Oral Answers to Questions

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

A number of critical incidents have been running across the country this week. To be clear, a critical incident does not mean that there is unsafe care or that we are unable to provide care. A critical incident means that there is a challenge, and the system mobilises in response to help meet that challenge so that people do receive safe care. As I have said, we are investing more in our urgent and emergency care services and we are seeing the impact of that through year-on-year improvements to date. We are not out of winter yet; we still have lots of hard yards ahead. I am confident that when we emerge from winter, we will be able to tell a story of year-on-year improvement. However, while the NHS is on the road to recovery, I would not want anyone watching—not least the hon. Member’s constituents—to think that the Government believe that what we have seen this winter is acceptable every day, in every case everywhere. Until that is the case, we will continue to strive for further improvement day by day, week by week, month by month, and year on year.

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

Working my shifts in A&E over Christmas and the new year, like many colleagues up and down the country I experienced what has become the undignified norm of corridor care. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to ending it. The all-party parliamentary group on emergency care, which I chair, working closely with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, is keen that the Government adopt our recommendations on ending corridor care. The Secretary of State previously agreed to meet us. Will he today reaffirm his commitment to meet us to end this scourge in our A&Es?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend can be absolutely assured of that. I thank her for her powerful advocacy in this place, as well as for putting her words into action on the NHS frontline. She does not need to do that—she could do the bare minimum to keep her licence going—but she always goes above and beyond to take care of patients and constituents, literally rolling up her sleeves and putting on her scrubs to do that. She has made a number of thoughtful recommendations in her report, and I look forward to engaging with her and the all-party group on that.