Hospital Services (South Manchester)

Debate between Lord Brady of Altrincham and Ben Gummer

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady is right to say that there are concerns from some clinicians at Wythenshawe hospital, and we should listen to those. There is an established process by which those concerns should be brought to bear. If she does not mind me running through the detail of how reconfiguration policy works, I am sure that she will find answers to some of the questions in her speech.

Our first principle is that the service changes should be led by clinicians, which is the point of the process. In this instance, the service changes are being led by 12 clinical commissioning groups coming together to discuss the future of 10 hospitals. The service changes will affect just under 1% of in-patients, and just under 20% of patients receiving general surgery, at Wythenshawe hospital. Within the context of Wythenshawe hospital as a whole, we are talking about a very small number of patients. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concerns about the interrelationship with other specialties, but let us keep it in mind that this is a small number of patients.

Once the commissioners have come to their decision, there are two ways of resolving complaints from one party or another. The first is by a recommendation from the joint overview and scrutiny committee to the Secretary of State for Health—such a recommendation has not been made in this case—or by a referral to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, which the hon. Lady mentioned in her speech. The Independent Reconfiguration Panel has made a number of recommendations in the past. That is no predictor of future performance, but at no point in the past, under any Administration, has a Secretary of State gone against the Independent Reconfiguration Panel’s recommendations. The point of both those exercises is to retain clinical ownership of decisions, albeit by different clinicians from those who made the original decision. If we go back to the bad old days, when decisions were made for political purposes following a clinical recommendation, we would not listen to clinicians in the round and, therefore, would make decisions on the wrong basis, possibly putting lives in jeopardy.

The hon. Lady has raised clinicians’ concerns about the effect on tertiary services, which are impressive at Wythenshawe hospital. All I can say is that NHS England has undertaken a thorough clinically-led review of all tertiary services at the hospital and has concluded that the changes to general surgery for stomach and bowel accidents will not adversely impact on the tertiary specialties available at Wythenshawe hospital. That is the advice that the Department has received from clinicians at NHS England. I have described the other options open to parties in Manchester, and I reaffirm that, even if it might suit some Members present to take that decision-making process out of clinical hands at whatever level and to vest it in the Department, it is not a direction that anyone on either side of the House ultimately wishes to take. We must therefore trust the opinion of clinicians in the bodies that have made those decisions so far.

[Mr Graham Brady]

My hon. Friend, for obvious and very good reasons, is valiantly treading a tightrope between discussing the specific case and addressing the general points, but I must counter the suggestion that any of us is here to try to overturn clinically-led decisions. On the contrary, our concern is that very senior clinicians feel that they have had no voice in this process. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, they are now raising very serious concerns about patient safety. As I said earlier, the consultants I have dealt with at Wythenshawe hospital are serious professionals who do not say that lightly. I also suggest that the three local Members here today do not have a record of hysteria on such things, and we are united in our concerns. We are perfectly capable, and we have shown that we are capable, of making reasonable judgments about reconfiguration when that reconfiguration is reasonable.

[Ben Gummer]

I am acutely aware of the huge spread of sensibleness on both sides of the Chamber, and I would not want any of my remarks to be construed as suggesting otherwise. On the contrary, I restate that it is not only reasonable but right that local Members respond to the views expressed by very experienced clinicians in their local hospital.

In my short discussions so far with local commissioners —I am sure there will be more discussions—I have impressed on them the need to engage fully with all clinicians. I understand that they began the process afresh before I made that request and that they will continue that engagement. We will only get good reconfigurations across the country if we have the general buy-in of clinicians and the public. We are now doing that better than we were five, 10 or 15 years ago, when every reconfiguration of every kind was fought tooth and nail by everyone. There is now a general move to an understanding that we need to make some changes to some areas. Indeed, the shadow Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), has made clear his desire to see some services centralised:

“If local hospitals are to grow into integrated providers of Whole-Person Care, then it will make sense to continue to separate general care from specialist care, and continue to centralise the latter. So hospitals will need to change and we shouldn’t fear that.”

I could not agree with him more on that general principle, but it does not change the fact that commissioners need to engage with every single party.

My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, and every other Member, can be sure that I will pass back to commissioners their specific concerns about that engagement. In the discussions, which I am sure will continue between all of us, I hope that he and other Members will notice continued engagement between commissioners and clinicians at the hospital, and I hope that there will be a happier outcome than the one that might come about through judicial action.

The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and the shadow Minister both spoke about Manchester airport and made interesting and valid points about the need for a stated relationship between important national infrastructure and centres of major trauma care. I will respond to the shadow Minister in writing on that specific question, if he does not mind sharing that response with his colleagues. This is an important matter, and I want to ensure that I can answer it in detail and in full.

If I interpreted his remarks correctly, the shadow Minister also said that consultations had been taken out of the hands of clinical commissioning groups specifically to be conducted by a third party, such as health and wellbeing boards. Again, I have not previously heard that idea, but I am happy to respond to that specific point once I have been able to give it greater thought, with no implication for the current consultation.

I will now close in order to give the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East time to reply to my comments. We all agree that reconfiguration needs to happen. In this instance, there has clearly been support from those Members who have been the beneficiaries of the reconfiguration in their constituencies, but the most important beneficiaries will be the people of Manchester, who I expect will see world-leading trauma care connected to emergency stomach and bowel surgery as a result of these changes. We must be proud that clinicians are leading the review, we must be proud that clinicians have been prepared to make bold and difficult decisions and we must be proud that Members present have come forward to represent the concerns of some that clinicians have not made those decisions in the right way. Members have made those points with lucidity, care and passion.

I hope that in the next few weeks we will resolve this matter in a rather happier way than it might otherwise have been resolved, and I pledge to continue my discussions with Members on both sides of the House to ensure that that is the case.