A&E Services
Debate between Andrew Percy and Jamie Reed(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Reed
My hon. Friend puts her finger on the problem precisely. It is absolute madness, and it is happening at trusts throughout England, as their deficits edge up towards £1 billion for this financial year.
The number of patients waiting more than four hours each year has rocketed by more than 1 million, meaning that there are now almost four times as many people as there were five years ago waiting more than four hours. That is a damning record, and based on the performance over the previous Parliament five more years of the same will see almost 2.5 million patients each year waiting more than four hours by 2020. For the benefit of patients, medical professionals and the healthcare system as a whole, that cannot be allowed to continue.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman may know that I spend my weekends working in the NHS, attending seriously ill patients. We are seeing more patients who are elderly, who have a higher acuity and who need admission to hospital; hospital is the only place for them. On his suggestion that the situation has arisen on the Government’s watch, how does he account for the Royal College of Nursing’s telling the Health Committee that the decisions that needed to be taken to deal with this demographic shift should have been taken a decade or more before my party entered government?
Mr Reed
If the hon. Gentleman wants to compare the records of this Government and the previous one, we will do that all day long and he will come out on the wrong side of that debate. On the ageing society, we would think from listening to Ministers and Government Back Benchers that this has just been sprung upon us. He is right to say that it has been coming for a long time, but we did an awful lot more to address it than this Government are doing. I will go on to explain why in just a moment.
A real worry for the NHS, and for those of us who use it or work within it every day, is the Government’s plan to suspend the work of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on its safe staffing programme. That move is a rejection of a key recommendation made by the Francis report, and in response to the move, Sir Robert Francis said:
“I specifically recommended the work which NICE has been undertaking for a reason…I would not be surprised if this news generates a significant level of concern, and it seems a shame that the work of NICE has been stopped.”
Dr Clifford Mann, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, has said:
“There are real pressures on nursing levels in Emergency Departments.”
He has also said:
“We are concerned about patient safety and staff welfare.”
I would be grateful if the Minister could explain to me, and to Sir Robert Francis, why on earth the Government have suspended this crucial work.
111 Telephone Service
Debate between Andrew Percy and Jamie Reed(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time, Mr Robertson. I extend my most sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing this important debate. We have worked closely on a number of issues during my time in Parliament, and she is rightly respected across the House as an independently minded Member. I must express my most sincere sympathies to her, but also my profound thanks for the real courage she has shown in sharing her family’s experiences with us.
It is a mark of the severity of the crisis our A and Es are experiencing that Members of all shades of political persuasion have spoken at some length about their constituents’ experiences. It is no exaggeration to state that members of the public are very concerned about the situation regarding NHS 111. A and E is arguably the most visible part of our NHS, and what happens there is felt throughout the system. From the patient waiting at home for an ambulance to the person waiting on a trolley for a bed, what happens in A and E touches every patient in the NHS.
The crisis in A and E has happened on this Government’s watch. When Labour left office, A and E was performing well, with 98% of patients seen within four hours. However, the number of patients waiting for more than four hours has now doubled, and ambulance queues have doubled too. Let us not forget that the target for the number of patients seen within four hours in A and E has been reduced under this Government, from 98% to 95%. Today’s debate is therefore extremely important, and the Government must finally offer some real solutions to address the crisis they have caused.
Andrew Percy
I find it incredible that the shadow Minister states that the issue was caused by this Government. A lot of my constituents are having to ring 999 because 50,000 beds were taken out of our hospitals nationally on his party’s watch; wards were closed in my local hospital on his party’s watch. Elderly, vulnerable patients who do not have local hospital beds to go to are now forced to ring 999 to get access to emergency services, so it is pretty shameless of the hon. Gentleman to attempt to politicise the issue.
Mr Reed
I have to say I am staggered by the hon. Gentleman’s manufactured indignation. I do not know how long he has been a Member of the House, but he will recall that, between 1997 and 2010, the Labour party took the NHS budget from about £30 billion to £110 billion. However, on every occasion the budget was put before the House of Commons, the Conservative party voted against an increase. He should think again about his manufactured indignation.
Mr Reed
I am going to make some progress, because I want to get on to the substantive issues in play.
When Labour first suggested a new NHS 111 service, we were clear—the hon. Gentleman should listen—that it would not replace NHS Direct. Our manifesto in 2010 said:
“A new national 111 telephone number will make nonemergency services far easier for people to access and book.”
The 111 service was planned to help people find an emergency dentist, a late-night pharmacy or an out-of-hours primary care GP. This Government scrapped that and instead pressed ahead with the botched implementation of a system that just could not cope with what it was expected to do. They were warned, but, as usual, they did not listen.
There is no doubt that the 111 service is not fit for purpose. The statistics show it, the examples given by Members today show it and, most importantly, patient testimonies show it. Indeed, the Minister herself acknowledged it in response to the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) in late May, when she stated:
“We recognise that the service has not been good enough and we are working closely with NHS England to ensure improvement in performance. NHS England have put a number of measures in place already.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 740W.]
I hope the Minister will outline what those measures are and what their effects have been, because the contributions we have heard today suggest they are having a negligible effect.
The implementation of the system has undoubtedly caused serious problems; indeed, in my area, NHS Direct is having to be maintained alongside the 111 service to cope with demand. The Minister must explain in detail how a botched, fragmented implementation was allowed to happen despite there being a significant pilot scheme.