Lobular Breast Cancer
Debate between Luke Evans and Karin Smyth(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Karin Smyth
I thank the hon. Lady for that really important point. She highlights another important issue affecting the health of women and children, and I agree with her.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood spoke about women’s health overall, which is an important priority for this Government, as are these forms of cancer and the wider preventive agenda. That is another point that can be made on the change.nhs.uk website, which I will keep plugging. The issues that have been raised on it by the public and staff are really interesting and informative.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been clear that there should be a national cancer plan. The hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) made helpful points about that opportunity. I will not take up his invitation for a meeting; his point would be better made by being inputted into the process with the organisations he is in touch with. That would help to shape the national cancer plan, which we can all buy into as a country. The plan will include more details about how to improve outcomes for all tumour types, including lobular breast cancer, and ensure that patients have access to the latest treatments and technology. We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take and what its relationship with the 10-year health plan and the Government’s wider health missions should be. We will provide updates on that in due course.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood for bringing this important matter to the House.
Karin Smyth
I was going to come to that. I am not fully au fait with the change in guidelines that the hon. Gentleman referred to, so I will happily take that point away. He made a wider point about aligning across the devolved regions. Obviously, some of these issues are devolved and we have to respect the devolution arrangements. On the wider research, we should learn from each other, understanding that we have similar patient cohorts. There is lots of good medical work going on, and the Government are determined to work respectfully across the devolved nations. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman gets a written answer on the specifics of his question.
Heartbreaking stories such as Heather’s remind us that diseases such as lobular breast cancer are complex. They are hard to catch, and therefore treat. Such tragic losses are a wake-up call for us all, and I commend all hon. Members for raising those stories. For people listening in, as well as those who have attended the debate, they are an important way to raise awareness. We are grateful to those who have shared their personal stories, which help us get the NHS back on its feet so that we can better serve the people who need it.
Improving cancer survival requires a multi-pronged approach to ensure that patients have timely access to effective treatments, built on the foundations of world-class research. We have already taken immediate steps to allow cancer patients to benefit from the most up-to-date technology. Through the recent Budget, we committed to surgical hubs and scanners to allow for 30,000 more procedures each year, and we are increasing capacity for tests. We have also committed another £70 million for radiotherapy machines. Lots of hon. Members have raised those points. I have outlined several measures today, and I assure Members that improving outcomes for cancer patients, including those with lobular breast cancer, remains a top priority for this Government.
National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Debate between Luke Evans and Karin Smyth(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the impact of changes to employer national insurance contributions on primary care providers, hospices and care homes.
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for asking this important question. It gives me the opportunity to say to GPs, dentists, hospices and every part of the health and care system that will be affected by changes to employer national insurance contributions that this Government understand the pressures they face and take their representations seriously. The Chancellor took into account the impact of changes to national insurance when she allocated an extra £26 billion to the Department of Health and Social Care. There are well-established processes for agreeing funding allocations across the system, and we are going through those processes now with this issue in mind.
This Government inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, broken public services and a stagnant economy. Upon taking office we were told that the deficit the previous Government recklessly ran up in my Department alone would mean delivering 20,000 fewer appointments a week instead of the 40,000 more we promised. The Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State were not prepared to see further decline in our NHS. That is why we put in an extra £1.8 billion to stop the NHS going into reverse this year.
We built on that at the Budget, delivering the significant investment that the NHS needs to get back on its feet, backing staff with investment in modern technology, new scanners and new surgical hubs, and rebuilding our crumbling primary and secondary care estate. Alongside that, we delivered a real-terms increase in core local government spending power of around 3.2%, which will help to address the range of pressures facing the adult social care sector, including £600 million in new grant funding for social care. We are now working through exactly how that money will be allocated, as per normal processes. As the Secretary of State set out yesterday, we will ensure that every pound is invested wisely to deliver the Government’s priorities and provide value to taxpayers.
The Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding in due course, including through NHS planning guidance and the usual consultations, including on the general practice contract. As part of these processes, we will consider the impact of changes announced to employer national insurance contributions in a fair and open way over the next five months, before the changes come into force in April 2025.
Dr Evans
I draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interests.
Many in the health sector will have been pleased to hear the announcement of the extra funding for the NHS, only for their joy to be struck down by the realisation that a manifesto promise not to raise national insurance contributions had been broken. That was compounded further by the discovery that a raft of frontline care providers—care homes, hospices, care charities, pharmacies and GPs, to name but a few—will not be exempt from the NI rise, leaving them with crippling staff bills and the threat of closures and redundancies. The hospice sector expects the cost to be £30 million—closures and redundancies. The initial assessment of the cost to GPs is £260 million—closures and redundancies, at the expense of 2.2 million appointments. For the care sector, the changes will cost £2.4 billion, dwarfing the £600 million in social care support that was announced. Does the Minister accept that it is inevitable that council tax will have to rise to support the increase in NICs?
For the first time, the National Pharmacy Association has announced collective action. Its chair said:
“The sense of anger among pharmacy owners has been intensified exponentially by the Budget, with its hike in national insurance employers’ contributions and the unfunded national living wage increase, which has tipped even more pharmacies to the brink.”
Will the Minister clarify who is exempt from NI? Will the Government admit that they got it wrong and make a change? The Prime Minister, Health Secretary and Chancellor have all said that allocations will be made “in the usual way”. Will the Minister clarify what the usual way is? Will mitigations be put in black and white to the House and the public? Is this part of the £20 billion, or new funding?
More importantly, will the Minister lay out a concrete timetable for hospices, care homes, GPs, pharmacists and all other allied health professionals, who are making decisions now? This seems to be another example of a big headline from the Labour party but no detail.
Karin Smyth
Well, really. I am quite dumbfounded by the hon. Gentleman’s response. I respect him for his professional practice, and he knows the state of the NHS that we inherited from the previous Government, as reported in Lord Darzi’s report. He talks about joy, but there was no joy when we inherited the mess they left back in July. He talks about people being tipped to the brink, and they absolutely were, as Lord Darzi made clear.
As I said, we will go through the allocation of additional funding in the normal process, which will be faster than under the previous Government because we are committed to giving the sector much more certainty. The normal process, as the hon. Gentleman should know from his time in government, is to go through the mandate and the planning guidance and to talk to the sector about the allocations due next April, as I said in my opening statement.
Access to Primary Healthcare
Debate between Luke Evans and Karin Smyth(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Karin Smyth
I am tempted, but I know that many of the hon. Lady’s colleagues want to speak, and I am sure she is on the list.
Fixing the NHS will take years of discipline and hard work, and we are in this for the long haul. However, we must first clean up the mess we inherited, and that work has begun in earnest. We have found the funding to recruit an extra 1,000 GPs this year as our first step towards fixing the NHS’s front door and making the system more flexible.
Dr Evans
One of the keys to delivery is the GP partnership model, which is the mechanism by which they are set up. The Secretary of State, who is now in his place, said in 2023 that he wanted to phase out the GP partnership model, although he later reneged on that position. It would be interesting to hear what the Government now perceive to be the best model for delivering primary care, as that is really important for GP partners.
Karin Smyth
I wish the hon. Gentleman well with his own access to a GP at the moment. We are committed to working with the profession on the best way to organise primary care. The critical point is that primary care, however it is organised in neighbourhoods, is there for our constituents when they need it. It is not there now. The model is not working and has not worked over a period of time. It has merits, as we have said, and we are continuing to talk to people. I have worked in the sector for a number of years, so I understand the point the hon. Gentleman makes.