Health and Care Bill

Bob Seely Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I fear that I do not have time to cover the other amendments in the four minutes that I have left.

Although I appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne will continue to press this matter, may I offer them a meeting with me and the Mental Health Minister to discuss further what they are proposing in advance of the Lords stages? I cannot make any promises or say anything beyond that, but I will meet them to further discuss the sentiments that sit behind their amendments.

Let me turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), who made his points powerfully and eloquently, as he always does. As a Government of the whole United Kingdom, we have a duty of care to all citizens in the UK, which is why I welcome the clauses already in this legislation that will bring benefit to residents across the UK.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will the Minister take my intervention?

[Edward Argar]

If my hon. Friend can do it in 10 seconds.

[Bob Seely]

Please, Minister, do not forget the unavoidably small hospitals, of which there are 12 in isolated communities.

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend has made his point. He has made it to me before. I will not forget either him or unavoidably small hospitals, particularly in the Isle of Wight.

On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy, we do recognise the importance of making sure that health and care data can be shared safely and effectively across the UK to support individual care and improve outcomes for people across the UK.

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[Bob Seely]

Let me start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for that superb speech. We have a huge problem with NHS dentistry on the Isle of Wight, and also with independent pharmacies. I have written to the Health Minister about that several times, and there is an ongoing conversation, for which I thank him very much.

In the short time that I have, I want to speak about fairness and equality. The Secretary of State spoke eloquently—as he always does—about equality between the four nations. I want to see equality between isolated and non-isolated communities as well, specifically in relation to unavoidably small hospitals. There are about a dozen in England and Wales, and for obvious reasons they tend to be in isolated areas. The most isolated of those hospitals is St Mary’s on the Isle of Wight, which has a 100% isolation factor because it is separated from everywhere else by sea. Such areas tend to have populations of less than 200,000.

Unavoidably small hospitals find it difficult to achieve the economies, and the economies of scale, that are possible elsewhere in the NHS, because they do not receive tariff payments. They have to provide baseline services at a certain cost, but they do it for many fewer people. It is therefore likely that fewer people will use the services of that particular surgeon or those particular nurses, and as a result they are under permanent pressure. On the Island, our additional costs are estimated, at 2019 prices, to be some £12 million a year. That covers acute services, ambulances—including helicopters, for us—and travel to other destinations, which may involve ferries.

The NHS long-term plan—pre covid, back in January 2019, almost a lifetime ago—set out a 10-year strategy, stating that it would develop a standard model for delivery for smaller hospitals. May I ask the Secretary of State and the Health Minister what has happened to that plan and to the community services formula, which we hoped would support unavoidably small hospitals?

I am, however, delighted that, thanks to the excellent work of Maggie Oldham, the superb chief executive of the Isle of Wight NHS Trust, St Mary’s Hospital has been taken out of special measures and is now good. I would welcome either of the Ministers if they came to see us on the Island, not only to congratulate Maggie but to understand the pressure that one of the 12 unavoidably small hospitals in the United Kingdom is under, so that they can work with me to provide a better funding model for it and the other 11.