NHS England Update
Debate between Wes Streeting and Emma Foody(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Wes Streeting
The hon. Member is absolutely right: the estate is vast, it is underutilised, and we need to sweat our assets more effectively. We also need to reform bureaucratic processes. There are lots of reasons why we need to have tough controls on things such as spending, procurement and value for money, to ensure that there is appropriate and effective use of public money. But businesses do not operate in this way; they are able to counter fraud, waste and poor value for money, and they do it much faster. That is what the NHS needs to do. Across the public sector, we need to use our estate far more effectively to deliver better value and better services for the public.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Health Secretary for the announcement he has made. As he rightly says, staff work incredibly hard and deserve our thanks, but we all recognise the huge strain that they and the organisation have been under. The health service is consistently raised as one of the top concerns by residents in my constituency. Can he share how today’s announcement, along with other measures he has previously announced, will build an NHS that is there when people across Cramlington and Killingworth need it?
Wes Streeting
We have to deliver improved services for patients in every part of the country. Her constituency and mine, which is on the London-Essex border, will have different needs, contexts and set-ups, and services may need to be shaped differently in order to meet those needs, but the standards should be consistent, the quality should be good and the safety should be guaranteed at all times. That is a far cry from where we are, and I genuinely think that decisions about services for her constituents will be far better taken much closer to her constituents and her community than here in Whitehall. That is why, as we are delivering month by month and year by year improvements in services for patients in every part of the country, we will also deliver the biggest devolution of power in the history of the national health service.
NHS: Independent Investigation
Debate between Wes Streeting and Emma Foody(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Wes Streeting
I am delighted to see my hon. Friend from Dudley. I agree wholeheartedly, 100%, unequivocally.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
In a recent conversation, a nurse in Brunswick Village in my constituency shared her damning experience of the increasing number of black alerts in her hospital. Does the Secretary of State agree that, although her experience is no surprise to many who have used the NHS recently, the Tories have pushed our NHS to the brink and it is up to Labour to fix it and make it fit for the future?
Government Policy on Health
Debate between Wes Streeting and Emma Foody(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Wes Streeting
My right honourable friend, Alan Milburn, does not have a role in the Department. He does not have a pass to the Department. I am asked whether he has accessed the ministerial floor. I do not know where the Conservatives held their meetings, but I tend to hold them in my office on the ministerial floor.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
Across Cramlington and Killingworth, I have heard countless stories—heartbreaking stories—of residents’ experiences of the NHS. They talk about the staggering length of waiting lists, access to GPs and access to dentists. Does the Secretary of State agree that, rather than focusing on who he might have once had a conversation with, the Conservatives would do better supporting the Labour Government in cleaning up the mess they left behind, which my residents live with every single day?
Wes Streeting
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is because of the way that she champions her constituency and her community that she was sent to this place to stand up for their interests. It will not be lost on her constituents or anyone else in the country that, with our national health service in the state that it is in and with the appalling headlines that we have been reading in recent days, the Opposition have absolutely nothing to say about the responsibility that they bear for the crisis or what they would do to fix it. They have the wrong priorities, but, fortunately, the country has the right Government.