NHS Workforce Expansion

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

A healthy population and economic growth are two sides of the same coin, but, because the Conservative Government have failed to invest in our health and social care services, the ticking time bomb of ill health is starting to explode, and the Government wonder why they cannot get sustainable economic growth.

I welcome this motion today for two reasons: first, because it focuses on recruiting many of the staff that our NHS needs; and secondly because it focuses on training more district nurses and more health visitors, which would help us to shift the focus of healthcare in this country away from urgent and reactive care towards community and preventive care.

I wish to touch on GPs, dentists and social workers today. GP appointments have become increasingly difficult to secure, with some patients now resorting to DIY doctoring, by carrying out medical treatments on themselves. Our GPs are not to blame. They are overstretched and understaffed like every other part of our NHS, but the Conservative Government have repeatedly broken their promise to recruit more GPs, so where is the plan to turn that around?

There is now a crisis in this country on access to dentists, in part because of the lack of staff. The Government’s response last year was to create a one-off, time-limited £50 million emergency fund for dentists to create emergency catch-up appointments, but the uptake has been modest in most regions. In the east of England, just 13.7% of the allocated funding has been spent, and in my own constituency of St Albans that money created zero new appointments—absolutely zero.

To make matters worse, dental practices are now being penalised for under-delivery, because the funds will be clawed back from their frontlines instead of being ringfenced. The Health Service Journal reported last week that there is due to be a record Government underspend of £400 million on dentistry this year, while patients face an access crisis. Will the Government commit to ringfence this funding for NHS dentists to ensure that it is not clawed back?

The Government’s disastrous dental contract has created this access crisis. Not only has it created a two-tier system between rich and poor, but children’s life chances are being set back because of the impact of poor oral health. Our children, more than anybody else, need good teeth to set them up for later in life, but eight in 10 NHS dental practices are not taking on children.

Last November, I visited the Royal London Dental Hospital and its Tooth Fairy Project, a dedicated new surgical centre for children waiting too long for operations, which removes problematic teeth or performs multiple fillings. It was a fantastic facility to see, and the staff were extraordinary, but the statistics on child tooth extractions are terrifying. I have had cases in my own constituency of St Albans where parents simply cannot get NHS dental appointments for children. I have also been made aware of just how bad the situation has become in other areas, such as North Yorkshire, where only half of children managed to see an NHS dentist last year. In fact, last week, I was told that, in Harrogate, if a person was lucky enough to find an NHS dentist taking on any new patients, they face a two-and-a-half-year wait to see them. That is a shocking state of affairs. A Minister should visit places such as Harrogate in North Yorkshire to speak to patients and dentists and see the situation for themselves. The Government must urgently reform that broken dental contract, ringfence unspent funds and retain our experienced dental practitioners so that more patients can see a dentist when they need to.

When people cannot see a GP or a dentist, they end up in A&E. More than ever, the Government need to get around the table and agree a fair deal with all our NHS staff. We know why A&Es are under so much pressure. It is, in part, because people cannot get out of hospital when they need to as social care is collapsing as well. The number of vacancies in social care stands at 165,000, and it is rising alarmingly: in the past year alone, it increased by 55,000.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for the introduction of a carers’ minimum wage. We would pay £2 per hour more than the current minimum wage for all carers, meaning that by April this year, the hourly pay would be £12.42. A staggering 850,000 care workers would benefit from that increase in pay, and more than 80% of them would be women. Social care needs serious solutions from a serious Government, so will the Minister seriously consider introducing a carers’ minimum wage?

Our health and care services are one ecosystem. Whatever claims the Government make about how much they are spending and what they are trying to do, the British public can see that it is too little, too late. Targets are being missed left, right and centre, and everything that the Government say is worlds apart from the lived experience of our constituents, who are struggling to get the help that they need. Never again will the British public trust this Conservative Government with their NHS or their care services.