Hospice Funding
Debate between Alison Bennett and Karin Smyth(2 weeks ago)
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Karin Smyth
The hon. Gentleman asks the same question again. Through the Budget, this Government have allocated more money to the health service than the previous Government—a record announcement—and we have announced money again this morning. To govern is to choose. The last Government neither governed well nor chose to support the health sector from diagnosis to end of life; this Government have, and will continue to do so.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Some weeks before the Budget, I visited both St Catherine’s hospice and St Peter and St James hospice, which serve my constituents. I had not expected how quiet and empty those hospices were, because of the empty beds and mothballed wings that had been closed due to a lack of funding. Evidently, the funding crisis in the hospice sector was very deep before the Budget, but the Budget has only made it worse through the NIC increases. As such, I will try again: will the welcome funding announced today cover the cost of those NIC increases?
Karin Smyth
As Lord Darzi’s report announced, the entire sector has been under pressure and struggling since the disastrous Lansley reforms—they were part of the coalition Government—through to when we took over in July. We will fix the NHS and rebuild it to make it more sustainable and fit for the future. That includes everything from diagnosis to end of life care.
Winter Preparedness
Debate between Alison Bennett and Karin Smyth(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many tragedies happen over the Christmas period—my own father died on 23 December. Those staff members go above and beyond to help people at difficult times, but also at times of great joy—babies do not wait for Father Christmas, do they?—and my hon. Friend is right to commend midwives and everyone else who is working at this time. We know that maternity services are particularly stretched across most of the country. Those midwives are doing a tremendous job in keeping the system working, and doing the critically important job of supporting women at a mostly joyous but sometimes very difficult time.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
At the start of this week, 300 patients were ready to go home from my local NHS hospital trust in Sussex. That bears out the statistic in Lord Darzi’s report that 13% of patients are medically fit for discharge. I am really concerned that we have now reached a point with winter pressures where corridor waits are normalised, not only in A&E departments but in the case of initiatives such as continuous flow models, with corridor trolley waits being pushed into regular wards. It is unacceptable that this has become normalised. Will the Minister expand on her comments about the national care service? When will the plans be published? Will the Government work with us on a cross-party basis, and why did this work not begin sooner?
Karin Smyth
As I said in my statement, we have begun plans to stabilise the workforce and the employment Bill is going through the House, so I do not agree with the hon. Lady on that point. We know that it will take a long time, and we will of course be working with colleagues to ensure that we do develop that national care service.
National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Debate between Alison Bennett and Karin Smyth(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The increase in employer national insurance contributions will erode the very investment in the NHS that the Budget sought to prioritise. Katie, a GP from Lindfield in Mid Sussex, wrote to me saying that the NICs increases
“serve to directly undermine access and patient care.”
The Government have promised to recruit more GPs, but hiking national insurance puts that pledge in jeopardy. Surgeries are set to see eye-watering increases in staff costs, equivalent to 26,786 appointments in West Sussex alone. GPs will have no choice but to cut services and staff numbers, and patients will pay the price.
Does the Minister agree that stronger primary care, with faster appointments and fewer people having to go to hospital, is better for both the NHS and patients? If so, will she protect services and press the Chancellor to end this GP penalty?
Karin Smyth
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point about the importance of GPs and primary care to the wider sector. Immediately after taking office this summer, we freed up the system to employ 1,000 extra GPs through the additional roles reimbursement scheme—which the previous Government refused to implement—because we recognised the need for that extra capacity. We will be talking to general practice as part of the contract reforms over the next few months, following the normal process, to determine allocations for next year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alison Bennett and Karin Smyth(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend has highlighted an issue that is often overlooked. Homelessness has risen to shocking levels in the last 14 years. When it was addressed under the last Labour Government, people were moved off the streets, and there was decent care at the front end of the hospital system and support in the community. My hon. Friend is right: there are good examples across the country, and we would like to see them embedded as part of our overall goal, across Government, of reducing the scourge of homelessness in society and once again supporting the front end of the health service.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I recently met representatives of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who told me that the inadequate state of social care was resulting in the deterioration of people’s physical health, leading to more presentations at emergency departments. Does the Minister agree that if social care were properly funded, pressure on our hospitals would be reduced?
Karin Smyth
What we see at the front end of the system is a result of the deterioration throughout the system, and the flow of patients from the community, through discharge and, indeed, through social care. Our ambitious 10-year plan will involve examining the entire patient pathway to ensure that care is provided in the community, closer to home. Prevention is a key part of that, as is the look that we are taking at social care.