NHS Shared Business Services

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have always been concerned to make sure that, because of the extra administrative work involved in going through more than 700,000 records, other patients using the NHS do not find that their care is delayed. We made extra resources available for GP practices so that they could do that without interrupting the ordinary work that they have to do for their patients.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Surely the Secretary of State agrees that if everything were going swimmingly in the NHS, if we were investing in it like our European neighbours and if people were confident that their A&E departments and trusts were safe and that the whole health service was not in trouble, with privatisation biting into it, this issue could be put in perspective. But the NHS, under his watch, is in chaos. That is why we are so worried about this issue.

[Mr Hunt]

Let me gently remind the hon. Gentleman that, because of the decisions this Government have taken, we are actually now investing more than the European average in the NHS, which would have been much more difficult to do if we had followed his party’s spending plans. He tries to characterise our approach as one of suggesting that the NHS does not have problems. We think the NHS has some very big problems—it is working very hard to tackle them—but we are providing more doctors, more nurses, more funding and more operations than ever before in its history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I can absolutely reassure my hon. Friend. What we are doing is based on good evidence from hospitals such as Peterborough hospital, which has introduced ID checks for elective care and has seen absolutely no evidence that anyone who needs care has been denied it. This is not about denying anyone the care they need in urgent or emergency situations; it is about ensuring that we abide by the fundamental principle of fairness so that people who do not pay for the NHS through their taxes should pay for the care we provide.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State actually been recently to a clinical commissioning group like ours in Huddersfield, where one more duty would really break the camel’s back? We have just heard that the CCG is changing its constitution, excluding GPs and totally changing the nature of the CCG. Like most of them, our CCG is under-resourced and under stress, and asking it to do something else like this, which will be complex, difficult and perhaps impossible, will kill the poor bloody animal.

[Mr Speaker]

With reference to foreign nationals, and including a question mark at the end of the hon. Gentleman’s observations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

The right hon. Gentleman is a great proponent of tackling the risk of diabetes. He knows that the Government take tackling and preventing diabetes extremely seriously. That is why we have introduced the world’s first national diabetes prevention programme, which we have piloted and are rolling out across the country. It includes not only education programmes but testing, and we are making sure that we use the evidence from the programme to bring about improvement and that we are rolling it out effectively.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are all in favour of evidence-based medicine. We are also in favour of decent resources for the national health service but, in the case of Huddersfield and Calderdale hospitals, what we want is good, high-quality management, rather than GPs being promoted to a managerial position that they cannot handle.

[Mr Speaker]

In relation to evidence-based medicine.

Community Pharmacies

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

That would be a danger, had we not spent time over the past 10 months to try to get this right. We are confident and believe that we have done so.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I give some advice to the Minister? If he wants reforms—I think that the feeling on both sides of the House is that we need a high-performing, innovative pharmacy sector, which is at the heart of every community, urban and rural—and if he wants to generate enthusiasm in the workforce, he should not demoralise them at the very beginning. His predecessor was the person who said, “Let us cut 2,000 pharmacies.” That is the truth. The Minister should not just reach out to pharmacies at posh dinners—he should come to Huddersfield, which is more exciting than Kettering, and talk to our pharmacies.

[David Mowat]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point: I should not just reach out to pharmacists at posh dinners. In the past three weeks, I have visited a number of pharmacists. I have even opened a new pharmacy. I bow to no one in my view of the value that they can add, but they agree, and I think most Members in the House agree, that the community pharmacy network must move from a model based on dispensing to a model based more on services. We are going to help pharmacies to do that, and these proposals in the round will achieve that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The staff at Bolton have done a fantastic job. I absolutely congratulate them, and I thank my hon. Friend for his work in supporting them as well.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will know that in my own area of Calderdale and Huddersfield there is a dreadful situation for the trust that has been caused by the behaviour of the clinical commissioning group and the way in which it procures. He has received a large petition from thousands of people in the Huddersfield area about the closure of the A&E. Will he look at that seriously and intervene, because the competence of local CCGs is not up to the mark?

[Mr Hunt]

I am well aware of that issue and have received a number of representations from hon. Members on both sides of the House. There is a mechanism by which these issues end up on my desk—they have to be referred by a local council’s overview and scrutiny committee and then I get an independent recommendation—but I will look at this carefully if that process is followed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

A variety of pioneering techniques, which could make a huge difference to women’s experience of birth, are emerging. I am delighted that we are seeing lots of experimentation and innovation. I would particularly like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s trust, which is in special measures and has been through a very difficult period. The fact that it is still managing to do this kind of innovation is wholly to be commended.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State seen the Autism Commission report on barriers to healthcare for people with autism? In maternity care and all other care there are very severe barriers that, with the right will and the right action, we can overcome. Will he read the report and talk to me about it?

[Mr Hunt]

I am more than happy to do so. In fact, we have a copy of the report right here, which my Minister of State has handily given to me. When I was shadow Minister for disabled people, I had a lot of contact with parents of autistic children and with people on the autistic spectrum themselves. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point.

Defending Public Services

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard Simon Stevens being asked that question on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday. He was clear that £8 billion was the minimum of additional funding that he thought the NHS needed. In fact, we supplied £10 billion, which came with some important annual efficiency saving requirements. Indeed, for that £8 billion, the NHS recognises that £22 billion of annual efficiency savings are required by 2020, because even though funding is going up, demand for NHS services is increasing even faster. I will come on to talk about how we are going to make those efficiency savings. Some in this House have observed that without £70 billion of PFI debt, without £6 billion lost in an IT procurement fiasco, and without serious mistakes in the GP and consultant contracts a decade ago, the efficiency ask might have been smaller.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

We all hear what the Secretary of State is saying: it is always somebody else’s fault. However, the fact of the matter is that I have been told by senior health professionals at the highest level—I do not watch “The Andrew Marr Show” often—that only two of this country’s health trusts are not in debt. Is that right?

[Mr Hunt]

That is not true, but we do all accept that there is financial pressure throughout the system. The question that is always ducked by Labour Members is how much greater that financial pressure would have been under Labour’s plans, which involved giving the NHS £5.5 billion less every year than was promised by the Government. I just point out that when Labour Members condemn the £22 billion of efficiency savings as “politically motivated”, as the shadow Health Secretary did in March, they cannot have it both ways. Her manifesto offered the NHS £5.5 billion less every year compared with what this Government put forward—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great privilege to be called to speak in this debate at this particular juncture. You will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that sometimes Mr Speaker teases me a little about my long service in the House. I, in turn, accuse him of being slightly ageist. Well, I have to say that of all the maiden speeches I have heard, the speech delivered to the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) was one of the best. It was delivered with passion, knowledge, experience and wisdom. She will be a first-class Member of Parliament representing her constituents, because she knows her community. She has lived and worked in her community. We are all proud of her, and Harry would be proud of her, too. I look forward to her brilliant career. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

Some of us will have been a little hurt by the remarks of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who was very keen to tell us that he is passionate about freedom and liberty. I do not mind him using his speech to say how passionately he is against the European Union, but to seem to suggest that we who oppose that view and who believe our liberties work better as members of the EU do not care about freedom and liberty is a little hurtful. As I said to the Prime Minister on an earlier occasion, I was born the day before the worst day of the blitz. German bombers bombed the street in which I was born. Seventy years of peace and prosperity can be too easily taken for granted.

When looking at a Queen’s Speech, it is important to track what has been left out or forgotten. There are some high-flown ideas at the beginning of the speech:

“My Government will use the opportunity of a strengthening economy to deliver security for working people, to increase life chances for the most disadvantaged and to strengthen national defences.

My Ministers will continue to bring the public finances under control so that Britain lives within its means, and to move to a higher wage and lower welfare economy where work is rewarded.”

The Secretary of State for Health, at the beginning of his speech, said that he did not believe in private wealth and public squalor. I do not believe that he believes that and I do not believe that the Government believe that. What they do believe is in some ways more insidious: private sector good, public sector bad. That is the message I get all the time from Government Members. Those of us who have worked in education, health, welfare, transport or housing know that lurching towards the private sector for an answer is not always the right or most efficient way. I feel embarrassed to hurt the feelings of those sitting on the Government Front Bench, but I mention in passing the botched rail privatisation that nobody wanted and which was executed badly. We now spend more money on trains, which are normally run by foreign-owned companies, than any other country in Europe—and to provide what? A very poor service.

We have heard a very large number of long speeches about health. I represent the constituency of Huddersfield. It looks as though we are going to lose our hospital and A&E not because anything is wrong with it—it used to be very high performing and financially sound—but because it has to absorb a weaker health trust next door, the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, and because we are imprisoned by a PFI contract that we cannot deny or modify. That is a real threat.

The elephant in the room is that the health service is struggling to make ends meet. It is underperforming not because we do not have amazing and dedicated staff, but because we do not have enough of them. We do not have enough doctors, nurses, A&E specialists or people supporting doctors. The fact is that the NHS needs more resources and investment. I will say this a number of times in my speech: it also needs more imagination to deal with new demands. Yes we have an ageing population and need to deliver healthcare in a different way, but that needs leadership and imagination that does not exist at the current time.

Members on all sides complain about the health service lacking resources, but they go through the Lobby to vote for High Speed 2. On the latest figures, HS2 will be three times more expensive than it was predicted to be: £138 billion and rising. The Cabinet Secretary has now been drafted in to look at this, because even the revised costs are out of control. It seems strange to be ploughing money into HS2 when, according to the Queen’s Speech, we will very soon end up with driverless cars. We will have the ability to dial a number and have a pod arrive outside our house and take us anywhere in the country. I predict that by the time we have completed HS2, in 2033, it will be redundant, because driverless cars and the new generation of transport will have wiped out the need, just as the invention of the railways did away with the effectiveness of, and the investment in, canals.

As you would expect, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to home in on education and skills, on which subject the Queen’s Speech gives me great cause for concern. First, enforced academisation will diminish local education authorities’ role in education and so take away a great deal of wisdom and resource that we have relied on for many years. I can see academisation being a very disabling influence on the whole of our education system. In one small paragraph, the Queen’s Speech also makes reference to new private universities. The Government are persistent in their ideology—ideology with a little i not a big I. In almost everything they touch, we see not big, bold privatisation but back-door privatisation. Academisation will lead to a greater role for the private sector. The changes to the BBC, under the new BBC charter, will mean much more privatisation by the back door. The same will happen with private universities. Will they train doctors, engineers and those in the high sciences? No, they will go for the low-hanging fruit—for legal degrees and accountancy—that cross-subsidises the difficult stuff in our universities.

I want to end on two little things. The Queen’s Speech referred to the northern powerhouse, but we see no resources or the knowledge to take us forward on that course. Lastly, I want to say something about defence—something the House would not expect from me. Today, we could get the whole of our defence forces—100,000 men and women—into Wembley stadium. If anybody wants to read the truth about our lack of preparation for defending this country, they should read Max Hastings in The Sunday Times this Sunday. We are struggling to maintain a credible force for the defence of our country and the maintenance of our liberties. At this time, the EU is a bedrock of our freedoms.

Junior Doctors Contract

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The request from the BMA was to find a new way of proceeding with that very important work, and that is what we will do. We will do so with the input of Professor Bailey, because she has a very important contribution to make. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, as well as more flexible working for people with family commitments, the big issue for many junior doctors is the way in which the training process happens. In particular, the issue is about the way that continuity of training has been undermined by the new shift system—we need that system for reasons of patient safety—and that often means that someone is given advice by a different consultant on different aspects of care from one day to the next, which is frustrating. We will look at all those issues with Professor Bailey, Health Education England and the BMA to see whether we can find a better way forward.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that even my constituents struggling with the possible closure of their A&E at the hospital in Huddersfield nevertheless welcome this announcement and thank anyone and everyone who has brought it about? That includes, I must say, leaders from the Opposition parties—our health spokespeople—who have done so much to help maintain a positive spirit. Will the Secretary of State just not gloat about this, but keep a period of silence? This is part of the phenomenon of people’s deep unhappiness about the NHS. Problems will arise again because so many people working in the NHS know it is being privatised by the back door and know that the clinical commissioning system is not working. Those problems will come back again and again unless he confronts that issue.

[Mr Hunt]

That would have been a constructive contribution to this morning’s discussion if the hon. Gentleman had not descended into totally false slurs about this Government’s commitment to our NHS. I would just say to him that if people support and are passionate about the NHS, as this Government are, then they put in the money—we are putting in £5.5 billion more than his party promised at the last election—and make the difficult reforms necessary to ensure that NHS care is as good as or better than anything that can be provided in the private sector. That is what this Government are doing: we believe in our NHS, and we are backing it to provide the best care available anywhere in the world.

Autism Diagnosis Waiting Times

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered autism diagnosis waiting times.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to lead this important debate.

As hon. Members will know, autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It is a spectrum condition, which affects different people in different ways. Some people with autism are able to lead a substantially or even completely independent life, while others may need a lifetime of specialist, complex support.

Diagnosis, which is what we are here to discuss, is a critical milestone for people on the spectrum. It helps individuals to take control of their lives and can unlock access to essential support and services. Diagnosis is important not only for those who are on the spectrum. It can be just as important for their parents, friends and loved ones, enabling them to better understand their child, friend or partner.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend may know that I have an autistic child in my family and that I chair the newly formed commission on autism. Would she agree that it is absolutely about the family support that would come from early diagnosis? At the moment, so few people get it.

[Jo Cox]

Absolutely. I bow to my hon. Friend’s experience, expertise and doughty campaigning on this issue, and I could not agree with him more. Tragically, as we know, many thousands of people up and down the country, including children, wait far too long for a diagnosis. For children, on average the current wait is now more than three and a half years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Cox]

I thank the hon. Lady for that helpful intervention. I agree with her, and let us hope that the Minister addresses that point in his comments.

To return to the example of a little girl who faces a choice. Without a diagnosis she will be forced to accept a place in a mainstream primary school that will not be able to meet her needs. With a diagnosis, however, she would go to a primary autism resource using the specialised teaching methods she knows and trusts. She would be able to continue her education and in turn increase her life chances.

Many parents tell the National Autistic Society that delays in getting diagnoses have also led to the development of serious mental health problems, both for the individual and for the family. For example, having presented himself to GPs for 20 years, Chris was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in 2007 after finally deciding to go private. Without a diagnosis, appropriate support or an understanding of his needs, he experienced mental health conditions for most of his life, including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mild Tourette’s. He was hospitalised when he was 15 and later became suicidal when his needs were not met.

We now know the value and importance of early and fast diagnosis, yet our system continues to fail so many children and adults. Members present will have heard stories from their constituents or family members and will have no doubt been deeply affected by them, as I have. One has to meet only a handful of parents to realise the unbelievable pressures that the waiting times put them under.

I could tell a number of stories from my own constituency—members of some of the families affected are here today—but I want to tell the story of a young man from Batley. He is one of the lucky ones: he now has his diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. His mum wrote to me and told me what a blessing the diagnosis has been. It did not just provide access to support and services, but it helped everyone, including him, to understand why he felt and behaved the way he did. He said he wished he had been diagnosed earlier because:

“I always knew I was different, now I know why.”

He is one of the lucky ones, because his parents had the ability to pay for a private diagnosis. They raised £2,500 to fast-track the process, but they should not have had to do that. What about the great many of my constituents who do not have the means to afford a private diagnosis? Another of my constituents, who is also from Batley, has had to give up his job to accompany his son to school every day. Without a diagnosis, the school is not able to fund the additional staff it needs to take care of his complex needs. It is a problem not only in my constituency, but throughout the country.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Is it not also disappointing for constituents and for people we know in the autism field—some very experienced people have intervened on her on that count—when someone goes into a health diagnosis and the health people say, “We can give you the diagnosis, but you will not get any help because the local authority does not have the capacity or the trained people to provide that help”?

[Jo Cox]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend again raises a very valid point. We are talking specifically about diagnosis delays, but once someone has a diagnosis, that opens up a whole range of issues that I hope the Minister will address.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We want to them to be as outstanding as Leicester City football club, but we recognise that there is some way to go. There is pressure on A&E departments, as the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), has acknowledged in the House, and we are giving careful thought to what we can do to support them. Leicester will be one of the first trusts in the country to offer full seven-day services from March or April 2017 onwards, so important improvements are being made, but we will do all that we can to ensure that they happen quickly.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Calderdale and Huddersfield trust is not in special measures, but it is in trouble, and we are likely to lose our A&E service—in one of the biggest towns in Britain—if we follow the recommendations of the CCG. Does the Secretary of State agree that when hospitals and trusts get into trouble, it is usually because of poor management? What can we do to improve the management of hospitals, and, in particular, what can we do about people who, because they are GPs, think that they are managers?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I think that there are some things that we just need to do differently. For instance, we should allow managers to remain in their posts for longer. If the average tenure of NHS chief executives is only about two years, their horizons will inevitably be very short-term, so we need to give them enough time to turn their organisations around. The chief executive of the latest trust to be given an “outstanding” measure, Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, has been there for 26 years, and I think there is a connection. We can ensure that managers have the necessary resources. I think we can also make sure that we identify their problems quickly, and give them support before those problems turn into a crisis.