Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House. He makes an incredibly important point about this very stressful time, particularly for women, in his area. We will listen to women and deliver evidence-based improvements to make maternity and neonatal services safer and more equitable for women and their babies, and we have committed to delivering the long-term workforce plan.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

T7. In one month alone at the West Hertfordshire teaching hospitals trust, we lost 843 days because of the social care backlog. The burden of that cost is often taken up by families and individuals, which impacts not only on them, but on the rest of our NHS healthcare. I welcome the talk about working together across parties, but would the Secretary of State also consider introducing greater support for unpaid carers, including paid carers leave and a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks?

[Wes Streeting]

I warmly welcome the hon. Member to her place. She is absolutely right to raise the plight of unpaid family carers. They are part of the team, as far as this Government are concerned, so as we set out our 10-year plan for social care as part of our ambition to build the national care service, we will make sure that unpaid family carers are very much at the centre of our thinking, in no small part thanks to her representations.