Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Rosena Allin-Khan

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend should rest assured that we will deal with crimes against humanity wherever in the world they happen.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

A year ago, we began hearing first-hand accounts of the horrors taking place in Rakhine state. I travelled to the region as a doctor and am still haunted by my meetings with mothers who had to choose between rescuing their children from fires and running with the ones who were still alive. The military have now focused their attention on the Kachin in Myanmar. Can the Secretary of State tell me how many more minority groups in the country will be persecuted before the UK Government hold Aung San Suu Kyi and her military to account?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady should rest assured that we absolutely believe that everyone responsible for these atrocities must be held to account. I hope to meet Aung San Suu Kyi; I think I have probably expressed the disappointment felt on both sides of the House that she has not taken the stand that many of us who have admired her for many years had hoped she might. The key issue is whether she chooses to go down the path of Burmese nationalism or whether she recognises that all citizens of her country are entitled to high standards of treatment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Rosena Allin-Khan

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I think I have said to my hon. Friend in the House, and I have certainly said to my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles)—who I am delighted to see back in the Chamber after an incredibly brave battle against cancer—that this was a temporary closure based on difficulties in recruiting doctors, so I will certainly look into the issue very carefully.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Last winter, patients were languishing on trolleys in A&E for up to 12 hours. The Red Cross was called in, and people were leaving A&E before their treatment. Does the Secretary of State recognise that it would be absolutely unacceptable for that to happen again this winter? What steps is he taking to ensure that it will not?

[Mr Hunt]

With respect, the Red Cross was not called in. As the hon. Lady well knows—as a doctor working at Tooting hospital—NHS trusts contract with the Red Cross throughout the year. However, she is right to say that what happened last year was not acceptable. We have done a huge amount: perhaps most important is our provision of an extra £1 billion for this year’s social care budget and a further £1 billion for next year’s budget, because that is where particular pressures were, but we have also allocated £100 million to a capital fund to help A&E departments to improve their facilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Rosena Allin-Khan

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

There is a crisis in mental health staffing levels. Does the Secretary of State accept that today, throughout the country, there are 2,000 fewer mental health nurses than there were when he took charge five years ago?

[Mr Hunt]

What I accept is that we have 30,000 more professionals working in mental health than when my Government came into office. There has been a decline in the number of mental health nurses, but we have in place plans to train 8,000 more mental health nurses, and that will make a big difference.[Official Report, 17 October 2017, Vol. 629, c. 6MC.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Rosena Allin-Khan

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I heard a lot about Stepping Hill when I went to visit my hon. Friend; I think it was last year. I had the privilege of visiting the hospital more recently after the horrific terrorist attacks, and I commend the hospital for the brilliant work that it did in the wake of the bomb. The hospital has done a good job of recruiting; I think it has recruited 93 more doctors and nearly 300 more nurses since 2010. A national programme to help all trusts to retain their nursing staff has been launched by NHS Improvement in the last week.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

In this country, we are short of approximately 40,000 nurses, and applications for nursing places have gone down by 23%. Can the Secretary of State tell us why he and his Government think that that is the case?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady happens to work in an NHS hospital in which there has been a big increase in the number of nurses. Across the country, there are actually 13,000 more nurses working on our wards than there were in 2010, but she is right: we need more nurses and nursing staff, and that is why we are expanding the number of nurse associates. This year we are, for the first time, opening up an apprenticeship route into nursing, which means that people from non-traditional backgrounds—particularly band 3 healthcare assistants—will find it much easier to get into nursing. That is how we will expand the workforce.

NHS Shared Business Services

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Rosena Allin-Khan

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The company has been stripped of that contract; it was relieved of the contract back in 2015. We are very clear that it will have to fulfil all its contractual requirements, including paying its fair share of the costs that have been incurred as a result of this wholly regrettable incident.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Patient confidentiality and safety must be treated with the utmost seriousness at all times, and the NHS fails if it loses the trust of its patients, so how did the Secretary of State for Health come to the conclusion that risk to more than 1,700 patients was merely due to an issue of mail redistribution?

[Mr Hunt]

I did not come to that conclusion. The hon. Lady is right, as a doctor, to say that patients’ trust in the way we hold their records is very important. In this case, the correspondence concerning patients was not forwarded, but it was not lost either. It was held securely, so no patient data were put at risk, but it should have been forwarded to another part of the NHS, and it was not; it was effectively stockpiled. That is what caused the concerns. We have been going through the high-priority cases. So far, the vast majority of cases have had two clinical reviews, and the ones we are still concerned about are having a third clinical review. We are taking this extremely seriously.