North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

Exactly. The new hospital would have kick-started development in the area, creating many thousands of jobs. The owners of Wynyard park believe that the new hospital would have been a considerable incentive for investment by others to develop the type of industries mentioned by my hon. Friend. Most important of all, the coalition’s decision to scrap the new hospital will have a major detrimental effect on continuing the work to close the gap between the unhealthiest and healthiest in our communities.

I am therefore grateful to the Minister, who has agreed to a request from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) for a meeting to discuss how we can keep our hospital project alive. I look forward to the meeting to discuss the way forward and will listen intently to his response this evening, in the hope that the door to funding is not already firmly closed. At present there are many more questions than answers about the future of acute services in our region. What is the future of health care, of our strategy for a new hospital, and of the organisations, such as the foundation trust, that plan care? There is so much doubt.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that meeting is an important opportunity for the coalition Government to demonstrate some commitment to reducing health inequalities in the north-east, tackling deprivation and supporting a new hospital?

[Alex Cunningham]

Most certainly. The project is also about jobs and tackling deprivation. Tremendous progress has been made on health inequalities in our area, and I want to see that work continue. The good people of Stockton, Hartlepool and the surrounding areas deserve better than this, and I can assure the Minister that my hon. Friends and I will fight passionately to ensure that they are not left behind.