Junior Doctors’ Contracts

Part of Opposition Day — [8th allotted day] – in the House of Commons at 4:46 pm on 28 October 2015.

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Photo of Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt The Secretary of State for Health 4:46, 28 October 2015

I am happy to deal with that. We went into the election in May saying that on the back of a strong economy we were prepared to commit £10 billion extra to the NHS in real terms over the course of this Parliament. That was £5.5 billion more than the hon. Lady’s party was prepared to commit. In the last Parliament, when the increase in NHS spend was half that amount, we increased the number of doctors by 9,000, so we are increasing the number of doctors, but as we do so we need to ensure that we give the right care to patients.

I want to give a word of caution to the shadow Secretary of State. The tragedy of John Moore-Robinson, the gentleman I have mentioned, happened not only on a Saturday, but at Mid Staffs. The last time the House discussed the difference between excess and avoidable deaths was under a Labour Government, when they tried to brush the problems at Mid Staffs under the carpet, saying that we should not take the figures on excess deaths too seriously because they were a statistical construct and different from avoidable deaths. I would have hoped that the Labour party learned the lessons of Mid Staffs and would not make the same mistakes again. [Interruption.]