National Health Service Funding
Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Jonathan Ashworth(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend is running a brilliant campaign on that. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will reply to that point.
Jonathan Ashworth
I shall make a little progress because many other Members want to speak and I want to give them a chance.
The scale of the financial pressures engulfing the NHS are such that the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said recently:
“The gap between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding it has available is too big and is growing rapidly.”
The King’s Fund said, with respect to the NHS deficit, that
“it signifies a health system buckling under the strain of huge financial and operational pressures.”
In the most damning assessment of the Government’s handling of the NHS, the National Audit Office concluded today that financial problems in the NHS
“are endemic and this is not sustainable.”
Even the former Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said that
“in 2010 we knew we had to implement a tight budget squeeze for five years, but we never thought it would last for ten.”
Jonathan Ashworth
The chief executive’s comments to the Select Committee speak for themselves. Talking of repudiation, when are we going to get £350 million a week, or were the Tories typically saying one thing before the people voted and something completely different after they had had their say? That is what the ex-Education Secretary should be telling us.
Let me remind the House what the Health Committee said. I see the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) in her place, and she said:
“The continued use of the figure of £10 billion for the additional health spending up to 2020-21 is not only incorrect but risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cash.”
She is sitting only a little further down from the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). Perhaps he can have a word with her if he disagrees.
The Secretary of State hopes we do not notice that he is stretching the timeframe over which he presents this funding allocation. He hopes we do not notice that NHS spending has been redefined by the most recent spending review. He hopes we do not spot that he is cutting billions from public health budgets and other Department of Health funding streams—a £3 billion cut. But we have noticed.
Jonathan Ashworth
In a few moments.
We have spotted the Secretary of State’s conjuring act because we have seen this Tory trick before—robbing Peter to pay Paul. The result of this trick is cuts and underfunding, more pressures flowing through to the frontline, and, as the NAO said,
“Financial stress…harming patient care”.
In all our constituencies we see ever-lengthening queues of the elderly and the sick waiting for treatment. Across the board, we see the worst performance data since records began.
Jonathan Ashworth
I praise the hard-working staff in the NHS every day of the week, but I rather suspect that staff in the NHS will have more sympathy with the position I am outlining than with the right hon. Lady’s position, not least when, according to surveys, 88% of NHS staff think that the NHS is under the most pressure they can remember, and 77% think that there is less access to resources, putting the quality of patient care and clinical standards at risk. That, I say to her, is what NHS staff are saying.
Mr Jackson
Perhaps I can just allow the hon. Gentleman to break off from reading his press release. I think we are moving towards a consensus on this issue, in that we do need to integrate acute clinical care and adult social care, and I understand that. In that vein, why was it that, in 13 years, when there was significant demographic change, the Labour Government failed to bring forward a better care fund or a precept for social care?
Jonathan Ashworth
It beggars belief! We tripled investment in the NHS, and the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends voted against every penny piece. When we left office, we had the best waiting times and the highest satisfaction levels on record. That is the difference between a Labour Government and a Conservative Government on the NHS.