Challenging the “complacent” Health Secretary on A+E waiting times

Labour MP for Southampton tells the Tory-led Government to stop being complacent and to deal with Southampton A+E’s increasing waiting times.

Research by Mr Denham’s office has found:

• University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust has missed the 95% target in 28 of the 30 weeks.
•  In the week of 7^th April, this was down to just 60%. 6947 people have waited for more than 4 hours in this time.
• This is an average of 232 a week.

This comes as staffing shortages across the NHS have left A&E departments over-stretched and under severe pressure, with reports of ambulances queuing outside and patients left on trolleys for hours on end.

David Cameron promised the NHS would be safe on his watch but instead his Government has haemorrhaged thousands of nurses and did nothing whilst A&Es struggled through the winter.

John said:

“In the last 30 weeks, Southampton General Hospital missed its 95% target in 28 weeks. On the week of the 7^th April the 4 hour target was met for only 6 out of every ten patients – an average of 232 patients every week have waited more than four hours.

“It’s clear this is a crisis of the whole system, right through to discharge into social care. This was made far worse by the unnecessary upheavals in management that his Tory-led government has imposed.

“As Jeremy Hunt’s own advisors have praised local primary care for their efforts to avoid hospital admissions, will he stop trying to blame one set of doctors for a crisis made in his department?”

John slams Tories in Westminster for failing to help families in Southampton

John Denham, MP for Southampton Itchen has this week demanded the Tory-led Government help squeezed households facing a cost of living crisis.

Thousands of hard-working families in Southampton are under enormous pressure from rising prices, a flatlining economy and sky-high utility bills with many of them struggling to make ends meet.

Since the Tory-led Government came to power in 2010

• energy bills have soared by over £300;

• rail tickets for commuters have gone up by as much as 9.2 per cent, and

• housebuilding is now at the lowest since the 1920s.

But in a debate on the Queen’s Speech in the House of Commons last week, John voted to demand the Government change course and help hard-pressed families struggling with the rising cost of living.

John said:

“I voted to force the Government to introduce measures and policies that will make a real difference to the lives of people in Southampton who are struggling to make ends meet at the moment.

“The economy has flatlined for two and a half years, real wages are down £1,700 since 2010 and energy bills have risen by over £300.

“But in David Cameron’s Britain millions are forced to pay more for this government’s economic failure through cuts to tax credits, child benefit, maternity pay and the bedroom tax, while 13,000 millionaires get an average £100,000 tax cut.

“We need real action to get people back into work, to get more affordable homes built, to tackle rising energy bills and to tackle the growing cost of getting to work.

“People in Southampton, who get up early, work hard and do the right thing, are feeling the squeeze like never before – it’s time the Government took real action to stop their living standards falling any further.”

Watch John on ITV

This week John appeared on ITV Meridian‘s ‘The Last Word’ with Phil Hornby.  Among many topics, John discussed the County Council election results, Europe, immigration and gay marriage.

You can watch the episode in full by clicking here.

John was joined by Sir Gerald Howarth, Conservative MP for Aldershot and Catherine Bearder, a Lib Dem MEP.

Watch John on the BBC

On Sunday, John Denham was on BBC Sunday Politics, presented by Peter Henley. John was asked questions on the Tory-led Government’s Queen’s Speech – which has nothing in it which will get the economy going – and High Speed Rail.  There was also a discussion on women in politics.

You can watch John Denham on the BBC Sunday Politics with Peter Henley by clicking here.

John was joined by the Tory MP for Romsey and Southampton North, Caroline Nokes.

John demands a change of direction from the Tory-led Government

MP for Southampton Itchen, John Denham, has called on the Tory-led Government to change direction following this week’s no answers Queen’s Speech.

Energy bills, water bills, paying the mortgage, the cost of getting to work – these are the issues that are worrying families in Southampton

Britain faces some serious challenges but after three wasted years of Government under the Tories and their Lib Dem allies, this week’s Queen’s Speech was another wasted opportunity.

With prices rising faster than wages, the economy flatling and one million young people out of work, the Tory-led Government has been criticised for cutting taxes by an average of £100,000 for 13,000 people earning over £1 million instead of meeting the big challenges facing Britain.

John said:

“People across Britain see a Prime Minister without direction and a country where things are getting worse not better.

 “The economy is flat-lining, wages are down £1,700 since 2010 and living standards are being squeezed. Yet all they hear is David Cameron telling people that they are better off, when they know the reality: they are actually much worse off.

“Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech was an opportunity to rebuild our economy and get people back into work but instead it offered no change and no hope. Energy bills, water bills, paying the mortgage, the cost of getting to work – these are the issues that are worrying families in Southampton but the Government has absolutely nothing to say about it.

“This tired and failing Government is out of touch, out of ideas and unable to bring about the change hard-working people in Southampton so desperately need.

Community bids to buy threatened Thornhill Pub

Local people from Thornhill and Harefield have launched a pioneering attempt to buy their ‘local’.

Regulars at The Bittern are hoping to use new legal rights to help them negotiate with the pub’s owners, Punch Taverns.

It is widely believed that Punch Taverns are planning to allow McDonalds to turn the 1930s style pub into a fast food restaurant. But 21 local people have asked the City Council to list the pub as a ‘community asset’ under the Localism Act. If they are successful, the pub would have to be sold openly, giving the community the chance to raise the money to buy it.

Backed by local MP John Denham, the group has also written to Punch Taverns asking them to open negotiation straight away.

Local spokesperson Glen McInnes says:

“This is a serious attempt to protect one of the few pubs remaining in the Thornhill and Harefield area. We know we would have to pay the market price and run it as a good business. But we believe there a lot of people who would be prepared to make a modest investment in the community company that would run the pub.”

Local councillor for Bitterne ward, Cllr Mary Lloyd, says:

“Local people are determined not to let the Bittern become just another of the pubs that have been lost to shops, flats or fastfood outlets in the past few years”

John calls for NHS decision makers to resign from private interests

Your local Labour MP is calling for members of the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group to either resign from their directorships of private healthcare companies or to guarantee that these companies will never be given multi-million NHS contracts in Southampton.

This follows reports that four GPs on the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are directors of private companies which could be up for profitable NHS contracts.

John Denham MP believes that the members of the CCG – which is the new organisation made up of powerful GPs now responsible for  awarding NHS contracts out to external bodies – should avoid any perception that they could gain personally from their new positions.

Last weekend the Southern Daily Echo reported that the private healthcare companies which have directors or employees who are the members of the local CCG include:

• Solent Medical Services
• Avia Health Informatics Plc
• Southern Alliance Healthcare

Mr Denham said:

“I want to echo the concerns of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of GPs and the thousands of Southampton’s residents who will be hugely concerned about this potential conflict of interest.

“The priority for those local GPs with the power to award huge contracts out to private companies is to work for the public interest and not for their own.  No one asked for this new system in the first place.

“That’s why the only decent thing to do now for those GPs who have any potential conflict of interest is either resign from their directorships or make a cast-iron guarantee that the companies they work for will not be given any NHS contracts in Southampton.  This will help to avoid any perception that they could gain personally from their new positions.

“If they can’t commit to either, they shouldn’t be responsible for the healthcare of Southampton’s residents”.