• Print

Details

Published: Wednesday, 08 March 2017 16:34

Written by News Editor

Hits: 1682

Steve McCabe MP once again asked the most questions on dentistry and was also the main sponsor of an Early Day Motion noting ‘with concern the reports of Capita's mismanagement of the National Dental Performers' List’ and made an intervention in a debate. In the Lords a former minister suggested that the Government ‘was responsible’ for the junior doctors’ dispute.

Steve McCabe, Birmingham Selly Oak asked the Communities and Local Government Department on how many occasions local authorities had been penalised for failing to meet statutory requirements on oral health and what the penalty is for local authorities who fail to meet their statutory requirements on oral health. But in both cases a junior minister replied that the information requested was not held centrally.

Steve McCabe was more successful when he asked health ministers what estimate they had made of the cost of the rise in the number of hospital tooth extractions by dentistry services in each year since 2012-13 and also how much had been spent on adult tooth extraction in hospitals in each year since 2010.

Minister David Mowat replied: ‘The following table shows the estimated cost of tooth extractions for all patients in hospitals from 2012/13 to 2015/16 and for all adults from 2010/11 to 2015/16. The data covers all tooth extractions/removals.’

In the House of Lords Lord Pendry Labour asked why in-year variations of primary dental care contracts were no longer permitted. Minister Lord O'Shaughnessy said: ‘NHS England advises that commissioners continue to be able to agree in year variations of primary care dental contracts. There has been no change of policy on this. Agreeing variations remains at local discretion.’

Interventions in debate

Steve McCabe Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak

“I don’t think I need any lectures on cross-party dialogue from the party of the death tax and the £8 billion financial (deficit) in Birmingham, we have seen £28 million cuts to the social care budget, bringing the service to its knees. Elderly people are being treated like cattle, lying around on trolleys, waiting in corridors and dispatched from hospital in the middle of the night. Everywhere we look, we see our hospitals, GPs and social care services collapsing under the strain.

“This Secretary of State is quite happy to flex his muscles when it comes to bullying junior doctors, but it is always someone else’s fault when it comes to resources, management and administration of the NHS. There was a time when the deal was simple: in return for the red box and a ministerial salary, Ministers took responsibility —the buck stopped with them. But no more. I have lost track of how many parliamentary answers begin with the words, “The Department does not collect that data centrally,” or “It would not be cost-effective to provide information in that format”. Basically, Ministers do not know, do not want to know and do not want us to know what is really happening.

“They no longer preside over a genuinely national health service. Whether it is the postcode lottery that characterises the provision of IVF, with clinical commissioning groups ignoring NICE guidelines and making up their own criteria as they go along, or children’s dentistry, where there is a growing crisis and a heavy reliance on hospital emergency surgery because of the lack of provision and monitoring of proper dental services for children, all this Government want to do is hide behind and blame others for their shambolic decisions.”

Lord Prior of Brampton

A minister in the Department of Health during last year’s doctors’ strikes has said the Government created circumstances in which medics were “forced into” taking industrial action. Lord Prior of Brampton, who is now a minister in the Department for Business, declared the Government was responsible for “an environment in the public sector which is far from satisfactory”.

His comments, made in the House of Lords, stand in stark contrast to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's claims that the strikes came about because of misleading information and a “path of confrontation” from the British Medical Association.

Lord Prior, who was parliamentary undersecretary of state in the Department of Health from 2015 until last December, suggested that the Government was responsible for the dispute. He said: “Like me, a number of noble Lords in this House were staggered that the junior doctors, for example, were forced into taking strike action. These people are vocationally committed, yet somehow we created an environment in the public sector which is far from satisfactory."

---

You need to be logged in to leave comments.

×

Report

ReportClose