Health and Social Care: Winter Update

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am delighted to hear of the work Ros is doing as mayor to support health and care services and to take health and care to where people are. I hate hearing that there are hard-to-reach communities; there are no hard-to-reach communities. There are underserved communities and, in our determination to tackle health inequalities, to get care closer to people’s homes and indeed in people’s homes, to do earlier diagnosis and to provide faster access to treatment, we need to make sure that we take health and care services to where people are rather than expecting people to always come to us.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

I fear that corridor care has already become normalised and, as the Secretary of State says, it will be some time before we get back on the right path. This week there have been reports of a north London hospital advertising for dedicated corridor care nurses. I also think about my constituent who is a doctor at the Royal Sussex begging X-ray teams to give her a consultation room so she does not have to do intimate exams out in the corridor. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give the NHS workforce that things are going to get better?

[Wes Streeting]

I am really grateful to the hon. Member for raising that question and for the example she gave of the Whittington advertisement for staff specifically to deliver corridor care. I make no criticism of the trust itself in trying to make sure it has the right staff in place to deliver the best care possible in the present circumstances. It is not the fault of the Whittington that there is corridor care; it is a legacy of 14 years of Conservative failure. I would also say that my reaction to seeing that advertisement was the same as hers: it was proof that corridor care has been normalised. I want to reassure her, the House and patients across the country that this Government will not accept corridor care as normal care. We will not tolerate it as being acceptable care. We will do everything we can as fast as we can to consign corridor care to the history books and I reassure the staff working in the NHS in these intolerable conditions that we will work with them to deliver the investment and the reform needed to get the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future.