Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Debate between Wes Streeting and Clive Efford

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

When I raise concerns about GP appointments, GPs tell me that they have difficulty recruiting to posts in their practices. Too few newly qualified doctors choose general practice as their profession. What can we do to get those doctors in place, so that we can make diagnostics in the community work?

[Wes Streeting]

That is an excellent question. Having put in place funding to ensure that there are 1,000 more GPs on the frontline before April, and having announced just before Christmas a significant uplift for general practice, I hope that in the first six months of this Government, we have sent the strong message to people who aspire to long careers in medicine that general practice has a huge role to play in the NHS in the 21st century. It is an exciting place to be, but I recognise that we have to fix the front door to the NHS to make it more attractive. The situation is even worse than my hon. Friend has described, because when the Conservatives left government, there were qualified GPs unable to find jobs, at a time when patients were unable to find GPs. We got to work on that issue within weeks of taking office, and we will do more over the next 12 months.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Debate between Wes Streeting and Clive Efford

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will rise to the challenge.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. In 2008, the previous Labour Government commissioned a report from Sir Michael Marmot on the state of society and health, and he found that there was health inequality, particularly in deprived areas. Ten years on, his second report found that health inequality had become even worse against the backdrop of an underfunded NHS. Does that not demonstrate the urgency of the need to invest in those communities under this Government? What can my right hon. Friend do to direct resources into the most deprived communities in order to turn around those health inequalities?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that our country has stark health inequalities. It is not right that people who live in different parts of the country have such different chances of living well. A girl born in Blackpool can expect to live healthily until she is 54, whereas a girl born in Winchester can expect to live healthily until she is 66. That is why, with the Prime Minister’s mission-driven approach, we will not just get our NHS back on its feet and make sure it is fit for the future; we will also reduce the cost and burden of demand on our national health service by attacking the social determinants of ill health.

Government Policy on Health

Debate between Wes Streeting and Clive Efford

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

The sheer brass neck of the Conservatives to turn up on the very day that Transparency International UK published its report showing that £15 billion of contracts were red-flagged during the covid epidemic—[Interruption.] I am not reading. Those contracts have been red-flagged and are worthy of further investigation, and £500 million of them were given to companies that had not even lasted 100 days. Should the Conservatives not have taken that into consideration before coming here with this urgent question?

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Frankly, every single contribution from the Opposition Dispatch Box should begin with a grovelling apology for the way they conducted themselves in government, but they will not apologise: they have learnt nothing and they show no humility. To my hon. Friend’s point, when it comes to covid corruption and crony contracts, the message from the Chancellor is clear. We want our money back and the covid commissioner is coming to get it.