Speeches by Streeting.

“We do engage with the sector, and I will certainly pick up your line in inquiry with them. The Commission on Palliative and End-of-Life Care has been established. It is independent of Government. We will be following its work carefully and looking at what it recommends.”

“I have never been comfortable with the extent to which hospices are reliant on the generosity of the public through donations to fund something that I think, in today’s day and age, is an integral part of the health and social care system. What I cannot do, with the scale of the challenge that we currently stare into, …”

“It is something we are constantly put under pressure on from Parliament and the public. We will do as much as we can, as fast as we can, on NHS dentistry.”

“Palliative care does feature, particularly in the context of neighbourhood health services. I feel very strongly, having seen palliative care in a range of settings, and frankly, in a range of quality of provision, that the principle we want to see in palliative care is the same as for the rest of the NHS, which is giv…”

“That is why I said I was scared of you chairing this meeting.”

“I will say a few things in response to that. The first thing we could do is make sure that we are making the most of the money that is already going in. In opposition, we complained a lot about dentistry underspends. We will be looking to address that through some things we are already doing, such as the 700,000 urgent…”

“The worst thing we could do is take the plan and the end state that we are aiming towards and try to impose it all in one go now. The lesson from the Lansley reforms is that a big top-down reorganisation imposed on the system does not work. Following through the logic of some of what Andrew Lansley was saying, I can se…”

“Yes, feel free.”

“It is a very good question. You are right: the three shifts were not in themselves radical new ideas, but delivering them really would be. Why now and not before? I think there are a few things in our favour. The first is that the sense of jeopardy that the public feel about the future of the NHS is felt right through …”

“Well, yes—you’re in the Chair! Can I begin by thanking the Committee for all the contributions you have made to the development of the 10 year plan through your inquiries and evidence, particularly in relation to the first 1,000 days, community mental health services and healthy ageing? We are looking forward to workin…”

“I am Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.”

“Good luck, Jim.”

“The first thing I want to do is reaffirm to you and to the Committee that we will have a target for improving the mortality gap, because it is so important. As you know, I am trying to reduce the number of targets overall, but this is extremely important. It is morally impossible to justify the gap. As part of the nati…”

“I have a few things to say about that. First, I do not doubt for a moment that Healthwatch, and Healthwatches across the country, have produced some valuable work over their time, but we are moving into a new phase in which the patient voice should be embedded throughout the whole system. There are other national organ…”

“Alcohol policy straddles us and the Home Office. In terms of gambling harms, I have a line of sight into it as the Health and Social Care Secretary, but it sits with DCMS.”

“You’re giving us a lot of homework! [Laughter.]”

“It is possible.”

“There are lots of dates throughout the plan. We can be clear about what we are doing over the next few years, because that is in the spending review period. Obviously, from one year to the next you have to revise your financial planning, but overall, we have a clear set of commitments for the next few years, which is t…”

“We already have significant resource attached to public health information campaigns. Given the profile of the issue at the moment, I will write to the Committee to share the work we will be doing to drive up vaccination rates.”

“First, no child in this country should be dying of measles. I am extremely sorry to the poor family who are now grieving the loss of a child in those circumstances, and I am sure everyone will join me in sharing condolences. This is why we have to redouble our efforts on vaccination and make the case. Some of the impro…”