NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation
Debate between Judith Cummins and Debbie Abrahams(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Debbie Abrahams
As a former public health consultant, I would obviously agree with my hon. Friend. I have similar health inequalities across Oldham. I was about to talk about the impact of other issues, such as social security cuts, which meant greater poverty, including in-work poverty and children from working families living in poverty. That has had a consequential impact on our health as a whole. We have flatlining life expectancy, and in areas such as mine, life expectancy has got worse. That impacts on our productivity and the wealth of our country.
I will briefly mention a couple of points that I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recognises, and might want to consider. An annual report on the state of our health and the state of our NHS, presented to Parliament before each Budget, would pick up on the points that have been raised about cross-departmental impacts on health. We should have a prospective assessment of the impacts of the Budget and the Finance Bill on poverty and inequality, and subsequently on health and the NHS. That can be done; others are doing it. We should have a strategy to identify and address health equity issues in the NHS. We have seen a bit of that through covid, in the inequity around the use of oximeters. We should introduce something like “Improving working lives” for our staff. That had a massive effect on staff when I worked in the NHS. We need a clear commitment to the 1948 principles of the NHS, under which it is funded from general taxation, and a funding allocation based on need.
Social Security
Debate between Judith Cummins and Debbie Abrahams(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Debbie Abrahams
I am not going to give way. I thank the right hon. Member, but I cannot because I am under strict guidance from the Deputy Speaker.
One in three pensioners living in poverty are in the private rented sector, so what are we going to do about that? Even if everyone eligible for pension credit were claiming it, according to Age UK, there would still be another 2 million pensioners slightly less badly off who will not be eligible for pension credit and now the winter fuel payment. The cut-off threshold for pension credit is just under £12,000 a year for a single person. These are not wealthy pensioners. Poverty is poverty whoever experiences it, and we know that we have 8 million working people living in poverty, as well as 4.5 million disabled people, 4 million children and 2 million pensioners. As we did in previous Labour Administrations, I know we will tackle this, but again it will not happen overnight.
Could I point out what we know about the health effects of the cold? The Lancet published a very good paper reviewing data from the last 20 years, and it showed the extra deaths—the excess deaths—as a result of cold. I could mention dozens and dozens of cases from my constituents who have written to me and who, again, are just clinging on following the last 14 years. Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State able to say not just what other options she may have considered for offsetting the loss of the £300, but what alternative ways there are of raising the £1.4 billion we will get from means-testing the winter fuel payment? I know how complex and difficult our economic situation is, but, please, we must protect our most vulnerable citizens.