Oral Answers to Questions

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight this important issue. As he knows, the Department is negotiating with the manufacturer to purchase the vaccine at a cost-effective price, and he will understand that we need to ensure that NHS funds are used as effectively as possible. We are keen to see a positive conclusion to the negotiations as soon as possible so that plans for the Men B immunisation programme can be finalised.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State explain why NHS England has entered into a contract with a company based in Kent to provide GP services, when my constituents have just seen a string of locum GPs at a higher cost to the NHS?

[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.