Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Sir Bruce is free to meet anyone he likes. Actually, he had a meeting with MPs last month, which the right hon. Lady could have attended if she had wanted to do so, and there was extensive engagement with local south-east London MPs before the decision on Lewisham hospital was made.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

8. How many accident and emergency departments he visited in an official capacity in winter 2012-13.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I regularly visit a range of services across the NHS. Since taking up post in September 2012, I have visited 28 NHS front-line services, including seven A and E departments.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that a freedom of information request to the Department of Health revealed that he did not visit an A and E unit until April 2013, a full six months after his appointment and despite a clear A and E crisis over the winter-spring period under his supervision?

[Mr Hunt]

As ever, the Labour party is being selective in its use of information. As I have said, I visited seven A and E departments, including over the Easter period when we had some severe A and E pressures that I wanted to investigate for myself. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman about another thing that this Government have done that his Government never did: it is not just Ministers who are going out on to the front line; we have asked all our civil servants to go on to the front line for up to four weeks. I am extremely proud that my Department will be the first to connect with the front line in that way, and am even prouder of the response from my own civil servants, who embraced the scheme with great enthusiasm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her determined campaigning on this issue. She will agree that we must allow the law to follow its course. The police are looking at the five reports on hospital safety that were undertaken, the inquests and the lists of patients who appear to have been treated badly, and they are talking to the relatives of those patients. We must allow them to do their work, but no one is above the law, and particularly in this case it is important that justice be done.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

T10. With the Department of Health having awarded Cleveland fire brigade £198,000 from its social enterprise investment fund, will the Minister confirm, pursuant to concerns raised by the Fire Industry Association, that his Department undertook an assessment as to the compliance with the European state aid regulations of the state’s funding of community interest companies that compete to take business away from the private sector?

[Dr Poulter]

I would be very happy to look further into the issue and to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it.