’s misapprehension. What I gave, and what I stand by, were the latest figures for full-time equivalents in the NHS work force. Since May 2010, the number of qualified nursing staff has fallen by 2,693. That is the figure I gave the shadow Minister, and it comes from the category in the work force statistics headed “qualified nursing staff”—[Interruption]—which includes, as the chorus are echoing, midwives and health visitors.
Mr Speaker
I am reassured that the Minister has not fallen over, and I think that we are all better informed. What we cannot have, and what I am sure no one would seek, is a rerun of Health questions, but we have been given that clarification, for which we are grateful.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you had a request from a Defence Minister to be allowed to come to the House to explain today’s contemptible announcement that 4,100 members of Her Majesty’s armed forces are to be made redundant, that about a third of the redundancies will be compulsory, and that about 2,900 will be in the Army? I should be interested to know whether any of those being made redundant are in 16 Air Assault Brigade, which is based at Colchester garrison. Little over a year ago, they were fighting in Afghanistan and putting their lives on the line. Is there to be a ministerial statement?
Mr Speaker
No, but, knowing the hon. Gentleman as I have for the last 15 years, since we entered the House together, I have just a hunch that this is a matter to which he will return, possibly with notable frequelarity. Regularity? Frequency? I am getting there. [Hon. Members: “A lot.”] A lot: indeed.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. It would appear that this afternoon the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the leader of the Labour party, accused the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) of perjuring himself yesterday. Is it in order, Mr Speaker, for members of the Privy Council who sit in this House to make such accusations without explaining themselves to you or to the House?
Mr Speaker
I am not aware of any such accusation having being made. Immediately after the hon. Gentleman had raised his point of order, he sat down with a very bright grin on his face, so I shall take his remarks as having been made in a spirit of levity on which no further comment is required.
Dementia Services (South-West)
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), perhaps I could appeal to Members who are leaving the Chamber—unaccountably not wishing to remain to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s speech—to do so quickly and quietly, affording the same courtesy to the right hon. Gentleman that they would want to be extended to them.
Health Transition Risk Register
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
Most of that was synthetic indignation. I am really surprised; the right hon. Gentleman cannot have read any of the review of the risk register that I published on Tuesday. That set out, in detail, all the risk areas carried in the risk register and the mitigating actions that have been taken. There is in no sense any area of risk identified 18 months ago that has not been put into the public domain in a proper form—one that reflects not only the character of those risks, but how those risks have been subsequently addressed.
The right hon. Gentleman is completely confused about the issue. The point of the veto was to confirm that it was not in the public interest for the risk register in December 2010 to be published in relation to the November 2010 document. That point was made very clearly. Acting as we did was not in any sense above the law; it was absolutely in accordance with the law. It is in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act and with the structure of the management of risk. For the further clarification of the House, on Tuesday I published the risk management strategy associated with the transition programme, so the right hon. Gentleman can see that it is exactly in line with how the Government manage such risks.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about our intention to publish the risk register. We will publish it at a point when it would not prejudice the exemption for officials for the formulation and development of policy. There will come a time when it is appropriate to do so, when doing so will not prejudice that exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.
The right hon. Gentleman is completely wrong to suggest that no evidence was presented to the first-tier tribunal relating to the potentially damaging effect of publication under these circumstances. As the former Cabinet Secretary, Lord O’Donnell made those risks very clear to the tribunal. Who is better placed than him to say that? He must know that in another place, during debates on this precise issue of publication and relevance to the legislation, other Cabinet Secretaries and Members clearly stated their view that the publication of the transition risk register would run that risk.
The right hon. Gentleman is speaking directly contrary to his own view. When he was a Minister, he said in relation to a request for publication of a departmental risk register:
“Putting the risk register in the public domain would be likely to reduce the detail and utility of its contents.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1192W.]
He is making an absolutely spurious distinction between the transition register and the strategic register. [Interruption.] It is no good him shouting. The overlap between the two registers and the character of the formulation and development of policy—
Mr Speaker
Order. I appeal to the House to calm down. I say to the shadow Secretary of State that he has asked a series of questions and must await the answers. I say to the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), a distinguished practitioner at the Bar, that if she conducted herself in the court room as she has here, the judge would not be amused—and I am sure that she would not do it.
Mr Lansley
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me be clear. The right hon. Gentleman, as a Minister, refused requests for the publication of risk registers. This risk register, the transition risk register, at the point when it was requested and formulated, was absolutely part of the formulation and development of policy and has continued to be used as part of the development of policy.
To make it clearer what the Labour party actually thinks about the issue, I should say that a Conservative party member recently submitted a request for a risk register to the one place where the Labour Government remain in power—in Wales. What did the Labour Government say? On 12 April 2012, less than a month ago, the Welsh Assembly Labour Government said:
“Release of the risk register would inhibit the way in which such risks are expressed, which potentially makes the management and mitigation of risk more difficult. This in turn would impair the quality of decision making when determining the most appropriate response to an identified risk. Ultimately this could impede the delivery of Ministerial priorities and inhibit the effective management of NHS performance, in both delivery and financial terms.”
That request to a Labour Government for an NHS risk register was turned down for precisely the reasons we have rejected the request for risk registers in relation to the NHS. The Labour party says one thing, but in government it did another and in government in Wales it does another.
Instead of spending his time debating an 18-month-old document—it is now out of date, frankly—the right hon. Gentleman ought to be recognising the reality of what is happening in the NHS. Instead of the risks that he keeps talking about happening, NHS performance is improving, and he should celebrate that. Waiting times are down, there are more diagnostic tests, and waiting times for diagnostic tests have been maintained. There is extra access to dentistry, cancer drugs and new cancer medicines. Health care-acquired infections in the NHS are at their lowest-ever level and the performance of the NHS is continually improving. As shadow Secretary of State, he would be better off celebrating the performance of the NHS than trying to run it down.
Mr Speaker
Order. The difficulty with that question, although I am sure that it was sincerely intended, is that it relates to the policies of a previous Administration, for which of course the Secretary of State has no responsibility.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Should the Information Commissioner and the tribunal decide to approve the release of other risk registers, be it those that cover other work by his Department or the work of other Departments, such as the Work programme, has the Cabinet already decided also to veto their release?
Oral Answers to Questions
John Bercow Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
The hon. Lady should first have expressed a welcome for the fact that there has been a further reduction overall in the numbers of teenage pregnancies. As she knows, in her constituency there are doctors who, as she says, do not provide contraceptives, but there are also many other practices that do—17 out 18 GP practices in Walthamstow provide contraceptive services. There was a 60% increase in a decade in the number of managers in her area and the result seems to be that she does not understand how services were managed in Walthamstow. Under local authorities and the clinical commissioning groups in the future, there will be a clearer system.
Mr Speaker
No one could accuse the Secretary of State of being other than comprehensive. We are grateful to him.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that under the allocation formula a number of PCTs have built up historic deficits, which have required us in Warrington, for example, to reduce our in vitro fertilisation services. Can the Minister confirm that with the transfer to GP commissioning, those historic deficits will be written off, which will in effect inject large amounts of money into local health economies such as Warrington’s?
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
Is the Minister aware of the publication today of the industrial action review by the London ambulance service, which details that on 30 November, the day of the public service strikes, in the afternoon and the evening, requests for front-line staff to return to front-line ambulances were made by the London ambulance service. However, of the three unions to strike, only Unison responded to say that it would not ask staff to return to work. Three hours later, after three repeated requests for help, a patient who had been unable to get an ambulance had died. The report has called—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. I do not wish to be unkind, but topical questions are about short questions, and that was not. I am very sorry. The Minister may give a brief reply if he wishes.
Mr Simon Burns
The industrial action to which my hon. Friend refers showed both the best and the worst sides of industrial relations in this country. On the one hand, it showed the worst excesses of union militancy and intransigence in failing to put effective contingency plans in place ahead of strike day, and then in refusing to call off the strike. On the other hand, it showed the best traditions of public services when the Metropolitan police, St John Ambulance and many out-of-hour providers came to the aid of the London ambulance service. Were it not for their help, the situation could have been even more serious.
Mr Speaker
The Minister’s power to anticipate what will be said to him is extremely impressive, and I congratulate him immensely warmly.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
One year on, are the pledges under the responsibility deal working?
Mr Speaker
Order. I thank colleagues for their co-operation. I am sorry to disappoint those who were waiting, but we must move on.