Health Infrastructure Plan
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Edward Argar
My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour makes a positive point, perhaps in contrast with some of the points made by Opposition Members, in welcoming the huge investment that we will see in the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Although the hospitals are in the constituency of the shadow Secretary of State, the work to campaign for this money has been a team effort, across all parties and all constituencies, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) in that context. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is right to highlight PFI again. It was massively expanded under the previous Labour Government, who ran it so badly that it left trusts saddled with debt.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
On Friday, I had a meeting with Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, whose chief executive said to me:
“The impact of low levels of funding over seven years has been longer and more impactful than when funding was squeezed by the Mrs Thatcher Government. More investment is required to increase staff training and in turn employ more qualified health staff.”
We know that hospitals in towns are often not funded to the same level as hospitals in cities, so could the Minister give me the number of hospitals in towns that are not in marginal seats which are having extra hospitals and funding? Will he meet me to discuss extra funding for Dewsbury’s hospital?
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. I am sure she would therefore welcome what we are doing, which is addressing capital funding needs with a long-term, rolling programme of capital investment to address both the immediate need and the shortfalls from the previous Labour Government’s landing trusts with PFI debt. On her local hospital, and the need to invest in cottage hospitals, community hospitals and town hospitals, I will of course meet her.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
My hon. Friend has campaigned on this matter for a while, and I was pleased to meet him to discuss it earlier in the year. We absolutely recognise the challenge that small acute providers face, and over the past two years the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation has been considering how we might meet that challenge. The committee has endorsed a new community services formula to reflect the pressure in remote areas, which may help the two hospitals mentioned by my hon. Friend.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Seema Kennedy)
When drugs have been approved by NICE, there is an obligation to prescribe them. If the hon. Lady will write to me, I shall be able to look into this matter more closely.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
We are absolutely committed to ensuring that everybody, including those who live with dementia, has access to the care and support that they need. We have noted the very important contributions of the Alzheimer’s Society and of a number of other reports. We are considering a number of different funding options and are keen to draw on the best practice of what works so that no one ends up spending their life savings on their care.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
My friend and constituent Malcolm Haigh, who is known locally as Mr History because of his forensic knowledge of the history of Batley and Spen, is now living with dementia. We know that social prescribing for dementia sufferers really does work, and I congratulate Kirklees Council on its innovative Community Plus scheme, which uses social prescribing for dementia. What auditing is going on that will look at the community groups that are offering these singing clubs and walking and cycling groups, and how we audit them in order to make the best of social prescribing so that we take the burden off the NHS?
Caroline Dinenage
Mr History sounds fabulous. There will be a new academy of social prescribing, which will look at some of the incredibly valuable work done by communities up and down the country and really be able to draw out some of that best-value analysis.
Integrated Care Regulations
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Integration is not about saving money. For integration to work properly, it needs to be fully funded, and, of course, the NHS has been through the biggest financial squeeze in its history. We do not oppose integration. Indeed, that is why the previous Labour Government introduced a section 75 partnership arrangement, and why we were so vociferous in our opposition to the Andrew Lansley Health and Social Care Act 2012, which went completely counter to international evidence and exacerbated local fragmentation of health structures. It is a delicious irony that Ministers, all of whom were dragooned through the Lobby to support the Lansley Act, despite expert after expert warning them what a mistake it would be to press ahead with it, are now trying to propose regulatory changes, so that we can essentially work around that Act. The reason why we cannot support the regulations today is that the most damaging part of that Act is still on the statute book.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
On the point about the Health and Social Care Act, a third of the contracts have been awarded to private providers, and millions were wasted when they collapsed. The explanatory memo for this statutory instrument says that it is expected that organisations holding an integrated care provider contract will be statutory providers, such as NHS foundation trusts, but that is not legally binding. To protect our NHS, do we not need to know definitively that providers will be public, not private?
Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the Minister cannot give that reassurance because of the Lansley Act that Ministers voted for in 2011.
Eurotunnel: Payment
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Of course, we very much hope that the train will also continue to operate as now and we have received such assurances. When it comes to radioisotopes, we have also procured flights and aircraft capacity to ensure that those goods and those parts of the medical supply chain that need to be brought in faster and cannot be stockpiled can also be brought through.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Secretary of State tell us precisely how much of the £33 million being paid to Eurotunnel is being contributed by the Department of Health and Social Care?
Matt Hancock
This was a cross-Government decision. It is all taxpayers’ money, at the end of the day.
NHS: Staffing Levels
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered staffing levels in the NHS.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to lead this debate and I thank hon. Members for being present. I know that many are eager to contribute, and the fact that they have taken the time to be here, during one of Parliament’s more eventful weeks, emphasises the strength of feeling in the House about staffing levels in the NHS. I also thank the many organisations that have contacted me, offered support and shared their research.
It is clear that the issue of staffing in the NHS is a great and growing concern to many. Indeed, the case of my local NHS trust inspired me to apply for this debate. Most of my constituents rely on the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust for a range of acute hospital-based and community services. The trust serves not just the people of Batley and Spen, but more than half a million people across Wakefield and North Kirklees.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for securing this important debate. My constituents also use the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. There are still several hundred nursing vacancies there, and that is having a significant impact on the delivery of patient care. Does she agree that the chaos of the current Brexit situation is not helping to recruit nurses, potentially from the European Union?
Tracy Brabin
I shall go on to discuss that in more detail, but my hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right. We have both been in meetings with the trust where that has proved to be of great concern to it.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
On a similar subject, is the hon. Lady aware that Oxford University Hospitals agreed today to fund the cost of obtaining settled status for EU nationals who work there?
Tracy Brabin
That is something that we have discussed with our trust. The cost should not necessarily fall on the shoulders of the people we want to employ, so that seems like a good thing.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
For Sherwood Forest Hospitals trust, which covers King’s Mill Hospital in my constituency, the latest figures show 200 nursing vacancies and, since nursing bursaries were abolished, a 32% decline in those applying to do it. Is it not time to bring nursing bursaries back?
Tracy Brabin
I absolutely agree that training for this most lauded position should not be done at the cost of nurses themselves.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that we must have fewer medical quangos and more medical professionals in their white doctors’ coats seeing patients; less cleaning up of paper trails and more cleaning up in wards and A&Es; and funding that is targeted at frontline staffing and reasonable rates of pay?
Tracy Brabin
Certainly, funding and support should be given to frontline staffing. I will go on to talk about how I see that playing out.
The Mid Yorkshire trust is a major employer of about 8,000 members of staff who operate across three hospital sites: Pinderfields Hospital, Pontefract Hospital and Dewsbury and District Hospital, which is in my constituency. Like many trusts across the country, the trust is feeling the pressure on recruitment. In the most up-to-date figures, which were given to me directly by the trust this week, there is a 10% vacancy rate. That includes 95 full-time-equivalent posts for medical staff, 209 vacancies for full-time registered nurses, and vacancies for all other posts covered by the trust. The trust tells me that its key workforce challenge remains recruiting registered nurses and junior doctors in training. Those staff shortages lead to expensive cover being required— a bill that is ultimately paid by the taxpayer.
I am pleased that the trust has taken steps to mitigate against staffing shortages, including an extensive recruitment programme where vacancies across the trust are advertised and marketed widely. It has introduced a new associate nurse role in partnership with a local university, and expanded and increased the number of apprenticeship opportunities to offer different routes into careers in the NHS. It has held open theatre days to promote particularly difficult roles to recruit for, such as operating department practitioners. Finally, it has increased the number of nurses and doctors on the local temporary staff bank, which reduces its reliance on, and the cost of, commercial agency staff. I am sure that all hon. Members agree that that is all great.
Despite that work, problems remain. I must put on record my concern that staffing shortages can lead to problems for patients. The ambulatory emergency care unit at Dewsbury and District Hospital opened in 2015 to care for patients who needed a quick diagnosis and treatment, and who could be treated without the need for admission to a hospital bed. Since July, it has been closed because of staff shortages and it will remain closed for the foreseeable future. It had also been closed from the end of December last year to early March. Patients now face the lengthy and expensive trip to Pinderfields Hospital.
In the most recent inspection at Mid Yorks, the results of which were announced last week, the safety of services was deemed to require improvement, which will cause deep concern to my constituents. We are now told that the harsh funding climate for our NHS, which has existed since 2010, is coming to an end—austerity is over.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
As the daughter of a nurse, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I know she is a proud member of the GMB, like me, so I declare an interest in highlighting its survey, which showed that 78% of NHS and ambulance workers are incredibly concerned about staffing levels. Does she agree with a nurse from Barnsley who said that we need more registered nurses and trained support staff, not untrained volunteers, who are sometimes being used?
Tracy Brabin
My sister is also a nurse. When someone has a nurse in the family, they understand how hard they work. My hon. Friend must be psychic, because I am about to go on to that point.
When it comes to the recruitment and retention of NHS staff, it could not be further from the truth that austerity is over. The Royal College of Nursing did not mince its words when it said:
“The UK is experiencing a nursing workforce crisis”,
particularly in England. With one in three nurses due to retire within a decade, we are looking at a perfect storm of increasing vacancies across health and care.
Paula Sherriff
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, as a direct result of staffing shortages at Dewsbury and District Hospital, the midwife-led birthing unit has had to be closed several times? September was a particularly bad month for closures. That has a traumatic effect on mums-to-be, who expect to give birth there but turn up and get sent elsewhere.
Tracy Brabin
Capacity, particularly in midwifery, is a massive issue, and midwife recruitment is also a problem. A mum who is about to have a baby wants to make sure that they are guaranteed a bed and a midwife who will be with them throughout the process, so of course that is a concern. There are almost 41,000 vacant nursing posts in the NHS and it is estimated that that number will grow to almost 48,000 by 2023—just five short years away.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The hon. Lady is being generous. Does she agree that the problem with the recruitment and retention of staff also stretches to our mental health services? In Cumbria, three years ago, the Government promised a specialist one-to-one eating disorder service for young people, which has yet to be delivered. Does she agree that it is not good enough for the Government to make promises that they cannot deliver because they cannot recruit the staff?
Tracy Brabin
We are seeing increasing problems around recruitment and retention in mental health services, which I will go on to. We know that nurses are heroes of our health service and that they will always voice their concerns.
A survey conducted by the RCN in 2017 had some deeply worrying results. More than half of the nurses said that care was compromised on the last shift and more than 40% said that no action was taken when they raised concerns about staffing. If there was any doubt about the commitment of nurses, nine in 10 were not paid for extra unplanned time worked in the NHS. Unpaid time worked by nurses in the NHS saves the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
I am not just talking about nurses and the worryingly low levels of recruitment. The Royal College of Physicians informs me that in Yorkshire and Humber 36% of physician consultant posts advertised were not filled. Across the UK, a total of 45% of advertised consultant posts went unfilled, due to the lack of suitable applicants. The RCP believes that we need to double the medical school places to 15,000 a year to alleviate this problem in the long term and it is seriously hard to disagree with that assessment.
The RCP is also calling for investment in public health initiatives, which I am sure is another thing that we all agree on. The desperate need for more mental health staff is well reported. The consultant psychiatrist vacancy rate in the northern and Yorkshire region, which Batley and Spen falls under, is 11.7%, which is higher than the average consultant psychiatry vacancy rate in England. One in 10 consultant psychiatrist posts are vacant. Doctors specialising in mental health are uniquely placed to look at a person’s brain, body and psyche. Such specialists will only become more important, so I ask the Minister to update Members on his plans to meet the target of 570 junior doctors specialising in psychiatry by 2020-21 and to say what plans he has to ensure that all trainee doctors have experience of working in psychiatric settings?
The British Medical Association has provided information on the potential impact of Brexit on staffing levels in the NHS. Nearly 10% of doctors working in the UK are from the European economic area. Doctors, as well as many other professionals, make a massive contribution to our NHS. However, the BMA warns that many EEA doctors continue to feel unwelcome and uncertain about their future here. Given the uncertainty that we have seen in the past few days, I imagine that that feeling will not change any time soon. The results could be devastating, with more than a third of doctors from the EU considering moving away from our country. That is the last thing we need, as hospitals are already chronically understaffed, with more than one in four respondents to a BMA survey reporting that rota gaps are so serious and frequent that they cause significant problems for patient safety.
Alarmingly, some doctors feel bullied into taking on extra work. It is clear that something needs to change, particularly now we are in winter again. There are too few staff, who are too stretched, and trusts across the country are struggling to fill vacancies. However, in order to fix a problem, we need to know whose remit it is to provide a solution. Shockingly, there are no specific legal duties or responsibilities at UK Government level to ensure that health and social care providers have enough staff to provide safe and effective care to meet the needs of the population. Health Education England has some powers related to the higher education supply. In practice, however, those powers relate only to the funding for the 50% of their courses that nursing students spend on placements. Health Education England no longer commissions higher education university places, meaning that it is responsive to students signing up for nursing courses rather than proactively seeking them based on areas of need and workforce planning.
We know that the number of European workers in the NHS has fallen dramatically since the referendum. Mid Yorks recruited highly skilled workers from the Philippines, but delays to visa applications meant that 50% of them have now gone elsewhere and into other jobs. We need to do better than that.
The case is clear to me and to many others that we need a proactive and accountable power-holding body that makes robust assessments of population need, and uses that need to calculate the workforce requirements. No action has been taken to assess the level of population need for health and social care support now or in the future. Nobody has calculated how many nurses are needed to meet those needs safely and effectively. No workforce strategy is in place to set up the mechanism through which new registered nurses can be generated through a supply line.
Workforce plans are not consistently available and when they are they are based on affordability and finance, rather than on the expertise and skills mix of staff required to care for patients. Plans are limited in their ability to make effective change. Providers may identify a need for more nursing posts but then find themselves unable to fill them. Vacant posts stay vacant and gaps on the frontline are filled by more expensive bank and agency staff, and—as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock)—by volunteers, or substituted lower-qualified staff. Patient care is left undone, with lengthening waiting lists.
That is the sad truth of where we are and when the Minister responds I would be grateful to know what plans are in place to enforce accountability for the NHS workforce. Simon Stevens has confirmed that the long-term plan for the NHS could not definitely deal with the NHS workforce and there are serious concerns that without investment a new plan will ultimately fail.
Six years on from the Health and Social Care Act 2012, it is still unclear which organisation is accountable for workforce strategy. Too often, no one is taking responsibility. Health Education England has been consulted, but it has failed to deliver a workforce strategy. Now is the time for leadership and action, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tracy Brabin
I thank colleagues from both sides of the House for their contributions, particularly those with frontline experience, and I thank the Minister for his measured response.
I have a couple of points. First, I am sure the Minister can feel the sense of urgency in this debate. Although I appreciate that long-term discussions are needed, we still do not have a date for when the long-term plan will be published or for the consultation on the Royal College of Nursing proposals. The Minister said it would be soon, but when will we have that?
Stephen Hammond
There is a commitment from the Government to produce the long-term plan before the end of the year, as the hon. Lady knows, and I have written to Dame Donna to request a meeting to discuss the RCN’s proposals.
Tracy Brabin
That is very reassuring.
We hear from across the House that mental health is receiving such little support. People are hanging by a thread. Nurses are saying to their organisations and their MPs, “I am worried for the health and safety of my patients. I’m doing too many shifts. I’m absolutely shattered. I can’t guarantee that I am going to be doing my job properly. They’re bringing in volunteers to support me on the ward.” It is an absolute crisis. While I understand that the wheels of government work very slowly, I hope that the Minister takes from this debate that Brexit has been a universal issue. We are losing staff members. I welcome the commitment to an extra 5,000 doctors and so on, but that is just plugging the gap of the staff who are draining away from our hospitals and frontline services.
Stephen Hammond
I absolutely recognise that Brexit is a pressure on the system, but we should also recognise that there are 4,367 more professionals working in the NHS from the EU than there were at the date of the referendum. It is important to put that on the record.
Tracy Brabin
If that is the case, the statistics are welcome, but in my constituency we are losing European members of staff. We cannot get away from the overall numbers—there are staffing shortages of 10%. In my constituency and in my trust they cannot recruit, because of various issues. I am grateful that the Government listened when I raised the question of tier 2 visas with the Prime Minister, when we wanted to bring over a paediatrician but could not because the visa took so long that he got another job. I welcome that when it comes to nurses, too, but we have to accept that there are things such as the bursary—
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased to be called to speak in this important debate.
In my constituency, local NHS services have been an issue of concern for some time. It seems that services are forever under threat and that our local trusts are always struggling. Dewsbury Hospital, which is in my constituency and serves my constituents, has seen a number of its functions move to Pinderfields Hospital. Its A&E has been downgraded, so that seriously ill patients are more likely to be taken elsewhere, and in recent weeks the Secretary of State for Health stepped in to prevent any potential closure of the A&E at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. That was a welcome step, but our NHS services should not be in a position where such drastic changes to provision are suggested.
I, like so many colleagues in the House, am in awe of our hard-working NHS staff, and I know that, in the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, they continue to go above and beyond in ever more testing conditions. I pay tribute to them, and also say to Ministers that in my constituency we want our NHS staff to remain NHS.
Just last week, the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust announced plans to move staff into a wholly owned subsidiary company—something that, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and others, is part of a national roll-out. That subsidiary will run a considerable range of local NHS services and will be responsible for an enormous number of local staff. The announcement came with very little warning and no public engagement about the plans.
Once again, I reiterate that I appreciate and understand the pressures that are being put on NHS trusts by the Government, and Mid Yorkshire is no different; but for me, the decision to move to a wholly owned subsidiary company simply is not the right one. Opposition has already been growing. The trade union Unison has called the trust’s plans an “insult” to workers, and will be balloting its members next month over potential strike action—something that will leave my constituents concerned, but also frustrated, as this problem is avoidable. They will understand that to take people off NHS contracts, and thereby put them at the risk of a future where the terms and conditions of their employment are inferior to those of their colleagues, can only worsen the situation.
The good news is—I hope it is good news—that the decisions on whether the trust can go ahead with its proposals are not a done deal. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care still has to approve the plans. I say to him and his colleagues that these staff, including cleaners, IT specialists, maintenance workers, help keep our hospitals safe and functioning. They have stuck by the NHS in extremely testing circumstances, throughout years of pay stagnation. I, staff and the unions know that it is not the right decision to go down this path—a path that could lead to a two-tier workforce, where two colleagues working side by side, doing the same hours, the same job, could end up taking home a different wage.
Let us do the right thing by NHS staff and local people, and consign this wholly owned subsidiary to the bin where it belongs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
I am pleased that the hon. Lady mentioned that, because today is world social worker day. It is a day on which to celebrate the brilliant work done by people working in the social care system, often at low rates of pay. We should also celebrate the fact that, thanks to the national living wage, 900,000 workers have benefited, including through a raise of up to £2,000 a year in the take-home pay for the lowest paid workers.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
Children’s oral health is better than it has ever been, and 72% of five-year-olds in England are now decay free. Of course, that means that 28% are not, which is why our Starting Well programme aims to increase access for young children in 13 high-need areas. NHS England is also looking at making similar approaches available in the areas of greatest genuine local need.
Tracy Brabin
In Kirklees, 29% of under-five-year-olds have experience of tooth decay. Nationally, among five to nine-year-olds, tooth decay is the most common cause of hospital admission. Does the Minister agree that the system of penalising dentists for not hitting targets and not paying them when they exceed targets has led to a situation where there are virtually no NHS dentists available for my young constituents? What steps will he take to make more places available?
Steve Brine
We are testing the new prevention-focused dental contract, which the hon. Lady knows about, to improve access and outcomes for NHS dental treatment. We have also made great progress on children’s oral health, as I have said. NHS England in her area is currently finalising arrangements for extra funding to support dentists in offering additional access and places. That funding will be available from 1 April, so she and other Members should stand by their phones.
NHS Winter Crisis
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Stephen Barclay
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the NHS will remain free at the point of delivery. The reality is that for the majority of the NHS’s existence, it has been run by the Conservative party. We know the value of retaining healthcare free at the point of delivery, and the Secretary of State has repeatedly reaffirmed his absolute commitment to that.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
In my constituency surgery, two sisters came to speak to me about their father, who went to hospital last month. Because the staff were so overstretched, he was placed in the wrong ward, so he did not get seen by a doctor for four days. Will the Minister reassure the sisters, and will he will pause the downgrade of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and rethink this so that the winter crisis does not become a daily crisis in the NHS?
Stephen Barclay
As the hon. Lady knows, local commissioning decisions are for the clinical commissioning group and local commissioners, but again, not one Opposition Member has recognised the additional funding that has gone in. Her own trust received an additional £3.4 million—[Interruption.] Well, it never is enough for the hon. Lady. The question is, how, with the economic mismanagement under their party, Labour Members are ever going to deliver what they want? Her trust received an additional £3.4 million to address the pressures.
Hospital Car Parking Charges
Tracy Brabin Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his extremely powerful speech and on raising this important issue.
I want to start with an experience that our family recently went through. My daughter started to show signs of acute appendicitis. As any family could imagine, we quickly bundled our daughter, who was in agony, into the car and drove to the hospital—it was not a very calm journey. I am sure that many Members will have had a similar experience. We were panicking and scrambling around for change so that we could park the car, then taking turns to pop out every few hours to move the car or top up the ticket. That was obviously a one-off and bearable, but for many a trip to the hospital is sadly not a one-off experience, and they are forced to take several trips a week because of chronic illness. They are people going through the worst of times, and the cynical approach of charging them to park is unacceptable. It is not anyone’s choice to be ill, and they should not be exploited.
New figures show that the money raked in from NHS car parks in England run by private firms has increased to £500,000 every day. The £175 million that was made from hospital car parking charges in 2016-17 is equivalent to only 0.001% of the total health spend, but still, ruthless private car parking firms pocket most of it. It cannot be fair that worried family members who visit their loved ones can end up with eye-watering fines if they arrive late back to their cars. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, it cannot be fair that NHS staff who have parking charges deducted from their wages are fined for parking in the wrong bay when they cannot find a space in the correct bay.
Some may recommend that regular hospital visitors use public transport, but in my constituency, Batley and Spen, the bus that used to connect Birstall with our local hospital has been cancelled, as have local bus services in many smaller communities. That has forced more people to use a car and thereby incur parking costs. My local hospital, Dewsbury and District Hospital, charges after 20 minutes, so people get 20 minutes for free. There is a reduction for blue badge holders, but they still have to pay. There is a stress-inducing pay-on-exit system, and it is quite complicated to get car parking concessions approved by hospital staff on the day. It is not an ideal situation.
Sir Mike Penning
Does the hon. Lady agree that in the 21st century, means-testing at the point of delivery, which is what we are talking about here, is morally unacceptable in an NHS of which we should be and are proud?
Tracy Brabin
I am so glad that the right hon. Gentleman raised that issue, because the concession that I was talking about is available only to the patient, not to the low-paid person who may have driven the patient to hospital. The poorly person has to go and get the car parking concession. It is absolutely unfair.
A freedom of information request by Unison revealed that some hospitals charge nurses and health professionals who regularly visit hospitals up to £100 a month. As other Members have said, the cost of parking also has wider effects on the surrounding streets. I have been contacted by many constituents living around Dewsbury and District Hospital who complain that those who cannot afford car parking charges, or who think they might have to stay for several hours, park on residential streets, blocking people’s drives and making it difficult for people to park outside their own homes. Free hospital parking would end that.
We know that trusts are struggling to balance the books after years of being underfunded by the Government, but we must ensure that they are not forced to fill the funding gap by charging sick and poorly patients, their visitors and anxious relatives, and already hard-pressed NHS staff.
Car parking charges are a tax on serious illness. Labour would scrap car parking charges at all hospitals. We would fund that by raising insurance tax on private healthcare to 20%, to meet the £162 million cost of providing free parking at all NHS hospitals in England. Charities, trade unions, the British Medical Association, the Society for Acute Medicine and the public are all calling out for the Government to listen. In Scotland and Wales, car parking charges have been abolished in all but a handful of hospitals. We should show some humanity and do the same. I support the motion.