Summer Adjournment

Debate between Bob Stewart and Rosena Allin-Khan

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Today at the High Court, a group of junior doctors asked the Government to clarify their position on the implementation of the new contract for junior doctors. The High Court decided that the Secretary of State may have a case to answer and has given them more time to prepare their case. As if this situation could not get any worse, yesterday the Secretary of State for Health demanded £150,000 in legal fees from those junior doctors.

Hon. Members may ask themselves why the new Member for Tooting, in the three weeks since she was sworn in, has been jumping up and down to speak on this subject. This is not an issue of party politics; it is simply about doing the right thing. Not once has the Secretary of State for Health had the best interests of patients or doctors at heart. His seven-day-a-week proposal has been fundamentally flawed from the start.

[Bob Stewart]

Surely the Secretary of State for Health is thinking of the patients when he says we ought to have a seven-day-a-week NHS and the ability to see a doctor seven days a week? He is surely thinking of the patients. One may disagree with him, but that is the case.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

Not once has the Secretary of State for Health had the best interests of patients or doctors at heart. His seven-day-a-week proposal has been fundamentally flawed from the start. The Secretary of State will not be let off. The junior doctors’ dispute will not be brushed under the carpet. The facts in the dispute remain the same and he cannot charge me £150,000 if I speak out, so I will make the facts known in this House again and again.

Our hospital departments are terribly underfunded. Staff morale is low. The Government are hellbent on breaking them. I have met hospital doctors who have finished night shifts after working 12 hours and gone straight on to the next day shift simply because there have not been enough staff to cover. I will answer the question from the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). If you are a doctor in 2016, you are constantly faced with a decision: finish your night shift and go home, leaving your already overstretched team and risking patient safety; or stay and work the extra shift, knowing you will be working dangerously long hours without a proper break—again, risking patient safety. I say to the hon. Gentleman that that is not putting patients first.

The procedures set out by the Department of Health are not being followed. The rule book set up to safeguard the women and men working on our NHS frontline is not being followed. What will it take for the Government to realise the NHS is already in crisis? The imposition of the new contract will turn the crisis into a disaster. From the very outset, the junior doctors’ dispute has been based on a false premise with a lack of robust evidence. If the Secretary of State for Health goes into any hospital this weekend, he will notice it is already open and providing the best possible service that resources will allow. When I was working as an A&E doctor at St George’s hospital in Tooting, I worked night shifts and weekends. My department operated seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Many of us left very young families at home to serve our communities. I want to put on record my appreciation and admiration for all the doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, receptionists, admin staff and hospital porters who work hard to make this happen, and who already keep our hospitals open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Government are attempting to open more NHS departments at the weekend—something most of us would support. What we do not support, however, is the attempt to create a fully seven-day NHS with a stretched five-day team. The type of seven-day NHS being advocated cannot be delivered on a cost-neutral basis. That is a fact. It will overstretch staff, leaving dangerous rota gaps in the week, and significantly undervalue the evening and weekend time of our junior doctors. If the Secretary of State goes ahead with imposition without adequate resource, it will be patients who will pay the dangerous price. He expects the current pool of staff to fill a bigger rota, but the rota already has significant gaps, and they will only worsen, but in the week instead of at weekends.

Before changing everyone’s contract, the Secretary of State must look at the recruitment and retention crisis. The NHS already struggles to recruit doctors into acute specialties such as mine—emergency medicine. Young doctors start full of high hopes and then leave, and imposition of the contract will only exacerbate the situation. Junior doctors want protection from their employer and to know they can report illegal working hours before they become fatal, but they still do not have that, because the new guardianship role outlined in the contract means they would be expected to report to the very people who can influence the progression of their training and who might be applying the pressure to work longer and more dangerous hours, thereby putting patients’ lives at risk. Overseeing this process is Health Education England, a group not covered by employment law in the UK. Until this changes, junior doctors will fear speaking up.

The Secretary of State, by his own admission, thinks that gender equality can be sacrificed to meet a manifesto commitment. Not only does he not acknowledge the deep sacrifices made by parents who leave their own young families to serve others on the frontline; he wants to further punish those who do. How much more must they endure? I was a junior doctor for 10 years. I have worked in an acute specialty, leaving behind my own babies to go and help other families in times of need. This is not a political soap box upon which I stand. I am talking from experience and representing all those who choose to serve in our NHS. The Secretary of State should have the guts to face me and answer my questions.

On a different topic, I am proud to come from and represent Tooting. The extension of Crossrail 2 to my constituency would bring huge regeneration and economic development benefits to Tooting Broadway—Tooting High Street, Mitcham Road and Tooting Market, in particular, would reap the benefits—including the creation of new jobs in the local economy and the opportunity to build hundreds of genuinely affordable homes. The latter would help the many local residents who, like me, have to rent because they cannot afford to save for a deposit to buy their own house.

Balham has already seen many regeneration benefits. It has a strong local economy and local residents have voiced many concerns about the upheaval that building a new station would create. I have spoken to many businesses in Balham and Tooting Broadway and I am clear that Crossrail 2 needs to come to Tooting Broadway. I will do everything I can, as MP for Tooting, to ensure that this happens. The transport benefit would be greater in Tooting Broadway. Building the station there would enable direct access to Wimbledon and Clapham Junction and offer many new routes into central London. I call on the Mayor of London and the Department for Transport to bring Crossrail 2 to Tooting Broadway.

I wish everyone an enjoyable summer recess.