Junior Doctors Contract

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right to say that. One of the things that is clear to me is that the reason that the May deal is better than the deal that we were going to introduce in February is because of the involvement of the BMA and the BMA leaders in telling us the concerns of junior doctors at the coalface, and the specific niggles and annoyances, many of which we were able to sort out very straightforwardly. I strongly hope that junior doctors will remain in all the discussions that we have, so that we try to get even better solutions.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

At the start of his statement, the Secretary of State used sophistry to try to call into question the result of the ballot, by implying that 58% did not provide legitimacy for the rejection of the Government contract offer. Does he regret using smoke and mirrors, and does he agree that if his flawed methodology were used for other electoral processes, he would not be sitting in this House, there would not be a Tory Government, and we would still be in the EU?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted what I said. I am clear on this. I said in my statement that 58% voted against the contract, and I accept that that was a majority of BMA members. I stated the fact that on a 68% turnout, around a third of serving junior doctors actively voted against the contract. That is factually correct.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Yes, I absolutely can. Let me give him one specific example. A couple of years ago, I noted a statistic that showed that 43 people died because they were given the wrong medicine by an NHS doctor or nurse. That problem could be avoided if doctors and nurses had access to people’s medical records so that they could see whether patients had allergies and give them the right medicine. The previous Labour Government had a crack at electronic health records. It was not successful, but they were right to try. We have to get it right if we are to have the best health service in the world. I am committed to that.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that prevention is better than cure. He spoke about parity of esteem for mental health services. I wrote to him last year about a teenager who was threatening to commit suicide. He had been given a counselling appointment through his GP four weeks ahead, even though the kid was saying that he was going to kill himself that day. What will the Secretary of State do about improving counselling services to stop young people wanting to take their life because their appointment is many months away?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that issue. The previous Minister with responsibility for mental health set up the crisis care concordat, which he got all parts of the country to sign up to, to provide better care. There is a big issue with the quality of child and adolescent mental heath services provision. We want to cut waiting times for people in urgent need of an appointment, so I recognise the problem and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give us some time to bring solutions to the House.

Francis Report: Update and Response

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely will. This is a great example, and I would like to thank my hon. Friend for the interest he has shown in this issue. For one hospital to have 390 more nurses over four years is remarkable. It may interest my hon. Friend to know that those numbers do not include agency staff, so if the hospitals have any such staff, they will be counted on top of those figures. This is a dramatic turnaround for the quality of patient care, which we all welcome. That just shows that if we get the incentives right from the centre, trusts do want to do the right thing. We did not instruct the trust to employ a single extra nurse; rather, we set up a new inspection regime and special measures regime, and what my hon. Friend said shows it has worked.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the report. In his statement, the Secretary of State committed to the view that the new measures are not about “naming and shaming”. Does he therefore agree with the Prime Minister, who said:

“Francis does not blame any specific policy. He does not blame the last Secretary of State for Health. And he says we should not seek scapegoats”?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not think we should seek scapegoats, but I do think we need to understand where policies have inadvertently led to the wrong outcomes. Sir Robert talks clearly about the dangers of an excessive focus on targets, which is one of the things that have driven the wrong culture. On that, I hope to get cross-party agreement.

NHS Services (Access)

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I do not think I have ever heard such a misuse of statistics and facts in this House as we have heard today.

I am delighted to debate the NHS, which has been independently rated—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not like to hear this. The NHS has been independently rated by the Commonwealth Fund this year as having become, under this Government, the best out of 11 industrialised countries. It is a better health care system than those in France, Germany and Australia. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not like to hear this, but the independent experts in Washington have said that the NHS has become the best in the world under this Government. The most uncomfortable thing of all for the Labour party is that the NHS has become better than it ever was under the previous Labour Government, when the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was Health Secretary.

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about Government mistakes, we will do so, but he will find that, on Mid Staffs, the private finance initiative, botched IT projects, a disastrous GP contract, unsafe hospitals, low cancer survival rates and little action on dementia, it is the Labour party, not this Government, that must be held accountable for mistakes in running the NHS. Indeed, after years of mismanagement it is this Government who are finally putting high-quality patient care back at the heart of what the NHS stands for.

[Steve Rotheram]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

I will give way in a moment, but I want to make some progress.

I want to go through the arguments of the right hon. Member for Leigh in detail, but let me start with the elephant in the room: the massive financial pressure facing the NHS if it is to meet our expectations in the face of an ageing population. There are now nearly 1 million more people over 65 than when this Government came to office. Our economy then was nearly bankrupt. Despite those extraordinary challenges, this Government have been able to increase spending on our NHS—including on Leigh infirmary in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency—because of our difficult decisions, which were opposed at every stage by the Labour party. Government Members know one simple truth: a strong NHS needs a strong economy.

On the day that unemployment fell below 2 million and the claimant count fell below 1 million, there was nothing in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech about the need for a strong economy to support our NHS and nothing about learning from the Labour Government’s disastrous mistakes, which were so bad that they were in fact planning to cut the NHS budget had they won the election. We should remember that countries that forgot about the deficit ended up cutting their health budgets—Greece by 14% and Portugal by 17%. [Interruption.] Well, these are the facts. We must never again in this country allow the poor economic decisions that have been the hallmark of every Labour Government in history.

[Mr Hunt]

I will tell the hon. Lady what we are doing: we are integrating the health and social care systems through the Better Care fund—a £3.9 billion programme—which is something that Labour could have done in 13 years in office but failed to do. That will make a massive difference to the social care system. Let us move on to some of the detailed arguments.

[Steve Rotheram]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Urgent and Emergency Care Review

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

If I may say so, it was the Government whom the hon. Lady supported who removed the responsibility for out-of-hours care from GPs. I welcome and want to help any GPs who want to take it back.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

This Secretary of State has been forced to answer more urgent questions in the House than even the Prime Minister about Mrs Bone. When will he stop blaming others about the mess he has made of our NHS, take some responsibility for the top-down reorganisation and get on with the job that he has been over-promoted to do?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman how well the NHS is doing. If one listens to the rhetoric from the Opposition Benches, one could completely underestimate the hard work of people on the front line. There are 800,000 more operations being carried out every year in the NHS than ever happened under Labour. At the same time, long waits for operations have gone down. I think that is something to be proud of.

Changes to Health Services in London

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The decision on where to allocate the extra help was based on where the need was greatest, and it was taken not by Ministers, but on the basis of recommendations from people working in the NHS and dealing with these problems. They chose the 53 local health economies where they thought the pressures were greatest. The fact that nowhere in the north-east was selected indicates that A and E performance is better in the north-east of England than in other parts of the country.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

When the Secretary of State is not leading the smear campaign against my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), he is continually being dragged into the Chamber to react to events that he should be in control of. When will he finally get a grip on the problems in our A and Es across the country?

[Mr Hunt]

I completely reject what the hon. Gentleman says. There are 1.2 million more people using A and E every year than there were under the last Government, yet people are waiting for a shorter time, with more people being seen within the four-hour target. But we are doing something else. We are addressing the long-term problems of A and E, including the patent failures of the last Government over the GP contract, social care integration and the working time directive. All those things have made the pressures worse, but we are sorting them out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend has had meetings with my ministerial colleagues on that issue and knows that such decisions are made at arm’s length from Ministers by NHS England. The allocation for NHS Kernow is £1,235 per head and the average baseline clinical commissioning group allocation is £1,184 per head. However, I recognise that there are issues with rurality and the age profile of the population. That is why a fundamental review is taking place of the approach that ACRA takes.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

In response to a parliamentary question that I tabled, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), stated that circa £15 million in underspend was handed back to Public Health England by the now dissolved primary care trusts on Merseyside. Given that Liverpool has been identified as having some of the greatest health inequalities, will the Secretary of State guarantee that every penny of that £15 million will be spent in Merseyside alone?

[Mr Hunt]

What I can guarantee is that there will be a real-terms increase in the public health budget for all local authorities under a two-year settlement, which they did not have before. I hope that the information that was published this morning, which shows how cities that are comparable to Liverpool are managing to get better health outcomes, will help the local authority in Liverpool to improve its results.

NHS Commissioning Board (Mandate)

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will happily look into the matter the hon. Lady raises, but my information is clear that the budget through which the clinical networks are funded is increasing.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

In priority 4—dementia—the Secretary of State states that the NHS Commissioning Board is mandated to ensure that the best treatment and care are available to everyone, wherever they live. Can he guarantee that there will be no postcode lottery, and that people with dementia in Liverpool will get the same treatment as the best in the rest of the country?

[Mr Hunt]

There is an element of postcode lottery now—there is a huge and unacceptable variation in treatment throughout the country—but the structures we are putting in place have a much better chance of reducing that variation than what went before, which failed to reduce it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Rotheram and Jeremy Hunt

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I commend my hon. Friend on his work for small arts organisations in his constituency. They are the lifeblood of the arts world. Organisations such as The Factory, an amateur arts group that puts on productions of “Hamlet” all over the country in church halls, are the kinds of organisations that nurture the acting talent of the future. They do not always have the fundraising capacity, however, to raise money from private donors. That is why, with the Arts Council, we will announce a series of measures to help rectify that. I hope that that will please my hon. Friend.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

In his Department’s structural reform plan, the Secretary of State made clear his support for philanthropic giving to supplement funding to arts and cultural organisations. Will he therefore join me in raising money for institutions in Liverpool? If I promise to get my mates to have a whip-round and to donate a few bob each, will he ask his 22 millionaire friends in the Cabinet to match our donations in proportion with their wealth?

[Mr Hunt]

I will happily give the hon. Gentleman any support I can in his attempts to boost philanthropy in Liverpool, as I will to attempts in the rest of the country. He is absolutely right—one of the best ways to boost philanthropy is to find a rich person and ask them to chair the fundraising committee.