Vicky Foxcroft
Main Page: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)Department Debates - View all Vicky Foxcroft's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend is right. Just to reassure him, I do not think that any Health Secretary would ever say the NHS does not need additional funding. He makes an important point, and the truth is that at the 2010 election there was one party that wanted to cut funding for the NHS. It was the Labour party, and we stopped it.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
When my sister broke her neck only weeks ago, I saw at first hand the pressures that NHS staff are under. They start shifts early and finish shifts late, and there are not the right staffing levels on wards. Those staff were amazing, however. The NHS is now short of 100,000 staff because of this Government’s neglect of the NHS workforce. Will the Government apologise to all NHS workers for undervaluing them for so long?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Lady needs to look at the facts before making those kinds of claims. Let us look at what has happened in the last five years—the period during which I have been Health Secretary. The numbers of qualified clinical staff have not gone down, but have gone up by 43,000. We are doing everything we can to increase the capacity of the NHS, and the hon. Lady should be welcoming that.