Last week was a busy week in Parliament for me. A
particular highlight was the Tourism and Hospitality Day on Tuesday where, in
my role as Chair of the Visitor Economy All Party Parliamentary Group, I was
able to meet with a number of leaders in the tourism sector from across the
South West, and discuss a number of key issues and explore opportunities to
ensure this vital part of our economy is well represented in Parliament.
I also ventured over to Truro
on Friday for a busy day at County Hall attending our regular meetings with NHS
leaders, Cornwall Council leaders on the devolution agenda, as well as other
organisations including the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce.
On Thursday I was really
pleased to see the announcement from Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt,
that from 2018, G.P. surgeries in hard-to-recruit areas will benefit
from a new government-backed scheme – the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme
– which will offer a one-off payment of £20,000 to attract newly qualified G.Ps
to work in areas of the country where training places have been unfilled for a
number of years.
The
Department of Health has also asked Health Education England (HEE) to make sure
many of the 1,500 additional medical training places that will be funded from
next year are located in priority areas, including rural and coastal
communities. The Secretary of State specifically mentioned Cornwall in his
announcement and so I am pleased that the Health Secretary has listened to the
calls from myself and my Cornish MP colleagues to address the challenges we
face in the NHS in Cornwall and the Government has acted accordingly.
This should relieve some of the pressures on our hard-working
G.P’s and I look forward to seeing the fund put in place. On a wider scale,
Cornwall’s NHS has been in the news recently because of the recent Care Quality
Commission (CQC) reports on the NHS Cornwall Clinical Commissioning Group and
Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske.
The NHS staff on the ground are dedicated and do their best for
the patients in their care. There are many good practises highlighted in the
report such as the care and compassion shown to patients. What this report
shows is that this is clearly a failure of the management and systems at the
hospital.
Now
that these issues have been recognised and the hospital placed in special
measures the Government will provide support and additional resources will be
made available to address the underlying causes.
A
significant failing is the delayed discharges and subsequent impact on Treliske
Hospital. There is a lack of integration between the hospital and Cornwall
Council’s adult care services. The Government made additional funding available
to address this back in March and it is frustrating that so little progress has
been made. In my meeting with the NHS and Cornwall Council on Friday we
discussed the need for them to step up and deliver positive change for these
services.
I
know that local people will be very concerned about this situation and I will
be doing all I can to work with the local health services, NHS England and the
Government to ensure things improve as soon as possible and that the people of
Cornwall get the quality of health services they deserve.
