Even before PMQs had begun, MPs and journalists had been highlighting that this was only the third PMQs in 12 weeks, and the prime minister’s first appearance in six weeks – a fact remarked upon by the Labour leader.
Steering away from questions on child benefit, Ed Miliband chose the growing A&E crisis for his opening question. Landing the first blow in a fracas that dominated the session, he quoted many leading health charities and royal societies to back up his point.
The prime minister hit back with a quote from Mike O’Brien, the former Labour health minister ,who introduced the infamous GP contracts and sought to blame GPs, and the last Labour government’s GP services contracts, for the crisis. While a lack of access to out-of-hours GP services has compounded the issue, a larger factor in the increase in the number of people going to A&E for treatment is the result of the closure of local walk-in centres, a quarter of which have been shut since David Cameron arrived in Downing Street.
Our walk-in centre in Colchester is a fantastic resource – indeed I’ve had to use it several times myself since it opened. As well as treating the everyday ‘lumps and bumps’ that people suffer on a daily basis, the staff do a great job a sifting patients to see who needs to go to A&E and who can be treated by them, on site. Cameron was quick to reel off a list of government’s achievements, including the number of new doctors. But it takes seven years to train a doctor, and the coalition has been in for three – as they say these days, you do the maths, prime minister.
Ed Miliband finished on a high, with reference to the infamous top-down reorganisation of the NHS. Several Labour backbenchers also entered the fray, with their own take on the implications that such a move has had on the A&E departments. Indeed, time and again we are hear how the reorganisation has had a negative impact on local health services. Far from efficiency savings, clinical commissioning groups are now being forced to hire former PCT staff to fill the roles they we made redundant from only a few months ago.
I am disappointed that MPs don’t raise constituency points at prime minister’s questions as much as they used to – especially when they know that the only bit of parliamentary coverage that is likely to permeate into the busy lives of the voters is the regular PMQs slot. Be in no doubt, constituents like seeing their MPs on the telly – name checking their town, local hospital or school.
So hats off to Tory MP Therese Coffey for praising the RNLI and emergency services for averting a near-tragedy at a Southwold charity swim. Coming from the east, and having grown up in a coast town, I know how important organisations such as the xoastguard and the RNLI play and they were rightly commended for their commitment and professional by the prime minister today.
No PMQs is complete these days without a handful of Conservative backbenchers banging on about Europe, and Eleanor Laing and Gerald Howarth did not disappoint. But questions about an EU referendum and the European Court of Human Rights allowed Cameron to launch a broadside on the shadow cabinet over divisions over Labour’s policy on an EU referendum. His attack on the ‘people’s party’ that will resonate beyond the House of Commons chamber.
There was no clear winner today, with both party leaders suffering some stinging blows. Dazed and concussed, both Miliband and Cameron may well be looking for their nearest A&E department to heal the wounds of today’s encounter.
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Jordan Newell is a Progress member and chair of Colchester Labour party. He tweets @jordannewell
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