Healthcare: Bolton

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered healthcare in Bolton.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I declare an interest as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee. Improving the quality of healthcare is a cause close to my heart, and I am pleased to be joined by my fellow Boltonian, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi). I would also like to highlight the work of my friend and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), who is unfortunately unable to join us today, but who I know has been strongly campaigning for a new neighbourhood health centre in Westhoughton, and I pay tribute to that work.

For too long, healthcare in Bolton has been treated as a technocratic policy area rather than a vital lifeline. My constituents are not concerned with acronyms or distant targets; they want answers to real, human questions: “Can I get a GP appointment when my child is ill?”, “Will my mum be seen in A&E within hours, not half a day?” and “Will my toothache be treated before it turns into an infection?” This is about fairness; it is about whether towns like mine get our fair share. My message is simple, and I will repeat it: Bolton must not be left behind—not in GP access, not in A&E rates and not in dentistry.

Everything I say today is drawn from the lived experiences of people in Bolton. Earlier this year, I held a local consultation on the NHS 10-year plan. The response was overwhelming. Boltonians care deeply about our NHS and, as a result, they brought ideas, energy and hope, as well as far too many stories of delays, confusion and dignity under pressure. I promised I would bring their voices here today and speak plainly about the state of healthcare in our town.

Let us be honest: by the time Labour came in last year, Bolton’s NHS was stretched to breaking point, with patients waiting, staff exhausted and services fraying. At Royal Bolton hospital, our A&E was among the worst performing in England-, at one point in the bottom 5%. Local residents were waiting 12 or 13 hours to be seen, with elderly patients on trolleys overnight and small children with high fevers stuck in crowded corridors. That was unbearable, and evidence of more than a decade of neglect. By the time of last year’s election, waiting lists were in crisis, with more than 600 people in Bolton waiting over 65 weeks for treatment—well over a year. Behind every wait was a life on pause: a knee that would not bend, a lump not yet diagnosed, a life put at risk.

That crisis did not happen overnight; it came from choices—14 years of underfunding, frozen capital budgets and ignored warnings about staff shortages. Public health budgets were cut by more than a quarter. That neglect hit towns like Bolton hardest, because when you start with older buildings, higher rates of illness and fewer GPs, cuts hit twice as hard.

Yet, despite it all, one constant kept us standing: our NHS staff. More than 6,000 people in and around Bolton hospital keep this town going. Nurses, doctors, porters, cleaners, therapists and paramedics turn up throughout winter crises and put up with buildings that are literally crumbling. I want to put on record my thanks to the many fantastic people I have met and particularly to Fiona Noden at Bolton hospital, Amy Rothwell at Bolton Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, Leigh Vallance at Bolton Hospice, Carol Fielding and Steve Milward at Bolton Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group and all the teams who care so deeply for their patients. They deserve more than our gratitude; they deserve a system that backs them.

Thankfully, because our staff and communities refused to give up, and because we now have a Labour Government repairing those years of neglect, there has been a real shift. Over the past year, Bolton hospital has become one of the most improved trusts in England for urgent care, the second most improved on the 12-hour A&E measure, and among the top 10 for the four-hour standard. Gone are the days of the regular 65-week waits. Cancer services are improving too. Bolton NHS foundation trust is leading the country on the 28-day diagnosis standard—a real credit to our cancer teams.

Of course, those gains were not luck; they came from investment, co-ordination and teamwork, and from Government backing alongside A&E staff, social care and our Greater Manchester partners. We have improved because we funded triage clinicians—expanding urgent care so that paramedics are not stuck in corridors—unblocked beds through better discharge planning and used modern data to keep patient flow moving. Improvements such as those show what happens when we have a Government who provide the support and resources we need. When Bolton is backed, Bolton delivers.

Of course, we cannot pretend that everything has been fixed within a year. Bolton hospital’s chief executive told me last week that winter illnesses have already begun, and my constituents are still living with the consequences of underinvestment. If we do not keep investing in beds, staff and modern systems, we will slide back. Even in recent weeks, I have heard from constituents about long waiting lists and poor communication. One constituent wrote to me after waiting nearly 10 months for an operation. Week after week brought new calls, promises and deferrals, with no clear explanation and no timeline held. Another constituent, who had received podiatry care for 20 years, found her care plan cancelled without notice after what was later described as “computer error”, leaving her housebound and in pain. That is not good enough. People deserve timely care and straight answers.

People also tell me about poor co-ordination across hospital, community and social care, delayed wheelchairs, patchy discharge planning and post-hospital support that does not arrive.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) for securing the debate. Whether it be Bolton or Ballywalter, healthcare problems are the same for every one of us. The result of these issues is a lack of confidence in the system, which is harmful in itself. If someone says there is no point phoning the GP, because they cannot get an appointment, they cannot get early detection and intervention, and they will lose out. Does the hon. Lady agree that accessibility is the key to confidence and that that is where we need to start?

[Kirith Entwistle]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to GP surgeries in more detail.

None of this is from a lack of effort. Our GPs and practice teams are working flat out. What is needed is joined-up care with real accountability. When a discharge is planned, the equipment and care package must already be in place. Families should not have to chase switchboards for what was promised on paper. Neighbourhood teams bringing physiotherapists, pharmacists and mental health practitioners into GP surgeries are part of the answer, and I want to see them fully rolled out in Bolton. It is common sense: if we help people sooner, we prevent hospital crises later.

Before I move on, I want to speak about the experience of Leah, a Bolton mum who took her 10-year-old son to the GP twice last summer. Her son was suffering from severe headaches, and Leah rightly asked their GP for blood tests. No tests were done. On the first visit, she was told it was most likely a virus. On the second, she asked again for bloods, but was told the GP needed to refer her son to paediatrics. Then, having taken him to A&E, she was told a referral had been received but that there would be a 28-week wait. Leah tried again and again. Later, while on holiday in Cyprus, Leah’s son collapsed. Doctors there diagnosed acute leukaemia, a life-threatening condition. This 10-year-old had to be treated in a foreign country he did not know, away from home and support, and the family were told he could return only by air ambulance, at a cost of more than £50,000.

Leah asked me a question no parent should have to ask: “If basic bloods had been done when I asked, would my son have been spared this ordeal?” I hope the Minister will agree that what Leah and her son have endured is utterly unacceptable, and I look forward to hearing what will be done to ensure that what happened to Leah’s son never happens again. As a mother to a three-year-old boy, I cannot accept a system that makes it easier for GPs to tell a worried mother to wait than to get a same-day full blood count when there are obvious red flags. Parents need to be heard and believed. Leah and her son are far from alone in their experience, which is exactly why we must recognise the critical role and responsibilities of GP surgeries when it comes to preventive care.

After speaking with the Bolton Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group, I fully back its call for more robust regular medication reviews in GP surgeries as well, and I will keep pressing for GP surgeries in Bolton to meet their responsibility to our communities. We must get this right, because families must be able to rely on their GPs.

Nowhere is the need for better healthcare in Bolton more visible or urgent than in maternity care and women’s health. In 2023, the crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete we have all read about was found in the roof of the maternity unit at Bolton hospital. Services had to be decanted, temporary structures went up and mothers and midwives made do. Although I am pleased that significant progress has recently been made in removing RACC, I will continue to push until the work is completed quickly and safely. Mothers and babies deserve a modern, safe environment, and I am determined to ensure that Bolton’s midwives have facilities that match their professionalism. The £4.7 million allocated to Bolton hospital by the Government this year for these repairs is welcome, but it is also a sticking-plaster. We simply cannot deliver 21st-century care in 20th-century buildings.

The experiences of mothers in Bolton underline why this matters. Healthwatch Bolton has reported accounts from women who were left alone for hours during labour, while another mother described giving birth in a hospital corridor. Beyond maternity, the gynaecology backlog has been in crisis for decades. Across the UK, more than half a million women are on gynaecology waiting lists, and in Greater Manchester alone around 40,000 women are stuck on a list for over 18 weeks. The average time for an endometriosis diagnosis is nearly nine years, with waits worse in the north than in the south.

That is why I strongly support the women’s health strategy, and the roll-out of women’s health hubs. The North Liverpool hub shows what works—menopause, cervical screening and gynaecology triage brought under one local roof, cutting waits, improving access and working for and around women, not the other way around. Bolton should benefit in the same way. I will continue to fight for a fully established and equipped women’s health hub in Bolton, with funding for specialist nurses, imaging and theatre time to match demand. I look forward to the Minister setting out what steps the Government are taking to improve maternity services and women’s health in my town.

If we want to see the future of a community, we should look at its children’s health. In Bolton the picture is stark. One in five children starts school overweight or obese, and by year 6 that is 38%, which is well above the England average. Worse still, our infant mortality and child death rates are higher than the national rate, and the wealth gap in healthy life expectancy means that someone born in Breightmet is likely to spend about a decade less of their life in good health than someone born in Bromley Cross. That is an utterly unacceptable level of inequality. Close to 30% of Bolton’s children live in poverty. Poverty drives stress, poor nutrition and overcrowding, and those drive ill health.

Bolton also has the highest rate of deaths of despair among young people—particularly young men—in Greater Manchester. We must change that reality. Last week, to mark World Mental Health Day, I had the privilege of training as Bolton’s 100th manbassador. Bolton Manbassadors creates safe spaces for men to talk, connect and seek support, and I am proud that its impact was recognised at this year’s Bolton News business awards, where it won a Heart of the Community award. I commend it and everyone in our community for coming together to support Bolton’s men and boys.

For years, dentistry in Bolton has been a crisis hidden in plain sight. Before the election, fewer than half of adults had seen an NHS dentist in two years. Families tried dozens of practices, only to be turned away, and although waiting lists have fallen under the Labour Government, there is still much more to do. One constituent, a full-time NHS worker, wrote to me in April after suffering 18 months of recurring infections and abscesses, all because she could not register with a dentist after moving to Bolton. She pays taxes and national insurance, but cannot get a basic extraction under the NHS. It is indefensible.

In Bolton our dentistry problem is structural. We are reliant on the Greater Manchester dental budget, but that fund covers only around 60% of our population’s needs. Dentistry is basic healthcare, not a luxury, and Bolton families should not go without because a funding formula short-changes our town.

That structural unfairness is not limited to dentistry. It is pervasive across how our healthcare resources are budgeted. The market forces factor, a key determinant for local healthcare funding, uplifts budgets for high-cost areas such as London, but does little to recognise the higher burden of illnesses in towns such as mine. Public health grants are skewed south. London boroughs receive roughly £105 per head, but the north-west receives only £85. That is the wrong way round when the need is greater there. Bolton families should not be penalised for living outside the M25.

Within that national picture, Greater Manchester devolution has brought real benefits to Bolton, such as shared elective hub capacity to cut backlogs, region-wide diagnostics collaboration and practical schemes such as the Greater Manchester dental access programme. When our region works together, it saves lives. But we must also be honest: Bolton can disappear into Greater Manchester averages that mask local pressures, and deficit controls and top-slicing can threaten to stall Bolton-specific plans. Yesterday’s meeting of the Bolton locality board warned that the biggest risk facing the system is the financial challenge facing health, and that a region-wide deficit could derail development plans, with an £800,000 shortfall for Bolton itself. My ask is simple: give Bolton its fair share, and do not leave us behind.

When I talk to people in Bolton, they do not ask for miracles; they ask for fairness. They want to know that if their child is sick, someone will answer the phone and give them an appointment, that if their mum needs a scan, it will not take months and that if they work hard and pay their taxes, their town will not be forgotten. For too long, those basic expectations were treated as too much—but not any more. We are now seeing meaningful progress in urgent care, waiting lists and a renewed focus on women’s and children’s health—but progress must be made within Bolton and not around it.

We are a proud town with brilliant NHS staff and a community who show up for each other. Bolton must never be left behind again—not in women’s health, diagnosis or the budget lines that can decide our fate. With the determination of our community, and a Labour Government that back us, we will not be left behind. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

16:46

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) for securing this important debate. As she said, our other hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) has a prior commitment, so he is not able to attend this debate. I mention that because the three of us work well together in campaigning on many issues of concern to our constituents. One of the things we do is have a regular meeting with the chief executive of our hospital, as we did only last week, to raise those issues.

Healthcare in Bolton is really important for us and one of the most serious concerns raised by our constituents. When people in Bolton talk about the NHS, they are full of respect for the doctors, nurses and frontline staff. Their frustration is directed not at individuals, but at a system that leaves them waiting for months without answers or support. One constituent with a serious heart condition told me that she had waited more than a year to see her cardiologist at the Royal Bolton hospital. At one point she was informed that the waiting list had actually been closed. She paid to be seen privately, but then her appointment finally arrived, one year after she had last inquired about it. She said:

“I do not expect luxury. I just do not want to be forgotten.”

Ahead of this debate, I invited constituents to share their own experiences of healthcare in Bolton. What I received were not statistics, but stories of worry, delay and a sense of being left behind. Parents spoke about their children waiting for assessment. Women described living in pain while waiting for treatment. Older residents asked whether their names still even existed on any list at all. People said that it was almost impossible to get a GP appointment unless they were online at 8 am. Others described the long phone queue, with no certainty of being able to secure an appointment, and being told that they would need to call back the following day or try again. Many spoke about digital systems that shut people out, especially those who are elderly, disabled or unwell.

I received accounts of hospital letters arriving late, or of appointments missed because no update had been received. Parents of children with mental health needs said that they were given information sheets instead of meaningful support. I hear their concerns, and they must be addressed. I recognise that secondary care is outside of the Minister’s direct brief, but obviously we cannot separate primary and secondary care when patients are stuck between them.

When referrals disappear and no update follows, it is the GPs who are left to manage their patients’ anxiety, without any information to reassure or support them. Communication must be treated as part of care, not an afterthought. In general practice there are concerns about not only access, but continuity. Constituents tell me that they never see the same doctor twice; they repeat their story at every appointment with no sense of follow-up or a clear plan. When ongoing conditions rely on repeated re-telling rather than joined-up care, confidence in the system is lost. Primary care needs support to provide consistency, not just capacity.

Mental health is another deeply worrying area. In Greater Manchester, the number of adults waiting for ADHD assessments has risen sharply; some of my constituents have been waiting eight months or more without being allocated a clinician. Parents spoke to me about their experience with child and adolescent mental health services, where children in real distress are waiting months and months for assessment and intervention. Without early support, families are being left alone to cope.

Another area is women’s health, where the disparities are clear. Girls born in the north-west can expect fewer healthy years than those born in other regions. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which serves parts of Bolton, has the highest gynaecology waiting list in England. Women describe missing work, living in pain and caring for families while waiting for basic investigations. I therefore welcome the Government’s women’s health strategy and the development of women’s health hubs. Liverpool has hubs that bring together contraception, screening and menopause care in one place, and Bolton should receive the same opportunity to deliver accessible women’s care in community settings.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dentistry and oral health, I know that NHS dentistry faces an existential threat. Almost 14 million people were unable to access dental care in the early part of 2025. From 2010 to 2024, expenditure on dentistry went down from 3% of the NHS budget to 1.5%. Although we welcome the 700,000 new appointments, we actually need 2.2 million of them, as the Government have accepted. Morale among NHS dentistry practitioners is at an all-time low, and many are leaving. The Health and Social Care Committee said in 2023 that the current dental contract is “not fit for purpose”. It needs reform.

Another issue is that, while there are qualified dentists, the process by which they have to register to practise seems to be taking a very long time. It is an administrative process, not a process for assessing professional, clinical requirements. That needs to be addressed. Many residents tell me that they cannot get dental appointments and are living in pain, with untreated problems. I have personally had to ring dentists to get appointments for a number of constituents. I know that the Government have a 10-year plan for the NHS, but dentistry cannot wait 10 years for the situation to be resolved.

Finally, we cannot discuss healthcare in Bolton without confronting inequality. One in four children in the north-west grow up in poverty. Delayed treatment, poor health and limited support are not separate issues; they are experienced by the same families. The 10-year health plan must deliver not only nationally, but locally, in towns such as Bolton where the need is greatest.

My constituents are not asking for perfection; they are asking not to be forgotten. They want to know that if they seek help, the system will acknowledge them, guide them and not let them fall between services. If we are to restore confidence, we must ensure that patients are not lost between primary and secondary care, and that dignity and fairness remain at the heart of healthcare delivery. With focus, co-ordination and commitment, we can deliver the timely, compassionate care that the people of Bolton deserve.

16:54

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) on securing this important debate. I also congratulate her and the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) on being such powerful advocates for health in their region. I was interested that both Members focused on poverty levels and inequality in health outcomes—a hugely important subject. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), and I both served on the Mental Health Bill Committee, where we discussed repeatedly the fact that people who live in poverty are three times more likely to have mental health issues than those on an average income.

I also served on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee, and I remember Professor Chris Whitty saying that it was not only the biggest piece of public health legislation in 30 years, but one of the biggest interventions to address inequality, because one of the significant factors in differences in life expectancy between more deprived communities and wealthier communities was smoking levels. Despite our economic troubles at the moment, we are still one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, and we can still be one of the healthiest nations on Earth if those resources are deployed in the right way. Everyone should have the right to see a doctor or dentist and to get mental health care as and when they need it.

We have touched on public health. At the moment, two thirds of adults are overweight and 10% of the NHS budget is spent on diabetes and diabetes-related illnesses. That is one reason that the Liberal Democrats are so keen on closing the loopholes in the sugar levy and extending it to sugary milk and juice-based drinks, on restricting the marketing of products high in fat, salt and sugar, on reversing cuts to the public health grant and on legislating for a right to clean air.

It is also why, like the Government, we are so keen on good-quality school meals. The hon. Member for Bolton North East talked about the levels of childhood obesity in primary school and their impact on not only the individual’s health, but the NHS in terms of cost. Having good-quality nutrition in all public organisations, whether schools, prisons or care homes, is an impactful way of not only helping people to have a healthier life, but reducing the burden on NHS services.

I will finish by saying that health is the No. 1 issue that comes up on the doorstep. There is a lot of concern and worry that people may not get healthcare when they need it. Whether in Bolton or Winchester, people need to know that they will be able to access healthcare, free at the point of use, as and when they need it. I commend the hon. Members for Bolton North East and for Bolton South and Walkden on securing this debate and speaking so powerfully on behalf of their constituents.

16:58

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). She covered a huge amount within her allotted time. The only sadness is that we have only an hour, and I have only a couple of minutes to try to address many of her points.

The biggest message that we take home today is that Bolton must not be left behind. The hon. Member has been exemplary in stepping forward and making that case. I would slightly and gently push back and say that I do not think that Bolton was left behind by the previous Government. The trajectory she is working towards is already there, if we look at examples of the investment that was made by the previous Government, most notably the £20 million, which made up part of the £40 million in levelling-up funding, for the medical college at the Royal Bolton Hospital, and listen to Professor Holmes, who said:

“It is incredibly rewarding for us at the University to witness our flagship facility reach this important milestone of practical completion.

It is a privilege to be home to one of the nation’s leading clinical skills facilities here in Greater Manchester and this is a key step in our aim to become a national centre of excellence for health.”

On top of that, there was a £20 million investment in the elective care centre, which has opened with four theatres dealing with about 5,000 patients. The hon. Member for Bolton North East was right to pick up on the maternity and women’s health unit, which is really important. In 2023, we saw a £38 million investment to help the unit, and it will hopefully be done by 2027. I have no doubt that she will be there to wag the stick to make sure that it is. I hope that she and the Government will be successful in that.

I want to tease out a couple of questions for the Government. The hon. Member stressed maternity, which is really important. At the general election, the Labour party made firm commitments on maternity services, so I ask the Minister: when will the national maternity safety ambitions be published, and will targets be set around the maternity mortality gap? What will be done to address it?

The hon. Members for Bolton North East and for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) both rightly raised the integration of system and service, which is also a concern on the Opposition side. We have seen top-down reorganisation, especially around integrated care boards, and I am sure the Greater Manchester integrated care partnership will have been asked to make reductions in its headcount.

The problem is that the Government have not set out how they will pay for those redundancies, or what that shape will look like, so they are trying to make transformative change and looking internally. There is real concern about that among the Opposition, so I hope the Minister will be able to set out how much that will cost and whether the redundancy package will be coming forward, because we hear it could be up to £1 billion. As the chief executive of NHS England has said, if we do not hear something in the next few weeks, the NHS will have to turn to plan B—if there is a plan B. I would be grateful if the Minister could set that out.

Finally, on GPs, we also know that the Government have stated in the 10-year plan that GP leaders will be pivotal in shaping and delivering these new services and will be supported to do so with two new contracts from 2026. Of course, we have learned in the past couple of weeks that GPs have entered a formal dispute with the Government because of the contractual changes, so I would be grateful to understand what the Minister is doing—although it is not in her brief—and what her team are doing to try to pull it back from the brink and hopefully resolve some of the contractual issues, particularly when it comes to access.

To close on a personal note, I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton North East on her work as a manbassador. As someone who, since stepping into this House, has campaigned on mental and physical health for men and boys, I know it often gets left behind. I made that point on the Floor of the House only a couple of weeks ago, so it is fantastic that she is championing men and boys. We need advocates for both sexes, both ways round, when it comes to men’s and women’s health. It is not a competition; it is not one or the other—it is “and”, and she typifies that. No man or boy should be left behind, but nor should Bolton.

17:02

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Ms Lewell.

It was a valiant effort from the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) to raise things such as top-down reorganisation and the state in which the Conservatives left the health service after their 14 years in government. It is as a result of that record that I am delighted to have my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) here, alongside such strong representation from Labour, following the electorate’s verdict on the last 14 years only 14 months ago. She has been an excellent campaigner since joining Parliament, and securing this important debate is part of that. I am grateful to other hon. Members for taking part.

As a result of the action taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East in securing this debate, I met the chief executive, Fiona Noden, and the local ICB to understand, in a more granular fashion, some of the issues I expected my hon. Friend to raise. She was right to thank the staff—both at a leadership level and across the board in Bolton—for their great work. I commend that leadership for meeting regularly, and my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton North East and for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for meeting regularly with those leaders. That happens in my own patch, but it does not happen everywhere. As I often say, it is a really valuable local relationship, because it makes hon. Members more informed and NHS managers better leaders as well.

As we have heard so eloquently, the NHS faces pressures all over the country, including in Bolton and north-west England. Our 10-year health plan is designed to fix that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East for holding one of those important consultation events. They were very powerful. As a result of the work that she and others have done to bring the patient voice directly to Government and make it a fundamental part of the plan, I think our plan has widespread support. I hope her constituents can hear their voices reflected in the plan that we have developed: it is about access to healthcare for everyone, no matter where they live or how much they earn. We must make sure that our health service is based on that need.

The three shifts—hospital to community, treatment to prevention, and analogue to digital—will ensure that community and neighbourhood health services get the investment they need and that patient communication is more joined up. We are also working with the NHS to make the tough choices that are needed to get it back on its feet.

We will create an NHS where patients have more control, staff have more time to care, bureaucracy is reduced, power is devolved and the health inequalities that we have so sadly heard about again this afternoon are narrowed. That includes creating a new operating model with fewer, larger ICBs, enabling them to harness a shared budget of sufficient size to improve efficiency and reduce running costs. It is a 10-year plan, but of course we are already seeing some improvements and we have set key targets and milestones along that trajectory. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden said, we cannot all wait 10 years. We have to see that improvement along the way.

Child health is crucial. We have heard about the inequalities and poverty that many children in Bolton experience. That is why the Government have committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever, and will soon publish an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackle the root causes, and give every child the best start in life.

A huge part of realising our ambitions for the NHS is about improving access to dentistry services. The Government understand that, which is why extra urgent dental appointments are being made available across the country, including in Greater Manchester. That is expected to deliver an extra 17,897 urgent dental appointments across 2025-26. Additional dentists have also been recruited in areas that need them most, and we are committed to delivering fundamental contract reform before the end of this Parliament.

All of that will deliver better dental care for everyone in England, including those in Bolton. We also recognise that we need to go further to improve the oral health of children, which is why we are providing funding to local authorities to roll out the targeted, supervised toothbrushing programme for three to five-year-olds. As a result of the programme, Bolton has received over 32,000 donated products to implement supervised toothbrushing alongside an additional £127,000 this financial year.

Hon. Members rightly raised the issue of RAAC at Royal Bolton hospital, which is obviously deeply concerning for staff and patients. Let us be very clear: the safety of patients and staff has to come first. Each trust with RAAC issues has invested significant levels of NHS capital to mitigate safety risks. Locally, the Bolton NHS foundation trust has received over £9.5 million to mitigate the RAAC risk and for eradication works at Royal Bolton hospital. The trust will continue to have access to further necessary funding for RAAC removal, enabling the hospital to complete development and modernisation upgrades.

Hon. Members also raised the important subject of women’s health. As part of our work in this area, we are tackling waiting lists, of which gynaecology is a substantial part. We will see those waiting lists come down and we will soon make emergency hormonal contraception free in pharmacies, but we know that there is much more to do for women. That is why we will look at where we can go further and reflect that in an updated women’s health strategy to better meet the needs of women in Bolton and across the country.

This year the Secretary of State announced a rapid national independent investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services. He will also chair a maternity and neonatal taskforce to develop the action plan based on the investigation’s recommendations. I am happy to report encouraging local initiatives such as Bolton’s new maternity and women’s health unit, which is set to open in early 2027, as well as a focus on paternal support and investment in strong community-based care and specialist parental mental health support, which we know is so important.

Issues around mental health were raised this afternoon. Mental health support in maternity is made possible only by strong mental health services across the board. That is why we are transforming mental health services. We have heard about Opposition Members serving on the Public Bill Committee and we thank them for their work. We need to build new dedicated mental health emergency departments, improve outreach, and increase overall funding to benefit Bolton and the rest of the country. That includes transforming mental health services in 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, building on the existing pilots, and investing up to £120 million to bring the number of mental health emergency departments up to 85.

We also heard about urgent and emergency care this afternoon. We will be publishing an urgent and emergency care plan. The plan will reduce A&E wait times, provide almost £450 million of capital investment for same-day emergency care and mental health crisis assessment centres, and get more ambulances back on the road. The local picture is promising. In Bolton, 12-hour wait times are down compared with a similar time last year, and meaningful infrastructure improvements are being delivered. We are not complacent, however, and we know the situation is not acceptable for people.

A large part of the contributions was about improving general practice and recognising the need for people to feel they have access to it, because that is where most people have contact with the health service. That improvement is a crucial part of our agenda. It is heartbreaking to hear about patients not getting the testing or treatment they need, and of course Leah and her son should not have had to endure that shocking ordeal. I hope that they are getting the support they need, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East will be supporting them.

On access, my hon. Friend will be aware that part of our negotiations with doctors has been about increasing online access, which was rolled out on 1 October. That is helpful to know if that is available in her patch. New funding for the advice and guidance scheme is helping GPs to work more closely with hospital specialists to access expert advice quickly and speed their patients through the system, so they get care in the right place as soon as possible.

[Dr Luke Evans]

Hearing Leah’s story was very concerning and upsetting. When it comes to further online access, one of GPs’ biggest concerns is about what to do with the emergencies that may come in through a computer at 6.20 pm as a result of that access, having to make that assessment when the system is supposed to be closing, and the ability to move GPs to take them away from face-to-face consultations to deal with online access. How will the Government square the circle of access versus patient safety? That is at the crux of the dispute.

[Karin Smyth]

The shadow Minister opens up a discussion that could take some time. Clearly, practices regularly manage emergency situations. The system that we have put in place aims to make sure that patients have access during the day. Different practices will obviously have different opening times—that is a matter for the local system—but I know that if an emergency comes forward, practices all over the country do all they can to make sure that patients are safe. There are also disclaimers on their websites about the times of operation and so on. If there are any individual cases that he wants to raise, we will look at them, but that urgent emergency interface is a matter of negotiation locally and I think most practices understand how to manage it.

I am pleased to report that we are investing more than £1 billion extra in GP services and £82 million in the primary care workforce to ensure that places such as Bolton get the resources and GPs they need. On infrastructure, a new £102 million fund will create additional clinical space across more than 1,000 practices in England. As a result of those efforts, 8 million more appointments have been delivered this year compared with last year. Our shift to a neighbourhood health service is exactly about the joined-up, accessible and locally accountable care that we all want to see, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East rightly highlighted. That is also what staff in the system want to see.

On waiting lists, we published our elective reform plan to deliver the change that we promised at the last election. Between July 2024 and June 2025, we delivered more than 5 million additional appointments compared with the previous year. There has also been a reduction in the number of people on the waiting list of over 200,000. I think patients and members of the public are seeing and feeling that progress, and although there is a long way to go, staff are starting to feel it too.

Since June 2024, the number of people on the waiting list at Bolton NHS foundation trust has reduced by more than 7,000, and the number of patients waiting over a year has more than halved. Those are tangible improvements in a very short time, and we thank the staff for their hard work to achieve that. Patients deserve better, but they are seeing progress. We know there is more to be done.

I thank hon. Members for bringing their knowledge and experience of Bolton’s health services to this debate. I know that they and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) will continue to advocate strongly on behalf of the people of Bolton, continue to work closely with local leaders, and continue to hold the Government to account for the promises we are making. That conversation between local Members of Parliament about what is actually happening on the ground, which we all hear about in our inboxes, in our surgeries and when we talk to local people, is an important part of what they are doing to raise these issues. I hope that my response shows how much the Government are committed to addressing these issues and working to improve healthcare for the people of Bolton.

17:14

[Kirith Entwistle]

I thank hon. Members from both sides of the House who have taken part in this debate, and I thank the Minister for her response, in which she touched on a broad range of subjects.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) for highlighting the regional inequalities, which are particularly important, and for touching on the impact of child poverty and the importance of good-quality nutrition. I will not reiterate the impact that the last Conservative Government had on Bolton, but I commend the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for his work on mental health, and specifically men’s mental health, which is such an important area.

Finally, I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for her tireless support—the three Bolton MPs have a strong partnership. I was struck by her statement that primary care needs consistency to provide support, not just capacity. That is a strong message.

I am grateful to hear that the Minister has met the CEO of Bolton hospital, and I am pleased to hear that we are making progress, which is being felt. However, I will continue to work with my fellow Bolton MPs to ensure that Bolton is not left behind, and to ensure that we continue to make progress in the right direction.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered healthcare in Bolton.

17:16

Sitting adjourned.