Health Infrastructure Plan

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I thank the noble Earl for his helpful question. Members of my family have benefited from the work of health visitors and I share his concerns about their role and their funding. The decline of health visitors is not part of the Statement given by the Minister earlier, but I will be sure to pass on the noble Earl’s comments, as requested.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, the title of the Statement, “Health Infrastructure Plan”, is a slight exaggeration, but let us welcome it for what it is. The Government have a woeful record, so anything they bring forward on the health service has to be welcomed. Can I press the Minister on some of the figures? I accept that these are quite difficult. Is there agreement that six hospitals will be rebuilt, or modified to that extent, and that the cost will be somewhere in the region of £2.7 billion? I think that was the figure. If that is the case, what about the other 34 hospitals? If they were all found to be suitable, are the Government guaranteeing that they will be funded for the same level of rebuild as the six announced today? If I do the maths very quickly, I believe that will cost in excess of £20 billion. Will the Government give an assurance that the money is there? The Prime Minister has promised us 40 new or severely modified hospitals, so the House is justified in asking this.

My second question is about the interim people plan. We desperately need not an interim plan but a fully fledged work plan on people. We are short of not only nurses but doctors and almost every single profession in the health service. This means it is very difficult for the service to continue. Looking at the issue of nurses—

[Noble Lords]

Come on!

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

There is plenty of time; there are 20 minutes. I want to ask this question. I know it is uncomfortable, but the Government are responsible for the reduction in and the shortage of nurses. Will the Minister apologise and say that they got it wrong when they cut the number of nurses in training by in excess of 10,000 after 2010? We have not made up for that. I finish by suggesting to the Minister that he reinstate the nurse training bursary scheme, so that we do not have to rely completely on the international recruitment of nurses but have our own nurses indigenous to this country.

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important question about how infrastructure spending is approved and green lit. He is quite right that today’s announcement sees the final green light given to six hospitals and a further 21 projects—some of which are multisite projects—are on the runway but are not 100% green lit. That is because their plans are not yet ready, but there is a full intent by the Government to work with the trusts involved to develop those plans to final proposals and to have the money available to finance those plans in their current form. It has been publicly put out by NHS England that the rough current estimated cost of those projects is around £10 billion and that that money is put aside and allocated for those projects, as long as they meet the requirements of infrastructure scrutiny.