NHS

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I acknowledged that there is always pressure in A and E, but the fact is that it performed better in every month when I was Health Secretary than it has under the current Health Secretary. The hon. Gentleman mentions Norfolk again. We have been looking at the Minister’s website, which makes us wonder whether he considers himself a Minister or an observer of events in the NHS. Under the headline “Norman Lamb’s North Norfolk Ambulance Survey” he states:

“I have been campaigning over the last year to improve unacceptable ambulance response times in rural Norfolk.”

My God, this is the Minister! He is campaigning against his own Government.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the Minister will write to the Minister about that problem. The spin from those on the Government Front Bench may kid some of their Back Benchers, and it has certainly kidded some Liberal Democrats who I have been speaking to across the Chamber, but it will not kid patients who go to A and E and see people on trolleys, camp beds or blocked in ambulances.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I would love the Government to explain that everything is fine and that there is no problem at all to more than 100,000 people who have waited more than four hours on a trolley this year, or almost 1 million people who have waited more than four hours in A and E. The complacency is not justified, and if those people were to read the Government’s motion, I am afraid, quite frankly, they would be astonished.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

The beard is certainly helping. I suggest that the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) visit Liverpool Walton, because he will see more food banks there than anywhere else in the country. He will meet families who cannot afford to put enough food on the table to give their kids a decent diet. He will see the direct effects of some of his Government’s policies on some of the most deprived communities in the country.

[Steve Rotheram]

If people who turn up to A and E have malnutrition, it plays havoc with their medication. If they are not eating properly, they can be violently ill from their medication. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a growing problem?

[Andy Burnham]

I agree, and the last time we had a debate on this issue I quoted a well-known GP who said that she has taken to asking her patients whether they are eating properly, because many are presenting with unexplained symptoms that she cannot identify. People on several prescription medicines who are not eating properly are putting themselves at risk—