Winchester’s MP has backed the Health and Care Bill during its second reading in the House of Commons.
Steve Brine, who served as Public Health Minister from 2017 to 2019, spoke during the debate which took place this evening. During Mr Brine’s tenure as Public Health Minister he worked closely on three key areas which were flagged during his speech.
Steve highlighted the need to address long term structural gaps in staffing to back up the commitments to tackling the backlog and building back better. The former Minister called for a requirement on the Government to publish modelling of the future supply of the entire healthcare workforce.
Later in his speech the MP flagged primary care and prevention, saying; “On primary care, I welcome the formal creation of Integrated Care Systems. We need them to realise their potential - and fast.
What do I mean by that? Well, if they’re going to work, General Practice needs to embrace the wider primary care family and that means finally realising the potential of community pharmacy, ophthalmology and dental services as vehicles of prevention as much as treatment.
And finally, if we move upstream of the Bill it has to be all about prevention. We hear talk of a waiting list touching 13m people – and let’s tackle that – but let’s also get behind the Food & Drink clauses in Part 5 and think about the future as much as the present.”
The Health and Care Bill was passed at second reading by 356 to 219.
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