Oral Answers to Questions

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady needs to be very careful in her use of statistics, because she will know that one reason for the drop in the number of nurses coming from the EU is that prior to the Brexit vote we introduced much stricter language tests, as that is better for the safety of patients and a very important thing that we need to get right. We are very confident that nurses will continue to want to work in the NHS, because it is a great place to work.

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

2. What estimate he has made of the number of patients who waited more than 12 hours for treatment in A&E in the last 12 months.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to A&E in the last 12 months.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Between February 2016 and January 2017, there were just under 3,500 waits of longer than 12 hours from decision to admit to admission. That is completely unacceptable, which is why the Government took urgent steps to free up NHS bed capacity in this month’s Budget.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Earlier this month, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners said that the “best place for GPs” is working within their communities to provide the highest possible general practice quality. What forecast has the Secretary of State made of the reduction in A&E waiting times next winter as a result of the new GP triage units in A&E departments? Does he agree that this is simply a small sticking plaster on the gaping wound that is our drastically underfunded NHS?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me just tell the hon. Lady what is happening to what she says is a “drastically underfunded NHS”. In her local hospital, St George’s, we have got 36 more doctors—[Interruption.]