Speeches by George.

“You have made the patient voice a high priority, and not just in terms of patient power, as you said in your introductory remarks, but you are scrapping Healthwatch. What will you put in its place to ensure that there is an independent vehicle to make sure the patient voice can be heard?”

“How can we possibly fill those contracts when the service itself is not prepared to pay for it?”

“Okay. I have a final question. In the social care contracts for my area, both the NHS and the local authority are proposing to pay social care workers £12.79 an hour, irrespective of whether they work on a holiday, during unsocial hours or anything else. The national living wage is £12.21.”

“Of course. That is all in the report.”

“One area where I think that safe staffing is important is nursing. You mentioned that earlier, and you have heard the RCN talking about nurses’ pay and conditions today. I know that Sally comes from a nursing background. Very often people go into nursing, commit their whole careers to it, and finish on band 5, which at…”

“That is helpful, and we will monitor that as time goes on. Moving on, you mentioned that patients can be treated egregiously—I think that was the term that you used—and that you had dealt with a number of those cases. Looking at chapter 7 of the document, to what extent do you think there needs to be more in relation t…”

“I want you to succeed. I want this to succeed. The values are unarguable. The shifts make a lot of sense—no one would argue with the suggestion that we need to shift from prevention to sickness. Therefore, we want the process to succeed. In the case of shifting from hospital to community, the question is: how? It is li…”

“I am pleased that the Minister has announced that the overall size and shape of the network will remain the same, and he has also indicated that remuneration must be part of the consultation. As he will know—I have corresponded with him on this matter—the towns of Porthleven and Newlyn in my constituency have been with…”

“Yes, absolutely. We will come back to the contract on another occasion, because it doesn’t tie up in my mind. On the questions or the theme of urgency that Danny raised earlier, we understood that the workforce plan was literally days away. We were talking about the summer, and now we are talking about later this year.…”

“I am Andrew George, representing west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Stephen, you mentioned that you would see the contract as a success if you both achieved no underspend—I think “not a penny of underspend” was your expression—and were on top of all the needs for emergency treatment. Those are the two factors that …”

“Do I have time for one more question?”

“On the incentives to encourage new dentists or graduates to come into the NHS, you were talking about tie-ins earlier. If you are to meet or fill the gaps in the dentistry desert, to what extent will you use incentives or requirements that tie them to geographic areas where the need is greatest?”

“I am Andrew George, representing west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We are a large dentistry desert for people because you cannot go north, south or west to find a dentist and you can go 120 miles up to Exeter and still struggle to find a dentist. That is what it is like for our area. You will be pleased to know th…”

“That raises a number of questions, and I just wonder whether it is possible, having looked at the granularity of the questions that Becky has raised, to helicopter out again and look at this over a longer timescale. Going back over the last couple of decades, is it the result of better intelligence that you now realise…”

“Reducing duplication is the point that Dr Fuller mentioned. In terms of integration with other services, is that incorporated within your ask?”

“What do you mean by community provision?”

“The Government have an upcoming workforce plan. What engagement are any of you having with the Government? Realistically, how do you think the workforce could be improved within the parameters of the future workforce plan and over what time period? Do you think you can get the workforce at a level that can actually get…”

“A moment ago, Dr Fuller, you referred to Core20Plus5. One of those is oral health. You mentioned the south-west. My constituency includes Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly, and the nearest paediatric dentist is 200 miles away. Who is advocating on that? Obviously, I am advocating for my constituents, but why have we g…”

“When it comes to waiting times for these services, for a child under one, a one-year wait is more than a lifetime. For someone of my age, waiting a year is less important. Why has there not been a big outcry about this? Why are we not hearing advocates’ voices loudly enough?”

“But it’s not now?”