National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Andrew Lewin Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Karin Smyth
The right hon. Gentleman was part of the last Government—I am pleased to note that he is talking to his new constituents. The £22 billion black hole and the report from Lord Darzi indicate the fragility of the system we have inherited. We are ensuring that vulnerable groups are supported through the allocations provided to both the Department for Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
When Labour came into government in July, every element of our health service was in crisis. Since, then, we have announced record investment in our national health service, but I am yet to hear whether the Conservative party supports that record investment. Does the Minister agree that the Government are listening to health professionals, taking tough decisions and not simply playing politics?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have still not heard from the Opposition whether they agree with the extra investment that has gone into the sector or with Lord Darzi’s report that diagnosed their legacy, including why they left that legacy and the serious issues we now have to address.
Access to Primary Healthcare
Andrew Lewin Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
It is a privilege to follow that powerful maiden speech. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman will do his constituents proud, as he did in his time serving in our armed forces.
I welcome this debate. After 14 years of Conservative government, our health service is in a critical condition. In my constituency, the drive from the centre of Hatfield to Welwyn East takes about 10 minutes, but the difference in life expectancy between the two areas is now 10 years. The responsibility for the crisis sits not with our wonderful healthcare professionals, but squarely with the previous Conservative Government. I have spent as much time as I can with our NHS heroes, and I recently saw the professionalism of our paramedics at first hand after joining a shift with Daisy and Jake in the East of England ambulance service. They were a credit to their badge, and I am pleased to say that I got through blue lights okay. But GPs are battling a backlog—in my constituency more than 2,000 people have been waiting more than a month for a local appointment—dentists are withdrawing from the NHS, including in Peartree ward in Welwyn Garden City, and, invariably, the most vulnerable are the most seriously impacted. As the Darzi report made clear, people experiencing homelessness attend A&E four times as often as the general population and are eight times more likely to need in-patient care, all at immense cost to them and the overall NHS budget. We will only rescue our health service if we reform primary care, and that is why this debate is so important.
Despite rising demand, 5% fewer nurses were working in the community in September 2023 than in September 2009. The NHS Confederation is clear that spending in primary and community settings has a superior return on investment compared with spending on acute hospital services, and Darzi was clear that it “therefore makes sense that” there should be a “fundamental strategic shift” to the community.
Innovative work is out there. In my constituency, the Hospital at Home service run by East and North Herts NHS trust is particularly powerful for those over 80 who need rehabilitation and care, but for whom the best place for that is their home and not the hospital. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), said that she was not expecting to hear new ideas, but they are out there, and it is the job of our Government to embrace them and take them forward. I have every confidence that this Labour Government will do that. The party that founded the national health service has a clear vision for the future —from analogue to digital, from hospital to communities, and from sickness to prevention.
Government Policy on Health
Andrew Lewin Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Wes Streeting
In the meetings that I asked my right honourable friend to attend—I need to make sure that I get this absolutely right—I tend to think that I saw him on the other side of the table in the corner. I cannot guarantee that he sat at that point in every single one of the meetings, but he certainly was not sitting next to me. With regard to the papers for the meetings that he attended, they were discussion papers about the challenges facing health and social care. They were not Government decision papers or recommendations for Ministers. There is a distinction between those two things. I decide who attends meetings in the Department, and, when it comes to wide-ranging policy discussions, I decide what reading material people receive.
Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
The Conservative party famously said that they had “had enough of experts”, and look at where that got us—the longest NHS waiting list in history. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend rejects that approach emphatically. In the spirit of listening to professionals who are trying to make a difference, I ask him and his team to consider visiting Hertfordshire, where the community trust is working on a hospital at home scheme. The scheme is making a huge difference to patients at the end of their life, who need to be supported, cared for and monitored. This is an important part of easing the burden on our NHS with which we have been left.
Wes Streeting
I would be delighted for either myself or one of my ministerial colleagues to take my hon. Friend up on that offer. What a refreshing change from so many of the contributions that we have had this afternoon from the Opposition. Of course we want to learn from people with experience and expertise in getting it right on the NHS and social care. Many of those people are outside Government. Many of them have valuable experience in other parts of the public sector, in our public services, in the voluntary sector and in the private sector—or indeed experience as patients, users or carers in our health and social care service. Our message as a Government is clear: when it comes to fixing the crisis in health and social care created by the Conservatives, we cannot get enough of experts, and we are looking forward to mobilising the country in pursuit of our mission, so that we can deliver an NHS that our country can once again be proud of.