A&E Services

Ben Howlett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the two new Members, for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), who have spoken. I made my maiden speech a couple of weeks ago and know what a terrifying experience it is.

As Members from all parts of the House may already know, I have watched the NHS provide first-class healthcare to my mother, who has had a debilitating long-term musculoskeletal condition for the past 20 years. I am absolutely certain that without the support of the NHS her pain and suffering would have been an awful lot worse. Having said that, I should note that on a number of occasions she has needed to visit A&E to make her condition a little better, and, although improvements have been seen, her experiences have been mixed. I appreciate that my family’s case is just one example of this care. Improvements have been seen but people from around the UK are facing a mixed picture on care received at A&Es.

From the outset, I wish to stress, in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), that turning this issue into a political football is not helpful and that this is not a new issue. I have worked alongside the NHS for seven years and have given advice and support to four Health Secretaries, both Labour and Conservative, with each saying that they would do all they could to improve A&Es across the UK and more than their predecessor to cut unnecessary bureaucracy for medical professionals. As I said, this issue is not a new one. Emergency medical professionals have been warning that a hiatus has been on the horizon for a decade or more. I am therefore pleased that this Secretary of State has recognised the need to look at the issue much more seriously and holistically.

I would like to spend some time correcting a number of myths that have been espoused by the Opposition. First, and most importantly, I should say that the increase in A&E attendance is not because funding has been cut. The better care programme, designed to integrate health and social care services between national Government and local authorities, is predicted to reduce A&E admissions by 3%. The 111 service launched in 2013 directs 8% of callers to A&E departments, whereas 30% of these people would have gone to A&E if the service were not available. In addition, £150 million has been provided to fund evening and weekend GP appointments, through the Prime Minister’s challenge fund, meaning that people can access care through GPs instead of having to go to A&E.

Given that picture, we are clearly not going to be able to provide the high-quality care that is needed without proper investment. I am pleased that this Government have decided to take on board the recommendations of Simon Stevens and invest a further £8 billion in the NHS. That, of course, will have a significant positive effect on A&Es. Last year, the Government invested a record total of £700 million, ensuring local services had the certainty of additional money and time to plan how best to use it. As the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said:

“This represents the largest annual additional funding yet seen.”

I know from speaking to people at the Royal United hospital in my constituency that this additional investment has really helped.

The Opposition spend most of their time trying to do down our achievements, which the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), espoused in his opening remarks, but the protection of the NHS budget and the additional funding since 2010 has enabled A&E departments’ capacity to increase significantly since 2010. That additional funding has paid for 2,500 beds in both acute and community treatment, and the equivalent of 1,000 new doctors. We have now added almost 1,200 additional A&E doctors, including an additional 400 A&E consultants, and 1,700 additional paramedics since 2010. The additional £2 billion being invested in front-line care in 2015-16 will go a long way to supporting the NHS into the next winter.

My next point relates to weekly reporting of A&E data. The Opposition will be very much aware that the best healthcare decisions are clinically led, although it seemed as though they disagreed with that earlier on. As Sir Bruce Keogh rightly explained in his recent letter to the chief executive of NHS England:

“There is concern that, in a small number of instances, some targets are provoking perverse behaviours and the complexity of others is obscuring their purpose and meaning.”

I agree with him that the A&E standard has been an important means of ensuring that people who need to get rapid access to urgent and emergency care do so, and we must not lose that focus. I also agree with him that we do not need to review the four-hour standard at this time and that we need to look at a wider range of measures if we are to drive improved outcomes across the entire system.

I totally agree with the suggestion that we standardise reporting arrangements so that performance statistics for A&E, referral-to-treatment times, cancer, diagnostics, ambulances, 111 and delayed transfers of care are all published on one day each month. That fits very nicely with the calls from medical practitioners across the UK for a reduction in the burdens of bureaucracy that have been crippling productivity at the heart of our NHS. One key reason for my brother and his wife leaving this country to practise medicine in New Zealand was this overarching issue of bureaucracy. I very much hope this plan will show medical professionals and patients that we all look to improve the quality of data collection.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend had this experience, but during the election campaign a number of constituents told me how excellent the services were in A&E. Of course we have a brand new unit at the Lister hospital, but did he have the same experience?

[Ben Howlett]

Yes, absolutely, I did. When I was speaking to countless residents on the doorsteps across Bath, I found that the quality of provision of the Royal United hospital and other hospitals around the rest of the UK was tremendous. I spend a lot more time than Opposition Members do in thanking NHS professionals for the work they are doing in my constituency and elsewhere.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Ben Howlett]

I am coming to my conclusion, so I will not take an intervention.

In conclusion, I very much hope that the Secretary of State will continue to find the investment that is needed in our A&Es to keep up with the pressures; think about the need to encourage better access to primary care and community care; and reduce the burdens of bureaucracy that have afflicted our NHS for so long, and that resulted in my brother and his wife fleeing to New Zealand to escape.