NHS Winter Update

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I will follow that advice with great enthusiasm. I have another statistic for my right hon. Friend: the Labour-run Welsh Government were hiding 45,000 patients from their A&E waiting figures in the first half of 2023, and falsely claiming that they perform better than England. If that is the blueprint for how it runs things, we should all be very worried if Labour ever again forms a UK Government.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards), it was disappointing that the Secretary of State did not mention mental health in her statement. Given the rising levels of destitution and chronic bad housing in our country, mental health services have winter crises too these days. What progress is she making in developing proper waiting times for people in need of mental health services?

[Victoria Atkins]

I reassure the hon. Lady that the impact of mental health patients remaining in A&E for any length of time, let alone beyond 72 hours, is genuinely a metric and factor that we look at very carefully, as we have done throughout the strikes. We appreciate that A&E is not the right environment for most people who are suffering from a mental health illness or a psychotic episode, and we want to move them into appropriate care as quickly and safely as we can. With that in mind, I hope that she will welcome the fact that we are spending some £7 million for up to 100 mental health ambulances over the next two years, to try to ensure that people get the right care they need, when they need it. More than 160 projects are being allocated funding in the community, including crisis cafés and safe havens, so that hopefully people are caught before the crisis happens and they end up in A&E.

Countess of Chester Hospital Inquiry

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

Again, I very much agree on the imperative of learning from the various reviews that have taken place. That is why I have personally spoken to the chairs of those reviews over recent days and weeks. I point out that these events took place before a number of the reviews’ recommendations were made and given to the Government, and those recommendations—whether on the medical examiner role, strengthening under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, the use of “get it right first time” to review the data, the freedom to speak up guardians or the new patient safety commissioner role—have been implemented. So significant actions have been taken following those reviews, and those actions have been taken since these events. However, through the inquiry we will of course test whether further action is needed.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) explained, for those of us whose constituents use and work at the Countess, this has been the most dreadful time. But only those who have lost a child could even begin to understand the pain that the families have experienced. It is right that there is unanimity in this House about what is done.

Could I come back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) about duty of candour? Ten and a half years ago, I stood here in this House and listened to the now Chancellor talk about duty of candour. I am at a loss to understand how it could be that families were not entitled to every bit of information when they asked for it. What review has the Secretary of State already conducted into the effectiveness of duty of candour? What is his conclusion about what has gone wrong over the past 10 years?

[Steve Barclay]

As I have said, significant action has been taken over those 10 years to strengthen transparency, action taken on data and the ability of freedom to speak up guardians to ensure that more safeguards are in place. Part of the purpose of the inquiry is to test whether further action is needed. I have already asked NHS England to look again at areas where recommendations have been made and what further action we can take.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Wirral and Cheshire have many rural areas, with all the same problems that have been described. When I met healthcare professionals on Friday, they were clear that the problem is not just recruitment, it is also retention. Which of the changes that have happened over the past 12 years to make working life for NHS staff less good than it needs to be will he reverse?

[Will Quince]

Of course retention is as important as recruitment. Since September, we have had the non-repayable training grant, which is a minimum of £5,000 per academic year, additional funding for certain courses, and extra funding worth up to £3,000 for eligible students to cover childcare costs. That is, of course, on recruitment. On retention, we are looking at more access to mental health support and high-quality support while in training and clinical placement, but of course there is more to do.

Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point. How is it that the NHS can be one of the largest employers in the world—it employs 1.2 million people—but does not have a workforce plan and strategy that says, “This is the workforce need that we have today, this is what the workforce need will be in the foreseeable future and, in the longer term, this is how we need to change the shape of the workforce to take into account advances in medicine and modern technology, and the changing demographics of our society”?

We gave the Government the opportunity to commission such a report when we debated the Health and Care Bill. It was supported on a cross-party basis, including by the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—sadly, he is not able to be with us at the moment—yet the Government voted against it. What is it about the ostrich mentality of the Secretary of State and his ministerial team—or, I suspect even more, that of the Treasury—that they would rather bury their heads in the sand, pretend there is no problem with workforce and not even count the numbers of doctors and nurses needed because they worry that the Treasury might face up to the reality of what they need to provide?

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that, in the pandemic, the Government fundamentally misunderstood the connection between the health of the nation and its economic success? All the argument the shadow Secretary of State makes about the NHS workforce and what they can achieve for our country shows that the Government are still making the very same mistake.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who understands well the link between the health of the nation and the health of the economy. Given the labour market challenges in this country, it is simply not acceptable that we are losing so many people who could be in the labour market to ill health. We are also losing so many people from the labour market who are caring for relatives, because there is a disproportionate burden on families. Who disproportionately bears the burden of that care? It tends to be women, so we are losing a whole tranche of women from the labour market who could be contributing to the growth of the nation and the economy.

Health and Social Care

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

Of course I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute not just to Harwich port but to his local healthcare system, about which he and I have spoken on many occasions. It does an amazing job: its willingness to find innovative solutions to boost our booster rates is exactly what we need to see. I commend everything that his local trusts are doing.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

When my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and I spoke to social care professionals from the Wirral last night, they made it clear that the crisis is not to come; the crisis is right now. They have staff shortages, and those in work are knackered and devastated at what is going on in social care. My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and I wrote to the Secretary of State, but we have received no reply. Will the Minister go back to the Department, obtain a reply to my letter, and tell me now, today, what we are doing to secure more staff and better pay in social care?

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Lady knows, I do not have responsibility for social care. The Minister for Care and Mental Health is sitting next to me and will have heard what she said and will take it back to the Department to see whether a letter in response can be expedited.

We are fixing the system for the long term, but my hon. Friend the Minister has announced £162 million that is already going into the bank accounts of organisations to help support the social care workforce. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) is right that we need short-term support, but we also need a long-term solution. We are putting the money in to support this vital sector.

Health and Care Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is making an excellent speech. We should be talking about a plan for social care, but we are actually talking about a tax on the people who have lost out over the past decade and more from the excessive house price growth in the south compared with other parts of the country. This is a tax that doubles down on inequality, rather than addressing it.

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour—I am getting all my neighbours in tonight. She makes a brilliant point: the proposal exacerbates regional inequalities through an unfair tax and is certainly not a plan to fix social care. Hon. Members should look at what my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West has said about what needs to be done to tackle the social care crisis in this country; it is an awful lot more than putting in place a cap that benefits only some people in certain parts of the country.

Not only will the proposal not stop people having to sell their home to pay for their costs, but it will bake in unfairness for a generation. It does nothing for working adults with long-term care needs, who seem to have been completely missed out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said. It is not what was promised, but hon. Members do not have to take my word for it. Let us listen to the experts. Age UK says:

“The change the Government has announced makes the overall scheme a lot less helpful to older people with modest assets than anyone had expected. It waters down Sir Andrew Dilnot’s original proposal to save the Government some money, but at the cost of protecting the finances of older home owners…This feels like completely the wrong policy choice and we are extremely disappointed that the Government has made it”.

The King’s Fund says of people with more modest assets that,

“the Prime Minister’s promise that no one need sell their house to pay for care…doesn’t seem to apply to them.”

Instead, it will only “benefit wealthier people”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

I rise to speak to new clause 49. In doing so, and whatever its merits or otherwise, it is worth reflecting on the comments made by the Minister that we are at least here this evening looking at a part of a process that will lead to some progress in meeting social care costs going forward and removing the catastrophic risk that has hung above the heads of all our constituents up and down the country: that their healthcare costs may end up costing them all of their assets. We are also here having taken the tough decisions around having raised taxes to fund those arrangements.

I have problems with new clause 49. It seems to me that to make good law in this place, first, we need time to consider the matters put before us and secondly, we need the appropriate information upon which to take those decisions. On both those points, I have real concerns about how new clause 49 has been brought forward. The first we heard of it was not in Committee or in September when the general measures were put forward, including the taxation measures on which we all divided and voted, but on Wednesday evening, when the amendment was tabled.

It was fortuitous that the Treasury Committee happened to have Sir Andrew Dilnot before us the very next day. We were able to discuss many of the issues inherent in new clause 49. A number of issues were raised, to which only the Government have the answers. One of them has been put forward powerfully by speaker after speaker tonight, which is: what are the impact assessments associated with these measures? I wrote to the Chancellor immediately after that session and asked him for some impact assessments, including geographical impact assessments, of which we have had none.

It seems that the only information we have had was released by the Department of Health and Social Care on Friday night, in a document called “Adult social care charging reform: analysis”. I am very short of time, which is a shame, but there is, for example, a chart of a 10-year care journey that looks at individuals with different asset levels. While it is true, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, that these arrangements, even with new clause 49, are better for almost every level of wealth than under the status quo, it is not the case that everybody is better off compared with the measures brought forward in September.

[Alison McGovern]

The right hon. Gentleman gets to the heart of the matter, which is what people will get, compared with what they were promised. Is that not the heart of this matter?

[Mel Stride]

I think the heart of the matter is that we have to be clear and wide-eyed about what this change will do. Yes, it is true that it will leave us in a better position than the status quo, but it is not the case that it will leave those who are less well-off in a better position than if new clause 49 were not passed by the House. For those with assets of about £106,000, by my read of this graph, about 59% of their assets would be lost on average under the original proposals. Under the amended proposals, that figure would rise to 70%. When it comes to those who would be better off as a consequence of new clause 49, many are the better off, because they benefit from the changes being made to daily living costs, to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred.

I am out of time, but I believe that these measures should have been better ventilated in this House—certainly in Committee, if not earlier. We would then have had better information and more time in which to make these important judgments.

NHS Update

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend on that; I am glad that we are able to focus our funding for the NHS on the things that really matter—building new hospitals and supporting the workforce, and, at the moment and in the months ahead, supporting the elective recovery and all the extra work that needs to happen to give people the treatment they need.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Before I ask my question, may I say to the Minister that she might want to think again about coming to this House and ticking off my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for her tone and language on NHS pay when she has come to this House to say absolutely nothing at all? Worse still, we hear from the media that the social care announcement is now being pushed to September. Let me give the Minister a second chance: can she confirm at the Dispatch Box right now that when we get that social care plan it will match Wirral Council’s priority of getting every social care worker in this country the real living wage—yes or no?

[Helen Whately]

It is very good to hear that Wirral Council is supporting social care workers in its area. Local authorities are a crucial part of our work in social care reform and they have so many of the direct relationships with the care providers who are providing that social care. We are absolutely committed to bold, ambitious reforms for social care. As the hon. Lady knows very well, we will be bringing those forward during this year.

Covid-19 Update

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Nobody has done more to support the pubs of Leeds than my right hon. Friend, and he is doing it again today, so let us turn the meeting into a roundtable. I will make sure that that happens in the next fortnight, and we will do all the work to bring this new technology to bear.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Can I return the Secretary of State to care homes? He knows the utter dilemma that the care homes, their staff, their residents and all of their families face between allowing the infection into the home and causing such damage to the welfare of residents by not allowing visitors. He said earlier, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), that he was empowering directors of public health, which in some ways is welcome, but it needs a much more thought through plan than that and the Department of Health should be offering much more policy support. The Opposition have worked hard on a plan for care homes, so will he say what his Department is proactively doing?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady puts the sensitivity of this dilemma very appropriately. We have published a winter plan for care homes, which sets out our approach in this area and we are working on the implementation of that plan. I would be very happy for the Minister for Care, who leads on this, to meet her to discuss how we can make sure that that is best done most effectively in her area.

Local Contact Tracing

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I am glad to be called in this debate, so thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will make one point before speaking about tracking and tracing in the Wirral.

It is disappointing to listen to Conservative Members criticising a political party’s position or what its briefings might have been earlier this week or last week, before SAGE’s minutes and reports were published on the next steps that are needed. I would far rather that the Labour party had to correct its press releases than that we fail to save lives that we otherwise could. I am sorry that Conservative Members take a different view.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) spoke about the need for improved, larger public health teams, particularly in the Wirral. I am thankful for Julie Webster and Elspeth Anwar, our director and deputy director of public health in the Wirral, who have been absolutely first-class public servants. They have explained to me that, although they now have much more data about the outbreak in the Wirral and the rest of Merseyside, we do not have enough analysis.

That is to say that we cannot easily understand the story the data is telling us, because we do not have enough specialists working on this, particularly in the Wirral. I have learned through three years on the Treasury Committee and wading through reams of economic data that it is not actually about the figures in front of you; it is about understanding the story that the data is telling you and acting accordingly. It is not numbers for the sake of numbers; it is the instructions those numbers give.

In an outbreak like this, we need a hypothesis about the methods of transmission so that we are able to test it against the data. I say to the Minister that we not only need to help local authorities with the data; we also need analytical capacity in every town hall in Britain, because this virus travels through local areas in different ways. In London, many people are able to work from home. In a manufacturing environment, as we have in the Wirral, that just is not possible. People cannot make cars and airplanes from their front room.

The virus travels differently in places where public transport is more frequently used. Some places use buses rather than trains, and they are a different environment. That is why I say again to the Minister: give us data analysts in every town hall in Britain, so we can understand how this virus is travelling through our country and put a stop to it. If we had proper analysis and local understanding, we would have half a chance of finding out how this virus works.

Covid-19 Update

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, that is absolutely right. Testing capacity now stands at over 300,000. We are on track to reach 500,000 by the end of this month. I know what a goal to expand testing capacity feels like. This is a tough and difficult challenge, but the team are rising to it. My hon. Friend has made the case for Keighley so strongly during this pandemic, and he continues to do so in terms of the extra testing capacity needed there now.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

However basic this data error might have been, the consequences are very serious. However, I say to those civil servants working night and day to get this right: the responsibility for this is not on you; it is on those who guarantee the checks to the system. As the Secretary of State has indicated, that is him. With that in mind, can he avail himself of any data process flow charts or other diagrams relating to the processing of this data, and all data quality assurance policies and processes, and put those in the public domain? Yes or no?

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to work with the team to see what we can put in the public domain. However, the challenge of a maximum file size error is that it would not necessarily have appeared on that sort of flow chart and, given the massive expansion of the availability of data storage over recent years, would not, I expect, be a feature of the system that is already in train to replace the one that caused the problem this weekend. However, I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Lady has said about the civil servants in the Department and the staff at PHE, who are working so hard during this pandemic.