Access to GPs

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Member speaks with great knowledge and expertise in this area, so I am pleased that he is here for this debate. He is right that it is about the skills mix. Many GPs really enjoy the management, administration and leadership role at partnership level. He raises an interesting and important point about the training for that. My impression is that many go into managing a practice having just learned on the job and gone through the process in an ad hoc way. Perhaps training is a matter for further discussion with the Royal College of General Practitioners. It is also about learning to run a business. Could we look at that in respect of universities and MBAs or whatever it might be, given that business administration is an important part of the equation?

I also wanted to say a word about bureaucracy. Too much red tape is holding GPs back. On 4 October, the Secretary of State launched the red tape challenge, with a clear goal to identify and eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens, freeing up GPs to see more patients and focus on delivering high-quality care. Improving access is not just about cutting bureaucracy; it is also about transforming how care is delivered. That is why we have committed to moving towards a neighbourhood health service. That model of care will bring a range of services together, breaking down barriers and silos between services and streamlining support for patients. That integrated approach will mean that patients are seen sooner by the right person in the right setting.

We will require all practices to ensure that patients can go online to request an appointment at any point during core opening hours. That is about not just adding a digital option, but transforming how general practice works for the modern world. By making online access standard, we are giving patients more control and greater flexibility over how they engage with their GP. It will mean no longer having to call at 8 am sharp or waiting in a phone queue. That is especially important for those juggling work, childcare or other responsibilities. This change also helps those who prefer to call or go to the surgery in person; by enabling more people to use online routes, we reduce pressure on phone lines and reception desks, meaning shorter waits and faster service for everyone.

We are also taking action to improve access for those who need it most by incentivising better continuity of care, particularly for patients with chronic or complex conditions. They benefit significantly from seeing the same practitioner over time. Continuity does not just improve the patient experience; it improves outcomes. When patients see a familiar clinician, issues are identified earlier, care is more personalised and time is not lost repeating history or re-explaining symptoms. Our manifesto pledge is to bring back the family doctor, and that is what we will do.

Physical infrastructure has also been mentioned by hon. Members. Our new £102 million primary care utilisation and modernisation fund will create additional clinical space in more than 1,000 GP practices across England. This investment will deliver more appointments and improve patient care.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Stratton surgery in my constituency has long been trying to get access to two rooms on the third floor of the surgery that could be used for clinical space, but the ICB seems to be dragging its feet. The rooms were previously used by Cornwall’s ICB for maternity services. They are no longer in use, so can the Minister please help in working with the ICB to help Stratton surgery to get access to those much-needed clinical spaces?

NHS Funding: South-west

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on securing this debate. Following the Chancellor’s spending review announced in the House today, I am appalled that Cornwall and the wider south-west have been seemingly overlooked yet again, with Swindon the closest place to get a mention. Hospitals such as North Devon district hospital in Barnstaple, which serves thousands of my constituents, are crumbling before our eyes, as is the Camelford GP surgery.

Our constituents deserve to get appropriate care when they need it and, crucially for those living in rural areas, where they need it. With the recent cuts to bus routes such as the numbers 11 and 12 by the previous Tory-run council, residents of Bude, Launceston, Padstow and many other towns do not have a direct public transport route to their cancer appointments at Derriford hospital. Those routes urgently need Government funding.

Our Liberal Democrat policy aims for every cancer patient to start their treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral, but for many cancer patients in Cornwall, disruptions to vital transport links make that much more difficult. All the while, the number of cancer patients waiting over four months for treatment more than doubled between 2020 and 2023 under the previous Tory Government.

In comparison with the plans laid out today in the spending review, the Liberal Democrats would invest in a rural fund for our GPs, dentists and pharmacists so that, for example, my nine-year-old constituent Sophie would not need to wait 12 hours at A&E in Treliske with a tooth infection. That sort of investment would significantly reduce the number of visits to our hospitals in the first place. At the same time, we would tackle the fundamental issues that hold back our social care system; solve the care crisis with cross-party talks; introduce a fair deal for our carers, with a higher wage and a new royal college of care workers; and, finally, get our NHS back on track. We owe it to our brilliant NHS staff and our patients across the south-west.

New Hospital Programme

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I warmly welcome the news, on which I congratulate the Minister, that the women and children’s hospital at Treliske and the emergency care hospital at Derriford are in wave 1. However, some of my North Cornwall constituents rely on the crumbling North Devon district hospital, which is potentially 15 years from a rebuild. We are talking about mitigations, so please will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can expand care at the community hospitals in Bodmin, Launceston and Bude, which are all at least one hour from their closest district hospitals?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We had a good discussion yesterday about North Devon; I understand the rurality of that location, as it is fairly close to my Bristol constituency. Obviously, however we manage it, there are a lot of schemes represented by a lot of MPs. I am open to suggestions about how we go forward. I hope hon. Members feel that we have tried to give as much information as we can to them and the trusts in the announcement and the meetings yesterday. That is the spirit in which we will continue.

Access to Primary Healthcare

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I congratulate all those who have made excellent maiden speeches today. I also congratulate the handful of Conservative Members who came out to try to defend their indefensible record on the NHS.

When it comes to NHS dentistry, constituencies such as mine are some of the worst affected by the dental deserts all around the country that we have heard about today—the shocking legacy of the Conservatives. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) and others have said, we must have NHS dental contract reform now—no more delays, no more excuses.

One in five dentists have left Cornwall since 2019, and the number of urgent dental cases is spiralling out of control. I am not exaggerating when I say that upset, distressed parents contact me every single day about their children’s rotting teeth. They cannot find NHS dentists, and they are completely at a loss. Only last week, a panicked and anxious parent called Georgina got in touch with me because her daughter Phoebe, just 10 years old, was in need of emergency dental care, and had already missed a lot of school as a result. She needed to have a rotting tooth removed, but her mother could not find an NHS dentist, so instead she was sent to the Treliske hospital. Just a few days later, Phoebe was urgently admitted to A&E with extreme facial swelling. She was taken into surgery, where the rotten tooth was removed after much pain and distress. Her face had swollen to the size of a tennis ball, and she has now been off school for weeks.

The stress and anxiety that this experience caused Phoebe—who, by the way, has complex special educational needs—her mother and the rest of the family was completely unnecessary. If Phoebe had just been given a place with an NHS dentist, the strain on the family and, importantly, the hospital that treated her would have been avoided entirely. During the election campaign, a teacher from Wadebridge admitted to me that she had resorted to using pliers to extract a rotten tooth, as the alternative was to receive treatment as far away as Nottingham. More than 100 children were admitted to hospital with tooth decay in Cornwall last year alone. The House needs to come together and ensure that the problem of dental deserts that we have heard about all day today is solved once and for all. What kind of society are we if we allow our children —indeed, people of all ages—to suffer like this?