Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-02-19
Topic: Health
Questions: GP surgeries across the Wells constituency are innovating with the employment of nurse practitioners, paramedics and other types of clinician to fill vacancies when recruitment of GPs has not been possible. While this often works well, we still have too many vacancies for doctors. What steps will my right hon. Friend be taking to encourage the thousands of GPs in training to consider practice in rural and coastal areas like mine in Somerset?; The Terrence Higgins Trust has made it clear that men are being diagnosed with HIV as a direct result of the limited number of places on the current PrEP trial. The Secretary of State has already said this morning that the doubling of the places on that trial is being implemented now, but that commitment was made over three weeks ago; when will implementation be completed across all trial sites including Burrell Street in my constituency?; Key parts of our NHS workforce are registered and regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Does the Minister share their concern about the steep rise in professional fees that they face—in particular, the loss of the 50% discount that applied to graduates within two years of qualifying—and will she look again at whether anything can be done to assist this key group of our workforce?; The head of NHS Improvement, who is also a Tory peer, has said the biggest problem facing the NHS is that not enough people want to work in it. How did the Secretary of State take Britain’s best-loved institution and turn it into something nobody wants to work for?;     Last September, the number of medical school places increased by a quarter, as we have just heard. That is great news, but apart from offering premiums, how can we incentivise newly qualified GPs to come to places like Clacton where we have an acute shortage?; A huge number of GP surgeries are struggling to recruit, and meanwhile lots of locums are making a lot more money being locums than working on permanent GP contracts. Will the Secretary of State consider offering his state-backed indemnity to those who commit to being on a permanent contract with a GP surgery?; Mr Speaker, you will be aware of the fantastic work by the Edenbridge War Memorial Hospital in the town just near me, and you will also be aware of the fantastic news that we are having a new clinic built there. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the money from the initial site, which was given by public subscription 100 years ago in memory of the young men who died in the first world war, should now be spent on medical facilities in the town?; The Central and East London breast screening service was performing well until last April, when it was transferred from Barts Health NHS Trust to the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, even though the Royal Free and did not have enough staff. The number of women invited plummeted from 3,000 a month to 1,000 a month. Why was that transfer allowed to go ahead, given the clear warnings about what the consequences would be? Who is responsible for this failure?
Royston Matthew Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): Southampton is above the English average with nearly 6% of GP appointments being missed. Nationally, missed appointments cost the NHS more than £200 million a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a standardised online booking system featuring a reminder function with the option of cancelling or rescheduling an appointment would save money and reduce waiting times? Does he have any plans for such a system?