Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Liz McInnes
Main Page: Liz McInnes (Labour - Heywood and Middleton)Department Debates - View all Liz McInnes's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ben Gummer
My hon. Friend rightly points out that there are specific challenges in Northern, Eastern and Western Devon and that is precisely why NHS England has instituted the success regime and why it has moved quickly to appoint a programme director and team. I hope that with the engagement that I know he will lead with his colleagues they will come to a resolution that will ensure that the challenges cease.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
9. What additional financial support he is making available to the NHS to help it deal with winter pressures.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
17. What additional financial support he is making available to the NHS to help it deal with winter pressures.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Some £400 million in resilience money has been invested in the NHS for this winter. Learning from previous years, we have put this money into the NHS baseline for 2015-16 so that the NHS can plan effectively at an earlier stage.
Liz McInnes
I thank the Secretary of State for his response. In my constituency we have an excellent and much-used facility—a walk-in centre in Middleton town centre—which is now threatened with closure. Will he support our campaign to keep it open? Does he agree that its closure would create more A&E attendances and increase winter pressures on our acute services?
Mr Hunt
I welcome the question and understand the hon. Lady’s concerns about the changes. She will understand that we do not direct these changes centrally and they are decided locally. One of the things we have to try to do is deal with the confusion a lot of people have at a local level as to what they should do when they have, for instance, a child with fever at the weekends and whether they require a GP, an urgent care centre or an A&E department. I would ask all CCGs to be very careful to make sure they sort out that confusion so NHS patients know exactly what they should do.