Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is right to say that the public will be extremely disappointed that professionals are putting patients at risk in such a way, and it is extremely tragic that they are doing so. I am afraid that I think this is a crossing of the Rubicon—crossing a line in a way that has not happened before. I think it is totally tragic, and I support the concern of my right hon. Friend.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

In his statement, the Secretary of State said that this was “in our manifesto”. This is about ideology, not about the NHS. If he cares about the NHS, will he hear the will of the House, contact the BMA straight after this statement and negotiate?

[Mr Hunt]

If by “ideology”, the hon. Lady means a commitment to make the NHS the safest, highest quality health care system in the world, I plead guilty to ideology. That is the NHS that I want, and that means a seven-day NHS in which we do not have higher mortality rates for people admitted at weekends. There was a time when the Labour party would have been prepared to take tough and difficult decisions to make things better for patients, but that day has passed.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right. What patients want is a safe NHS where it does not matter on which day of the week they are admitted if something goes badly wrong. The big surprise here is that this is not something that the whole House can unite behind. It is something that people who believe in the NHS, as I think we all do, should strongly support. We are standing up for those patients, and I hope Labour, the party that founded the NHS, might do the same.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could update the House on any legal action against the Department, and on whether the Department will be defending it.

[Mr Hunt]

We have two cases ongoing, and we are defending them vigorously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his persistent campaigning on behalf of his local trust. He is right that there are big issues there. He is also right generally that the NHS has too rapid a turnover of chief executives. There is a new one, Stephen Eames, who is one of the top-rate NHS chief executives. The Care Quality Commission says that things are improving and mortality rates are going down. I will support my hon. Friend in every way I can to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

As the Manor hospital is in special measures, Walsall mothers-to-be are being denied the right to choose to have their babies at that hospital. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there are safe staffing levels at the Manor and at other hospitals?

[Mr Hunt]

What I can tell the hon. Lady is that we have 83 more doctors and 426 more nurses at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust than we did in May 2010. The trust has a quality improvement plan, and it has had an improvement director since February.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The advantage of the special measures programme is that we tend to make much faster progress in turning round hospitals in difficulty than used to happen in previous years. My hon. Friend will know that, in the past five years, his local trust gained nearly 50 more doctors and more than 100 more nurses. We are making progress, but we need to do it much faster. The hospital will have my full support in getting these problems dealt with quickly.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Walsall NHS trust has been placed into special measures, so what immediate action can the Secretary of State take to ensure that the Manor hospital can recruit the vital staff in paediatrics and A&E that it now needs—not agency staff, but long-term fully employed staff?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that one thing that can tip hospitals into special measures is having too high a proportion of staff from agencies so that a trust cannot offer the continuity of care that other trusts can. There have been an extra 83 full-time doctors at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust over the past five years, along with 422 full-time nurses. An improvement director started this week and we are looking to find a buddy hospital, which is what I think will help most. When it comes to turning hospitals round the fastest, we have found that having a partner hospital can have the biggest effect, as with Guy’s and St Thomas’s for the Medway.

Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has great knowledge of NHS matters. I simply say to junior doctors that this is not just about contracts and pay; it is also about training. Having consultants more available at weekends will help improve training for junior doctors. We will also need to look at continuity of training, which I think has been undermined in recent decades. If junior doctors are looking for a visible reflection of this Government’s commitment to the NHS, they should look at last week’s spending review statement and the extra resources we are putting into the NHS in very tight circumstances. This Government are backing the NHS, and we are doing everything we can to back junior doctors as part of that.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—I was standing.

The Secretary of State referred in his statement—in the last line of page 1 of the copy we have been given—to a “time-limited period” during which negotiations will take place. Is that a day, a week or a month? Will the contract be imposed after that?

[Mr Hunt]

I hope that the hon. Lady will understand that, because I very much hope that the BMA’s junior doctors executive committee will agree to go ahead with the agreement we have made with its negotiators, I do not want at this stage to go into further details about its contents. Obviously, the agreement will be published as soon as it is made, but I think that I would be pre-empting that decision by going into detail. It is a reasonable period of time for negotiations to take place.

NHS Reform

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend because he leads by example as a first responder and does a fantastic job in his constituency—indeed, that role takes place at weekends. Paramedics and ambulance services operate a seven-day service. Nurses, paramedics and others who work in hospitals currently do not have an opt-out; consultants are the only ones who do. These measures will give ambulance services confidence that if they take someone to hospital at the weekend, there will be a proper senior consultant present and their patient will get in front of the right person. That will make their job all the more rewarding.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has not outlined what steps should be taken to recruit, train and retain front-line staff who are key to patient safety.

[Mr Hunt]

We have big plans to recruit and retain staff, and those are being worked up by Health Education England. We think that we will need extra doctors to deliver seven-day care, just as we will need more GPs. We think we can afford that within the extra £10 billion that we are putting into the NHS, and we are ensuring that all the numbers add up. I am sure that I will inform the House once we have come to a conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend had to go to hospital at the start of the election campaign, but I congratulate her on being probably the only Member of the House to have launched their campaign from an NHS hospital ward. I trust that all the nurses voted for her as a result.

Inexplicably, the trust that my hon. Friend talked about was made a foundation trust in 2008, despite a number of problems that were not recognised. Since then, it has made dramatic improvements in its care, with more doctors and more nurses. I am delighted that it is on track to deliver better care.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

How many of the hospitals in special measures have implemented recommendation 13 of the final Francis report on fundamental standards?

[Mr Hunt]

I would expect that all trusts have done so. If they have not, they will not come out of special measures. That is the benefit of a rigorous, independent inspection regime. Seven trusts have come out of special measures. I hope that the others will come out in due course, but that is not a decision for me; rightly, it is a decision for the chief inspector of hospitals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern about what is happening at the Royal Stoke. Some of the care there was totally unacceptable; there should be no 12-hour trolley waits anywhere in the NHS. I have said that I support a full 24/7 A&E service at County hospital as soon as we can find a way of doing it that is clinically safe, and I will certainly work hard to do everything I can to make that happen.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State ensure that other local hospitals, such as the Manor hospital, which have had to take up the slack following the closure of A&E and maternity services also get some support?

[Mr Hunt]

We absolutely will take a whole health economy view of that, and look at all hospitals that are affected by the changes.