Contributions
2,308 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDWork of the Department during the Summer RecessOver the summer recess, the Department of Health and Social Care has made significant progress in many areas, both to prepare the NHS and social care systems for the winter and to…05 Sept 2022HANSARDHealth and Social CareMy right hon. Friend is right that there is a need for care and compassion, and she highlights an extremely important point. She will be aware that the sexual health review is…05 Sept 2022HANSARDHealth and Social CareMy right hon. Friend is right that there is a need for care and compassion, and she highlights an extremely important point. She will be aware that the sexual and reproductive…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareThis obviously involves debates with Treasury colleagues about pay—not just on the social care side, but in respect of the NHS and the interplay with pensions—but it is not just…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareThat, I think, relates to the point that I just made about the need for flow in the system and an appropriate step-down capacity. Sometimes patients are not yet ready to be…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareOne of my reasons for going out with the London Ambulance Service—among others—over the summer was to answer the charge about what Ministers were doing, and to observe at first…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareI am very happy to ensure that that specific case, which is obviously concerning, is looked at. As my hon. Friend will know from my earlier remarks, we are boosting the number of…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareWe are putting in additional funding, whether that is the additional £1.5 billion put into GP capacity in 2020, the £450 million to upgrade A&E facilities across 120 trusts, the…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareI am happy to draw that case to the attention of the relevant parties and ensure that the hon. Gentleman gets a written explanation.05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareWith permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on our support for urgent and emergency care. I know that this is an issue of great concern to right hon. and…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareLet me start with the areas where the hon. Gentleman and I agree. The David Wakeley case was shocking, and we accept that there have been severe pressures, particularly linked to…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareI know my hon. Friend is a strong champion for this issue; when I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I remember him lobbying me about how a bridge from one bit of the hospital…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareThe hon. Member makes a very fair point. Within the question he raises is the unmet need where an ambulance does not reach a patient in the community, as opposed to the known risk…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareAs I said in my statement, additional funding has been put in to boost A&E capacity. There was some £450 million of funding in the spending review in 2020, which has been applied…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareI have set out a range of things that we are doing to tackle what we recognise are significant pressures facing the NHS, whether that is through the taskforce that we have set up,…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareA good example from Hull, which I visited over the summer, shows that this is not simply about money, although that is obviously a relevant factor. The hon. Lady will be familiar…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareMy hon. Friend is absolutely right that a central role for the integrated care systems in future is to look at how they best use the better care fund, how we better integrate…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareI fear that the question was written before the statement. In the course of the statement, we have covered the significant additional funding that is going in, whether that is in…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareWhat I can guarantee is that, through the taskforce, we are prioritising how we get ambulances back on the road and how we speed things up to reduce handover delays. We are…05 Sept 2022HANSARD Urgent and Emergency CareFar from there being a lack of planning, the very essence of integration between social care and the NHS through the ICSs is that we recognise the importance of both aspects…05 Sept 2022