National Health Service

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Front-Bench winding-up speeches will begin at 7.10 pm, so the two remaining colleagues can divide the time if they wish, but not if they do not. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Patients in my constituency of Stockton North are already feeling the pain from the Tories’ policies. The number of admitted patients who have waited longer than 18 weeks for an operation rose by a staggering 49% between May 2010 and November 2011, and I have no doubt that the figure is much higher now.

The North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust faces a drastic cut to its budget of £40 million over three years. Chief executive Alan Foster has said that that is the most difficult financial position that he has ever faced and has acknowledged that the cuts will undoubtedly lead to unpopular decisions to keep the trust afloat. The trust is trying very hard, and it has even resorted to car boot sales to try to balance the books. Some of those cuts could be achieved if the Government got behind the trust and did something to ensure that the two North Tees and Hartlepool university hospitals are replaced by one midway between the two communities.

My fear is that there will be no new hospital and the trust will be forced to close one of the existing hospitals if it is to have any chance at all of delivering £40 million cuts in the next few years. We could end up without any of the benefits of a new hospital, and the targets might still not be achievable. Such a cut would almost certainly cause irreparable damage to the trust’s ability to maintain the excellent range of high-quality services of which it is justly proud. It will undermine all the good work that has gone on in the trust over the past 10 years.

I know that the trust will keep patient safety, quality and performance at the top of its agenda as it goes through this difficult period, but it will not be easy to deliver services to the 350,000 people who depend on them, as they have in the past. The north-east already experiences far greater levels of poor health than the national average. It must be due to the heavy industries and resultant poor environment, as our region mined coal, built ships and made chemicals and steel. The budget cuts will only worsen this position.

The last Labour Government worked hard to reduce the kind of health inequality faced in my constituency, where men can expect to live 14.8 years less in one part of the constituency than in another. Real progress was made to close the gap, but even so, it has proved painstakingly slow, as much work requires huge resources, which are now being denied. I feel the gap growing, even though I know that Stockton borough council has recently appointed a high-calibre person to head up public health. We will not be able to make the progress everyone wants if he and the NHS are starved of resources.