Health and Wellbeing Services: Essex

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Henderson—I think this is the first time I have responded to a debate while you have been in the Chair. It is a pleasure to respond to the debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) on securing a debate on such an important subject. My further thanks go to my esteemed predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), not only for his work supporting his own constituency, but for his tireless efforts as a Health Minister and as my immediate predecessor in the Department. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for his thoughtful contribution and the powerful advocacy that he always conducts on behalf of his constituents.

We all know that much of the continued recovery of the NHS following the pandemic is entirely dependent on the people who work in our NHS. I commend my hon. and right hon. Friends for the tributes they have paid to NHS staff. Our long-term workforce plan, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, sets out the Government’s vision and commitment to ensuring that we have an NHS that can deliver for the future. Our plan commits to improving retention by improving culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff will leave the NHS over the next 15 years. It also sets out an aim to double the number of medical school places in England to 15,000 by 2031-32. That is our commitment to the future of the NHS moving forward, and there is cause for optimism now too. In recent months, the rate of staff leaving active service in the NHS has returned to pre-pandemic levels. In the east of England, the rate of staff leaving active service in the NHS has followed a similar pattern and is now below pre-pandemic levels. We know there is more to be done, but the plan is working.

The number of doctors and nurses is also on the rise. There are almost 6,800 more doctors and more than 21,500 more nurses in the NHS than last year. In the east of England, there are almost 740 more doctors and almost 1,700 more nurses in the NHS than last year. My hon. and right hon. Friends mentioned Anglia Ruskin University. I had the huge privilege of visiting the university on 4 March to meet some of the medical students. If there is anything that gives a person optimism about the future of the NHS, it is sitting down and having a roundtable with some of the medical students in a university such as Anglia Ruskin, which has gone from strength to strength over recent years thanks to the campaigning of local MPs who have championed investment in that university.

Medical training at our best medical institutions is an essential part of delivering the long-term workforce plan. I therefore welcome Anglia Ruskin University’s commitment to the medical degree apprenticeship and recognise that it is a trailblazer. The university can bid for additional Government-funded places, in common with all existing medical schools across England, and I look forward to continuing to work with it and local MPs to secure more investment in the university.

We know that the NHS faces pressures all over the country, including in Essex and the east of England more broadly. As a Government, we are committed to working every day to improve the outcomes and experiences of patients. A huge part of that is making sure that patients get to talk to a GP. I am glad to say that since 2019 we have recruited more than 36,000 additional staff into general practice, covering a range of roles including pharmacists. We fulfilled our commitment to recruit 26,000 additional staff a year ahead of the March 2024 target, and we have also delivered on our manifesto commitment of 50 million more general practice appointments a year, with 367.7 million booked appointments across the past 12 months.

Looking more closely at the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham, I am pleased to say that there are now approximately 105 full-time equivalent members of the clinical general practice workforce. That is an increase of 62% since September 2019, when there were about 65 full-time equivalent staff in the clinical workforce. In the east of England, there are now approximately 3,909 full-time equivalent GPs and an estimated 3.7 million general practice appointments took place in January 2024, with 72% of those face to face. In Witham specifically, 76% of appointments in January 2024 were face to face, up from 68.5% in January 2023. All the same, I commend my right hon. Friend for her tenacious advocacy of a new health hub for Witham. Her constituents are fortunate to have such a doughty champion, with a deep and genuine care for their access to the health service.

Mid and South Essex ICB has confirmed that GP practices in Witham are working together to help meet the health needs of local residents by sharing staff, teams and services. However, as my right hon. Friend acknowledged in her speech, the financial complexities of bringing GP estates together can be multifaceted and challenging. Mid and South Essex ICB has confirmed that transitioning to a new building would involve complex considerations surrounding property ownership, leasing arrangements and financial investments. The ICB is also concerned that while section 106 monies serve as a valuable contribution to local NHS healthcare provision, the money available may fall short in sustaining the entire development of a new healthcare centre. I hope my right hon. Friend and the ICB can continue to work together to think carefully through those challenges and find the best solution that meaningfully responds to the needs of Witham’s patients.

I also thank my right hon. Friend for her comments about the future of St Peter’s Hospital, which I know is a subject dear to her heart and to the heart of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon. As she said, it is generating an unprecedented reaction from her constituents. I will keep my comments on this issue brief, knowing that another debate on it will take place on Thursday. That will provide a longer opportunity for my right hon. Friends, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, to build and expand on the concerns that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham has set out today.

Let me be clear that no decision has yet been made about the future of St Peter’s. Any decision regarding the future configuration of NHS services in Mid and South Essex should be made locally, following engagement with local communities. I am sure that local views are being listened to and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham said, an NHS consultation is currently live. I urge both her and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, and their constituents, to participate in it actively.

I expect any subsequent decision taken by the local NHS to demonstrate improved outcomes for patients, having taken into account all of the many issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham has outlined today, which I am sure will be further expanded upon on Thursday.

I want to reassure both my right hon. Friends. In my constituency, an unpopular reorganisation of local health services in east Lancashire under the last Labour Government in 2007 removed a significant number of health services in my constituency and transferred them to Blackburn, so I am very conscious of the potential impacts of hospital reorganisations and I always look at these matters very closely and pay close attention to the views of local Members of Parliament.

I turn to the subject of urgent and emergency care. We absolutely recognise the pressures that these services are facing and we are working to ensure that people receive the care they need when they need it. Although we recognise that there is more to do, we have seen performance improve this year.

For example, at the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust 67.3% of accident and emergency patients were seen within four hours in January 2024, which was better than the trust’s performance in January 2023. At the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, 72.2% of A&E patients were seen within four hours in January 2024—performance above the national average. Ambulance handover delays, which have a big impact on response times, have reduced significantly this winter compared with last year. At the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, delays of over 60 minutes have fallen by 48%. Nationally, we have seen progress on ambulance response times, with the average ambulance waits for category 2 incidents down by over a third this winter.

We have heard today about the continuing difficulties that patients have in accessing a dentist. That is deeply unfortunate and it is essential that we give patients access to the dental care that they deserve. That is why, on 7 February, we published our plan to recover and reform dentistry, to make dental services faster, simpler and fairer for patients. The plan will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments; our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry is backed by £200 million.

Hon. Members also mentioned the important role of community pharmacy. Community pharmacy is delivering healthcare, which makes an extremely valuable contribution to patients’ lives. That is why we are continuing to support the sector financially, and we are providing over £2.6 billion every year to support community pharmacy. To go further, we are now investing up to £645 million across this financial year and the next in Pharmacy First, which will allow for more blood pressure checks and more contraception consultations in pharmacy.

I will now address some of the concerns expressed regarding the Lampard inquiry, which is an issue of the utmost importance and sensitivity. I completely recognise the desire of families and other stakeholders that the terms of reference of the inquiry be finalised as soon as possible, so that the inquiry can make progress with its investigations. Let me update my hon. and right hon. Friends on the most recent discussions.

Following consultation with families and other stakeholders, the chair of the Lampard inquiry has shared her initial views on potential changes to the terms of reference. On 5 December, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care agreed to meet families and local MPs in Essex to discuss the terms of reference. On 6 March, as referred to by both my right hon. Friends today, the local MPs and I met to discuss the inquiry. We agreed that my right hon. and hon. Friends across Essex would put forward names of family members to attend a meeting with the Secretary of State, so that she could hear directly from the families herself.

We have now identified a potential date for that meeting, and that will be communicated very shortly to local MPs, if it has not been already; the date will be emailed out by my office. I hope that the meeting can take place on that date, and that we can make the swift progress that we all want to see. Families have been waiting far too long. Again, I commend my hon. and right hon. Friends for their work to shine a light on what has gone on and to ensure that the inquiry was established, and I hope that it can finally get on with its work and deliver the outcomes and justice that the families all want to see.

I will wrap up by addressing one of the most important elements in the future of healthcare: prevention. I reiterate the Government’s commitment to our levelling-up mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030 and to increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. To do that, we are tackling health inequalities through programmes such as the NHS’s Core20PLUS5, which focuses on improving health outcomes for the poorest 20% of the population as well as other groups.

Furthermore, we will publish our major conditions strategy this year, a direction-setting document aiming to pave the way for further action towards integrated care, co-ordinated around the needs of people. It aims to improve healthy life expectancy, reduce pressures on the NHS and reduce ill health-related labour market inactivity. Together, those programmes will help us shift the dial, both nationally and in Essex, on NHS pressures.

I thank my hon. and right hon. Friends for their contributions, and once again thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham for securing the debate. I hope my answers have helped to assure all those who have attended that we are firmly committed to delivering for the health and wellbeing needs of people in Essex and across the country.