Future of Health and Care

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Naseby

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we are putting considerable resources into hospital rebuilding, with 40 hospitals being built over the course of the Parliament; that is a major investment programme. The investment in population health comes out of different budgets. We are looking at how we will use ICSs to bring population health and responsibility for the outcomes of popular age and health metrics much more closely to GPs and hospitals. This oversight needs to be corrected, and it is one of the primary objectives of this Bill.

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, speaking as the husband of a former full-time GP, I ask whether the Minister is aware that neither general practice nor community care are meeting patients’ needs today and they require a total review. Also, is it fully understood by government that there is insufficient capacity in our current hospitals and that we need to build more? Having said that, I say that the vaccination programme is brilliant—and I place on record my sincere thanks, from the bottom of my heart, to the NHS staff at Bedford Hospital for saving my wife’s life.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I will indeed share my noble friend’s tribute to the vaccination programme and to Bedford Hospital for saving Lady Naseby’s life, for which we are all enormously grateful. However, I would probably leave his company on his remarks on GPs; they are extremely effective in the service they provide to their local communities. The patient satisfaction surveys do not support his contention that there is a massive gap there.

We are committing to building new hospitals in order to expand our capacity, but the essence of the measures in this Bill is more about prevention, population health and supporting better outcomes for the kind of public health measures around things such as obesity that ensure that people do not have to spend their time in hospital when they feel ill and, instead, have an early-stage intervention.

NHS: Doctor Retention

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Naseby

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so declare the interest that my wife is a retired full-time senior partner in general practice.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, this Government are committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice as part of their manifesto commitment. Doctor retention is a huge part of this commitment, which is why we are making changes to support general practitioners, including the GP retention scheme, a two-year primary care fellowship programme, the new partnership programme and the locum support scheme.

[Lord Naseby]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but are there not two particular issues? The first is medical school intake. According to the latest figures, for 2018-19, nearly 9,000 more female medical students were taken on than male ones. As the House will be aware, 75% of the female intake work only part-time. Secondly, is there not also the question of the return to service agreements? This is something that we in this country use for medical Army, Navy and Air Force personnel. Is it not time to look at what Singapore, Canada and Australia have done? If it works in those areas, should we not look at it for the NHS?

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend makes a good and fair point on return to service agreements. Service time for doctors was tested in 2017; the results were mixed and had a negative impact on the number of applications. However, on his point on female attendance for education, I do not recognise his numbers and I completely reject the idea that there might be too many women working in the NHS.