Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Shaun Davies and Wes Streeting(1 week, 2 days ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
This Government have invested an extra £26 billion in the NHS, delivered 5 million more appointments in our first year and cut waiting lists by more than 200,000. We are also tackling the NHS postcode lottery. Patients should not have to wait longer for worse care because of where they live. Our new NHS league tables shine a light on the poorest performers so they receive the extra support and accountability needed to turn them around. The best leaders are being sent into the most challenged trusts to turn them around, failing managers will have their pay docked and persistent failure will lead to restrictions on boards, as we saw in Leeds this week. We will not tolerate failure.
Shaun Davies
In Telford and wider Shropshire, we know that the NHS has an absolute mountain to climb after years of underperformance. We have begun that journey with falling waiting times, increased Government investment and plans for Telford’s first ever cancer treatment unit. Will the Secretary of State ensure that trusts that show signs of improvement are backed to catch up with the rest and continue their improvements, particularly with investment in technology, research and infrastructure?
Wes Streeting
Absolutely. My hon. Friend deserves real credit for championing Telford and Shropshire and helping to get the trust the investment it needs. He is right that local services have not been good enough for a number of years. We will not turn a blind eye to that failure; we will do something about it. There is a long way to go, but we have already delivered an extra 94,000 appointments and cut waiting lists by over 14,000 at his local trust since the general election—so a lot done, but lots more to do.
Government Policy on Health
Debate between Shaun Davies and Wes Streeting(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
Fixing and getting our NHS back on its feet should be a national mission, and everybody should be able to play their part in that. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether any former Conservative Ministers have put themselves forward to try to fix the mess that the party now in opposition created over the last 14 years?
Wes Streeting
This is the extraordinary thing: notwithstanding the public job application of a former Conservative Secretary of State, which did not meet the bar, I have been approached by former Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care who served in the Conservative Government who, in a spirit of public service, have wanted either to do work for the Labour Government on issues that they care about, or have sought to share their experiences—the highs or, indeed, the many lows—of being in government. That is a totally legitimate thing to do. I suspect that, if I rang round all my Labour predecessors, I would find that the Conservative Government tried desperately hard to get them to work for them, because, as I say, the challenge for Conservative Health Secretaries was that they did not have any successful Conservative predecessors to turn to.