A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

On Monday, the Health Secretary told the House that he was looking at what more he could do to invest in the NHS on Teesside. I have been making representations on this for 11 years, including in conversations with the Health Secretary. To tackle the health inequalities in my area of Teesside, Stockton needs a new hospital, so when will he make good on his word on dealing with health inequality and build the new hospital that we need—a hospital that his Government cancelled 11 years ago?

Last month, the all-party parliamentary group for longevity’s report on levelling up health noted that health inequality between the north and south cost £13 billion a year in lost productivity. Indeed, even before covid-19, health inequalities in England were estimated to cost the NHS an extra £4.8 billion a year, so I was bitterly disappointed that the Queen’s Speech did not contain improved funding for public health. Cancer Research UK has said:

“If the UK is to tackle inequalities and make sure no community is left behind…then health must be hardwired into the Government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.”

Let me give the Minister a sense of the scale of the problem we face, although these figures are from before the pandemic and will now be much worse. I will begin with lung health. In England, 6.5% of the population suffer from asthma; in Stockton North, that rises to 7.4%. The level of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease among the population is 1.9%. That rises to 3.1% in Stockton North, yet we have not seen the level of progress we need to tackle the inequalities in health. In fact, we are stagnating. The Government committed in the Prevention Green Paper to making England smoke free by 2030. They are on course to fail, but they could succeed by following the advice of Action on Smoking and Health and making the polluter pay. I ask the Minister: will she?

Turning to cardiovascular health, the level of coronary heart disease in England is 3.1%, but it is 4.1% in Stockton North. In England, 14.1% of people have high blood pressure; that rises to 16.2% in Stockton North. If the Government have learnt anything in the past year, it should be about maintaining good public preventive healthcare, but instead questions remain about the future of Public Health England. On mental health, 11.5% of adults in England have been diagnosed with depression. In my constituency, the figure is 16.1%. Mental health services were overstretched before the pandemic hit and many people face waiting for years. Some do not get any treatment at all. There is no sign of that pay rise for our NHS heroes in the Queen’s Speech either, and disappointingly, no sign of the long-promised blueprint for social care. It is time to address inequality in my constituency. Please Minister, give us the hospital that we need.