"Is the Secretary of State aware that in the course of this hour there have been more questions about hospital closures than about almost anything else, covering East Yorkshire, Berwick on his own side, Warwickshire on our side, and High Peak in Derbyshire, including Bolsover and Bakewell Hospitals? There is …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"Is the Minister aware that in all the years that I have been here, I have never heard of such a decision, particularly one made by this party, presented by a Minister of Health who is constantly telling us all about the Stafford inquiry and how important the last Stafford …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"How many more times is the Secretary of State going to come to this House, as he has done on countless occasions, when he personally is at the centre of a controversy? Even a cat has only nine lives...." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"The Minister says that there are 9 million more patient visits now than there were in 2000. Is he aware that in that climate, shutting hospitals such as the Bolsover community hospital, led by the Hardwick clinical commissioning group, makes no sense at all? He turns a blind eye to …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"He is a mine of information, isn’t he? He would like to contribute, really.
Does the Secretary of State not think that it is a scandal to be shutting Bolsover hospital, with 16 valuable beds that will go for ever, at a time when people are lined up on trolleys …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"But is the Minister aware that in the course of the past few years local authorities—let us say in Derbyshire—have lost more than £200 million from cuts promulgated by the Government? On top of that, they are closing community hospitals in Derbyshire, including Bolsover, with a total of more than …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"One way of making sure that people do not die in the winter or at any other time is for this Government to concentrate on keeping hospitals open, thereby saving the beds. In that context, why does the Secretary of State refuse to answer the question why hospitals such as …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"A lot of figures have been bandied about today. For the record, when Labour inherited office in 1997 the amount spent on the NHS was £33 billion, whereas by the time we left office in 2010, 13 years later, the figure had gone up to £100 billion. It is an …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech
"About half a dozen times in the last hour, the Secretary of State has bragged about the extra money he is putting in to the national health service, so why is Bolsover hospital, like many others that have been referred to in the past half hour, due to close? Why …..." Dennis Skinner - View Speech