The National Health Service

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), who gave very personal examples of how this debate touches us all, and our families, in the most intimate and moving way possible. I am glad to be in the Chamber to speak on a subject that I have long believed needed more focus, and I am pleased that it has been given the attention it deserves in the Queen’s Speech.

Demand is steadily growing and pressure will continue to rise in our health services. In particular, we must focus on addressing the issues that social care brings up, in respect of both adult social care and children’s social care, which I shall touch on shortly. That is why I am glad that the Government have committed an extra £1 billion, in addition to the existing £2.5 billion that they have ring-fenced for adult and children’s social care. Why is that so important? Because adult social care and support enables people of all ages to live the lives that they want and deserve to lead. It helps people to maintain their own health, wellbeing and independence and, importantly, it reduces pressure on the NHS and the need for NHS services.

The Government launched the better care fund, which aims to join up the NHS and social care at local level, with almost £6.5 billion in 2019-20 and £2 billion pooled voluntarily last year to make sure that services are more joined up for patients. That joined-up approach at a local level is something I really believe in. If it is carried out in the right way, it can help to take some pressure away from the NHS and help to deliver a better service to local communities.

Although welcome, more money like that in the short term is not the ultimate answer. I have spoken many times in the House, including at Prime Minister questions, about the adult care Green Paper, so I welcome the pledges to get on with that and perhaps even move directly to a White Paper, informed by the work done in the joint report by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee. I was involved in that report and many of its recommendations are very worth while.

In line with my speaking about adult care and the importance of local government working with the NHS on overall outcomes for health, I have a recent example from my constituency that demonstrates the importance of the whole public sector taking a holistic approach to health. The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing. Earlier this month in Northampton South, I met some truly inspirational parents, Jamie Shellard, Susan Underwood and Olivia Anderson, along with Councillor Julie Davenport. They had been fighting to secure local school transport for their children with special educational needs and health issues and disabilities. The scheme proposed by the county council wanted a pick-up and drop-off point for their children, but that would have meant that children who currently get picked up by many buses or taxis from their homes might instead have had to walk up to a mile to be picked up from unknown bus stops instead. That does not make any sense. It is an example of a disjointed approach when, as I say, it is more important for the left hand and the right hand to know what they are doing.

In addition to paying tribute to those inspirational parents and the tireless work that they have championed, let me explain why I have mentioned them. Their case underlines how, even in a single local authority with significant health responsibilities, there can be an inability to see the bigger picture. It is good news that Northamptonshire County Council has now postponed that plan. I hope it will not come back at all. That case demonstrates how even highways and transport policies can have a direct impact on health and health services, which is why an integrated health and social care approach is important, and why we need all parts of local government and NHS services to work together in greater harmony, so that we can have the result we want for all our constituents who rely on those services.

Health and Social Care (Kettering)

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered health and social care in Kettering constituency.

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Wilson, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate. I also welcome Northamptonshire colleagues who are here: my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer). If he is released from his important role in the Government Whips Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) hopes to be able to attend. Others with a local interest are also here, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who I welcome to his place.

I also welcome our excellent Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar). He is not only excellent in his own right, but he is super excellent because within just a few weeks of being appointed as hospitals Minister, he made a visit to Kettering General Hospital one of his very highest priorities. He did that on 7 October and met: the superb chairman of Kettering General Hospital, Alan Burns; our wonderful chief executive, Simon Weldon; the medical director, Andrew Chilton; the chief nurse, Leanne Hackshall; the chief operating officer, Joanna Fawcus; the director of strategy and transformation, Polly Grimmett; the director of finance, Nicola Briggs; the director of estates, Ian Allen; the clinical director of urgent care, Adrian Ierina; and the head of nursing in urgent care, Ali Gamby. All those magnificent people were there to meet the Minister because the hospital is absolutely determined to get the necessary funding for a new urgent care hub at the Kettering General Hospital site.

Kettering General Hospital is a much-loved local hospital. It has been on its present site for 122 years, and there cannot be many hospitals that have such a record. The problem at Kettering General Hospital is that the A&E department is full. It was constructed in 1994 to cope with 45,000 attendances each year. This year, we could well go through the 100,000 attendances mark, which is well over 150% of the department’s capacity. By 2045, 170,000 attendances are expected at the same site. The solution to that pressure is for an urgent care hub facility costing £46 million to be constructed on the site. It would be a two-storey, one-stop shop with GP services, out-of-hours care, an on-site pharmacy, a minor injuries unit, facilities for social services and mental health care, access to community care services for the frail elderly and a replacement for our A&E department. All the NHS organisations in Northamptonshire, as well as NHS Improvement regionally, agree that that is the No. 1 clinical priority for Northamptonshire. They are all saying the same thing to the Government, and I am delighted to support their campaign.

The A&E department at Kettering General Hospital was visited in 2016 by Dr Kevin Reynard of the national NHS emergency care improvement programme. He said:

“The current emergency department is the most cramped and limiting emergency department I have ever come across in the UK, USA, Australia or India. I cannot see how the team, irrespective of crowding, can deliver a safe, modern emergency medicine service within the current footprint.”

Despite some temporary modifications over recent years, including moving other patient services off the hospital site, detailed surveys show that no further opportunities remain to extend the department and that a brand-new building is required on the site. The hospital has developed a superb business case for a fit-for-purpose emergency care facility that will meet local population growth for the next 30 years. It has been developed with all the health and social care partners across the county so that patients can get a local urgent care service that meets all the Government guidance on good practice, ensuring that they get the care they need to keep them safely outside of hospital if necessary, and ensuring that if they come into hospital, they are seen by the right clinician at the right time, first time. The bid has been submitted to the Government. We have been pressing the case for the facility since 2012. It is about time that the Government listened to the concerns and responded by promising the funding.

The pressure on Kettering General Hospital is primarily being driven by very fast population growth locally. The Office for National Statistics shows that we are one of the fastest growing areas in the whole country, at almost double the national average. The borough of Corby is the fastest growing borough outside of London. The population served by the trust has grown by almost 45% since the A&E opened in 1994. The area is committed to at least 35,000 new houses over the next 10 years. That means a population rise of some 84,000, to almost 400,000 people locally. The A&E department now sees approximately 300 patients every single day in a department that is safely sized to see just 110. Every day, 87 patients are admitted into the inpatient wards from A&E, and over the next 10 years, the hospital expects the number of A&E attendances to increase by 30,000, equivalent to almost 80 extra patients every day. Bluntly, a solution is required immediately if the hospital is to have time to prepare and build for that.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I recently visited A&E at Northampton General Hospital, which also has a space and crowding problem, particularly in paediatrics. Does he agree that investment there would assist Kettering with the problems it has and would lead to a whole Northamptonshire approach to solving some of these problems?

[Mr Hollobone]

I am delighted to take that intervention from my hon. Friend, who is a superb representative for his constituents in Northampton and is very much in touch with the importance of local healthcare issues to our constituents. He is absolutely right.

I am delighted to welcome the Government’s commitment to include Kettering General Hospital on the list of hospitals that will be considered for health infrastructure plan 2—or HIP2—funding from 2025. That is important for Kettering, because the hospital has been there for 122 years, 70% of the buildings on the main hospital site are more than 30 years old and there is a maintenance backlog of £42 million. We need the reconstruction of many wards at the hospital. I welcome the Government’s commitment to investment in the hospital site from 2025 onwards, which could transform the whole of Kettering General Hospital. The point about the urgent care hub is that we need the money now to address the pressure on the A&E department.

The second part of the debate is about the need for us to use the opportunity of local government reorganisation in Northamptonshire to create in the county a combined health and social care pilot that will put responsibility for healthcare and social care under one organisation. Northamptonshire County Council has faced tremendous financial difficulties. The Government appointed an inspector, who concluded that it was not possible to turn around the organisation. The Government’s solution is to create two unitary councils in the county: a “north” council and a “west” council that will take over all the responsibilities of the eight different councils in the county from May 2021. We can use that once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a new organisation on a pilot basis to combine health and social care in Northamptonshire.

That is important for Kettering General Hospital because it has 531 beds; at any one time 110 of those beds—21%—are occupied by patients who should not be in hospital at all, but in a social care or other setting. In Government jargon, they are defined as super-stranded patients who have been in hospital for more than 21 days. If the hospital discharges 87 patients a day from the A&E department to the hospital, and 110 of the beds are occupied by patients who should be in a different setting, it creates huge problems for the A&E department, so finding a solution to the social care issue is also important for the A&E department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am afraid that I profoundly disagree with the hon. Gentleman, who used to be so sensible. Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem and we contribute to global funds, because only by coming together as a whole world will we be able to tackle it— and that is what we are going to do.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to increase the number of NHS nursing associates.

[The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)]

Health Education England is leading a national nursing associate expansion plan to train 7,500 apprentice associates in 2019, building on the 5,000 who were trained in 2018.

[Andrew Lewer]

The University of Northampton successfully carried out its partnership with Northampton General Hospital in training the first wave of nursing associates in the United Kingdom, as the Secretary of State saw when he visited the hospital recently. What can he and his team do to encourage other universities and local hospitals to form partnerships to deliver similar results?

[Stephen Hammond]

I know that the Secretary of State enjoyed his visit and was very impressed by what he saw. Health Education England has led the establishment of test site partnerships across England. There were 11 test sites in the first wave and a further 24 in April 2017, and the programme is now being rolled out all over the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

T8. Perhaps the worst private finance initiative contract in the country was awarded in 2001 to Shaw Healthcare for the rehabilitation of elderly people coming out of hospital. Northamptonshire County Council has been paying Shaw for a service in which more than 50% of beds have been lying empty. What steps can the Department take to manage the problems that have arisen from this and other PFI contracts?

[Stephen Hammond]

Departmental officials have worked alongside the council to engage with Shaw Healthcare to identify the causes and explore the solutions to minimise the number of empty beds under the PFI. Through improved contract management and regular meetings with Shaw, significant improvements are being made, and contract changes are under discussion to further improve performance. This aligns with the Department’s best practice centre for PFI contracts, as the Chancellor announced in the Budget—

Social Care Funding

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That need not necessarily be the case. It was slightly disappointing that the hon. Lady, who is normally a great champion of cross-party working, did not welcome the £780,000 extra for Grimsby, but you can’t win them all. The people of Grimsby need to know that we are there to support them and to support their local NHS.

I now turn to the long-term funding pressures. The lifetime care costs of a 65-year-old today are about £45,000 on average, but those total average costs that people face are not distributed evenly. Some people face no care costs at all, whereas the care costs for someone with dementia who lives into their 90s can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. As a society, that is the challenge we face, yet right now there is no way to predict or insure this potential financial burden. We are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the care and support they need. However, as has always been the case, that must be based on the principle of shared responsibility. With sensible planning, people should not have to fear the risk of losing everything. The adult social care Green Paper, which will be published later this year, will bring forward a range of ideas to address the long-term challenge. We want to learn from what has been proven to work, with one example being the auto-enrolment pension reforms, which have been taken forward on a cross-party basis over a decade. The rate of opting out has been remarkably low, and this has put in place the foundations for the strengthening of our pensions system over time. The Green Paper will propose a range of options and ideas, learning from both the UK and from around the world.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has said that he wants this debate to be based on fact, not partial fact, so may I have his assurance that research behind the Green Paper has taken full account of overseas options, which provide insurance models and choice, taking us well beyond these simplistic more tax solutions to address this complex problem?

Department of Health and Social Care and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am pleased to take this opportunity created by the estimates to discuss adult care funding, given that a large percentage of the funding that local government administers relates to it.

I have been part of the joint Select Committee inquiry on the future of adult care. Before that, I led a county council with responsibility for adult care that had an adult care budget alone of around a quarter of a billion pounds. I then arrived as an MP just in time for Northamptonshire County Council to fall over financially, due in no small measure to adult care costs; addressing local versus national responsibilities for that are perhaps for a different time.

Adult care funding is a very important issue, and the solution to it requires bold thinking. Although the better care fund and the general funding in the estimates are welcome, they do not represent a solution; rather, they represent a temporary patch. When I was deputy chairman of the LGA, we had a presentation from the King’s Fund in which it showed us reports that it had produced every year since 1999—this is very much a cross-party issue—saying, “This year must be the year that there is a solution to adult care funding.” That was in the last century. Integration is not the same as the NHS taking over. There will always be lines. With adult care, the next line would be housing, and I do not think anyone is suggesting that the NHS take over housing.

Colleagues have mentioned parity of esteem. Parity of esteem for employees is important institutionally. We speak a lot about the NHS. We are proud of it, and we are talking about its birthday, but often the NHS workers shade out the esteem that we need to give to social care workers and people who work in local authorities providing essential local services, particularly to the elderly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the part he played in the joint Select Committee report. He is absolutely right about that. Figures in the inquiry showed that for the same work, social care workers were paid about 29% less on average than workers in the NHS.

[Andrew Lewer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. It is about pay, but it is also about conditions and remembering that the health economy is much more than the NHS.

I believe, however, that more tax is not the solution, even if hypothecated and ring-fenced as road fund licence and national insurance were in their time. It is not wholly in tune with Conservative philosophy to suggest that higher tax rates equal higher tax revenue, and there is economic theory to back that up. The Laffer curve, for which the British economy in the 1970s was in many respects the laboratory, indicates that when a certain tax rate is reached, revenue goes down, not up. We are high on the Laffer curve already: 41% of GDP is Government spending in the last recorded figures, compared with 38% in 1988-89 and 34.5% in 2000-01. This is not about whether we need more—we do—but how to get it.

In general economic terms, productivity gains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) said, and GDP growth per head are key to more funding going into adult care. In specific terms, an insurance approach with some elements of the German model has a great deal to commend it. I was very pleased to see that option retained in the recommendations of the joint Select Committee report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to encourage the adoption of personal health and care budgets.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to encourage the adoption of personal health and care budgets.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I know that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families affected by the terrible atrocity a year ago.

Personal health budgets have a transformative effect on people with very complex health needs, and we plan for 50,000 to 100,000 more people to benefit from them by 2021.

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely, and not just to North West Norfolk, but to the whole country. We are currently consulting on giving a right to personal health budgets to people with the most complex health needs. That would be about 350,000 people and would include anyone with a continuing NHS need combined with a mental health need, a learning disability, autism or PTSD. Obviously, it would be hugely significant if we were able to proceed with that.

[Andrew Lewer]

Will the Minister ensure that the long-term NHS plan puts a major emphasis on empowering patients through the wider availability of personal budgets? May I also join my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) and make a pitch for my local area of Northampton for one of the next wave of pilots?

[Mr Hunt]

Absolutely, and technology will have a big role, because this year we intend all NHS patients to be able to access their health records through an app. That will be extremely empowering, but my hon. Friend is right that giving people with long-term conditions control over their health and care destiny is a potentially huge leap forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I will look at Hightown surgery, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me about it, he is welcome to do so. Of course it is the responsibility of his clinical commissioning group and NHS England in his area to provide primary care services for the patients who are his constituents, but if wants to talk to me further, I am very happy to do so.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Following the Government’s commitment to expand medical school places by 25%—one of the biggest expansions in the history of the NHS—I am pleased to announce to the House the results of the competition to set up five new medical schools. They were chosen following a rigorous and independent bidding process, which prioritised attracting doctors to harder-to-recruit areas and increasing the number of GPs and psychiatrists. Many congratulations to the winners, which are: the University of Sunderland; Edge Hill University in Lancashire; Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford; the University of Lincoln working in collaboration with Nottingham University; and Canterbury Christ Church University.

[Andrew Lewer]

With the death of Professor Stephen Hawking in all of our thoughts, can the Minister tell us what steps his Department will take to support research to develop a cure for motor neurone disease?

[Mr Hunt]

Professor Hawking was an inspiration not just because of his scientific thinking, but because, to many people with motor neurone disease, he was an absolute exemplar: he was given two years to live at the age of 21 and ended up living until he was 76. This disease is a big area of priority for us. In the last year for which we have full-year figures, £52 million was invested into it, and we are currently recruiting for 24 clinical trials.

Hospital Car Parking Charges

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

First, I wish to thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for having secured and initiated such an important debate, which affects so many in my constituency and across our country. For many, attending a hospital is a vulnerable time, whether we are seeking treatment for ourselves or for a loved one. Our hospitals are indeed underfunded and overstretched, but it is not for sick patients, anxious relatives and already hard-pressed NHS staff to be filling the funding gaps.

We have heard that hospital car parking charges raise funds, but many hospital trusts up and down our country have increased their charges without consulting the public—the very people they are there for. Some trusts allow private contractors to manage car parking sites, which is leading to penalties and fines for patients and visitors, as we have heard in this important debate. At a time when the cost of living is increasing and those who work in the public sector have had their pay capped, the rising cost of hospital car parking only increases the financial burden on many in our constituencies.

It is not just the patients who are deterred by higher charges; families and friends might be discouraged from visiting patients at their bedside, which must surely have a negative impact on the mental wellbeing of patients and lead to increased pressure on nursing staff. From personal experience, I know that many patients rely on relatives and friends to act as interpreters or advocates. Such elements are seemingly overlooked when surveys and reports are undertaken, but patient care can be impacted where higher charges deter people from providing such crucial assistance.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

We have heard a lot about staff and patients and families. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) mentioned volunteers earlier, and the hon. Gentleman is talking about the importance of patient support. Does he agree that it is particularly short-sighted of any hospital trust to seek to charge volunteers, who give of their time, for parking?

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his excellent intervention, and I could not agree more. We have heard previously about volunteer drivers. It is just not fair. It is nonsensical to ask them to dig further into their pockets. It also places an unfair and unnecessary burden on hard-working staff who have gone for years without a decent pay rise. While some hospitals offer free or discounted parking for specific kinds of treatment or for people in receipt of specific benefits, there are significant variations in fees across trusts in the same region. Wexham Park Hospital in my constituency has some of the highest parking charges in the region: £3.30 after the first 15 minutes and an increase, in stages, to £8 over five hours. That is the situation in my constituency, but that trust is only doing what all other trusts are no doubt doing and it is within Government guidelines. I do not want older and vulnerable patients to be deterred from attending hospital. They should be able to get to their appointments in a comfortable, dignified, affordable manner and within a reasonable time.

Most NHS car parking charges have been abolished in Scotland and Wales, and I know that the Government have issued guidance to NHS trusts on the implementation of car parking charges, including the provision of discounted or free parking. These guidelines are not based in legislation and appear to have had little effect. The Labour Government in 2010 left fully costed plans to phase out charges for in-patients and their visitors, and in 2015 a private Member’s Bill on this subject gained cross-party support but was talked out. Clearly, many across the country and the House want an end to hospital car parking charges. Let us send a clear message today that there is another way forward and that this unfair stealth tax on the vulnerable must end.

Corby Urgent Care Centre

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been unstinting in his support for the Corby urgent care centre and the local campaign. He recognises, quite rightly, the pressures that the facility relieves Kettering General Hospital of. Kettering General Hospital is obviously a very important facility in our community. I will touch on those pressures a little bit later, but I very much appreciate his support for what we are doing.

I have talked about the short-term situation. In the longer term, the CCG appears to be committed to much more thorough consultation, first with a pre-consultation, and followed by a thorough consultation on options, which I understand would run between November and January. I welcome that, but I am clear that corners must not be cut in that process. The whole community must be engaged. It is not enough to engage with a group of 700 people in a patient participation group; that is just not good enough.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. His reference to Kettering General Hospital and this fairly narrow consultation leads me to ask whether he agrees that not only Kettering General Hospital but Northampton General Hospital would be impacted by this. Have those he has been working with made references to that in the course of their discussions?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my county colleague for his intervention. He is absolutely right. As this campaign has progressed since July, I have been receiving communication from people across the county and from outside the county who say they make use of the Corby urgent care centre rather than going to the acute hospitals in our area. I have no doubt that not only Kettering General Hospital but Northampton General Hospital would be affected. This is not just a Corby issue by any means, although it is obviously very important to Corby residents. It is also fundamental to the wider health infrastructure of north Northamptonshire.

I want Corby CCG to be very aware of and alive to the fact that I will be watching the consultation process ahead of us like a hawk, because the consultation that has gone on previously has not been good enough. I think the CCG would recognise, if it were honest, that that has not been good enough, and we need to see improvement. I will not hesitate to ask difficult questions, should they need to be asked. I will also be clear with the CCG that it ought to make no mistake that in the long term we need urgent care facilities in our town. There are a number of key reasons for that.

The first is the growth agenda. There can be no doubt that in north Northamptonshire, there will be increasing pressures on our health infrastructure more generally in the years ahead. We are taking thousands and thousands of new homes, not just in Corby but in east Northamptonshire, Kettering and Wellingborough. That inevitably brings pressures for existing health services.

I have already referred to the KGH pressures, which are very pertinent. I am pleased, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) will be, that the recent Care Quality Commission inspection saw quite considerable improvement compared with the last inspection. We welcome that, but I do not want to see all that good work undone by additional people who would previously have gone to the Corby urgent care centre turning up at A&E.

One flaw in the CCG’s argument to date has been that it has never been able to account for the number of people who currently go to the urgent care centre and who, if that were not available, would go on to Kettering General Hospital. I am very concerned about that. We must not forget that last year, 70,000 people made use of the Corby urgent care centre, and only 6% of those went on to Kettering General Hospital for further treatment. That gives us an idea of the impact here. I think we would also all recognise that Corby has significant and acute health needs, particularly on the back of the fact that we are an industrial town. Our town has been built on our industries, which inevitably leads to acute health needs among the local population.

I know that local people share my strength of feeling on this. The “Save Corby Urgent Care Centre” group has done a fantastic job, particularly online, harnessing local opinion and local support for the campaign. In fact, tomorrow night at the end of business, I shall present a petition signed by more than 2,500 local people in support of the urgent care centre. I pay tribute to Lyn Buckingham, Maria Bryan and others for the work that they have been doing on the issue.

As the local Member of Parliament, I am proud to say that the fact that we have a Labour council in Corby does not mean that we do not work together for what is best for the people of our area. Tom Beattie, the Labour leader of the council, and I have worked very closely on this issue, as we do on others, such as the steel issue, because party politics does not matter when it comes to these issues. People do not want to see politicians squabbling and arguing about petty points; they want solutions to the problems, so I am pleased that that cross-party work continues in our community. I want to say again a big thank you to my Northamptonshire colleagues for their support on this issue, because, as I said, it affects not just my constituents, but people in their areas.

The final thing giving me heart in terms of the strength of local feeling is that I launched a parliamentary postcode campaign on this issue, and although not that many have yet been delivered—that process is going on at the moment—we are seeing hundreds and hundreds returned. I look forward to the opportunity to present sacks of those cards to the commissioners in the months ahead, as part of the consultation process, to hammer home how strongly we as a community feel about the issue. They are also coming in thick and fast on email, and not just from people in Northamptonshire.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his interest. Obviously, we have just had a recess, which is not necessarily a particularly good time for challenges to occur in constituencies, but I have really appreciated the fact that he has always been willing and available to talk about this issue when concerns have been brought to my attention. That availability is appreciated. Often, politicians are accused of talking about problems, raising issues, but having no solutions. When I look at this issue, there are some things that really stand out for me that I think are just common sense. What concerns me is that when we look at the figures for same-day access in Corby, for example, we are not doing well enough. There are clearly key challenges ahead, and the CCG’s performance on that particular matter has to improve.

However, that should not be at the expense of urgent care facilities in the town, and local people should not be penalised in relation to the urgent care centre as a result of the current contract not having been handled as it should have been by the commissioners. Obviously, the expert determination speaks to that point. I do not need to say any more on that, but local people should not be penalised, in terms of the health services available to them going forward, as a result of the contract not having been handled as it should have been.

It is clear to me that if we improved GP access, the cost of the urgent care centre service would reduce, because if more of my constituents, or more of those people from the surrounding areas, could see their GP on the day that they needed an appointment, they would not have cause to go to the urgent care centre, where they have perhaps been going because the access has not been good enough to date. It should be about doing both: improving GP access at the same time as providing urgent care facilities. I argue very strongly that the cost of the urgent care facilities would be less were the GP access better.

I will continue to advance these arguments in the months ahead. I am conscious that county colleagues who are present may want to say a few words, so I shall wrap up, but I want to be very clear about the fact that losing this facility would be a betrayal of local people. The proof is in the pudding: it is making an impact. The idea of losing it is obscene when we consider that other areas look at Corby urgent care centre with envy. For example, people in Wellingborough want to see, at the Isebrook site, a very similar service replicated. Were we to lose Corby urgent care centre, that would also undermine the whole model that we have been working on, cross-party, for some years. I am talking about a hub-and-spoke model—ensuring that we have the urgent care hub on the Kettering General Hospital site, with a spoke in Wellingborough and a spoke in Corby. That makes absolute sense, and I do not want the good work that has been done on it undone, because this facility is class-leading and can demonstrate that it has made quite an impact. I say again that I am in no doubt that losing the facility would be a disaster for Kettering General Hospital. I also recognise that Corby CCG has responsibility for Kettering General Hospital as its pinned CCG.

As I said in the debate before the summer recess, my message to the CCG remains very clear: please don’t let us down.