NHS Long-Term Plan

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend asks a profoundly important question. The medical school students who are going to medical school this year will become consultants in 2031 at the earliest, so we have to make sure that we update the way people are trained for the totally different world that they will be facing in terms of technology, medical innovation and the demarcations and roles inside hospitals and community care. This is very much part of the long-term workforce plan that will be announced alongside the NHS long-term plan later this year—it is what that will be about.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I can understand why some in Government think that there is a Brexit dividend. After all, we know that the Health Secretary’s colleagues in the Home Office have been given enough money from Brexit to cover the cost of 20,000 nurses. His colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been given 14,000 nurses’ worth of money and even his colleagues in the taxman’s office have been given 11,000 nurses’ worth of money. I am sure that the Secretary of State would not want to betray the good will of a single doctor, nurse, cancer patient or future patient by making promises that he cannot keep, so can he tell us, once and for all, whether he personally believes that there is a Brexit dividend—yes or no?

[Mr Hunt]

I have answered this many times, and I am very happy to answer it again. Yes, we will be able to access extra funding by not paying subscriptions to Brussels once the divorce bill has been settled, and that will mean many thousands of extra nurses.