NHS Reorganisation
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak after the great tour de force that we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell). He dispelled a huge number of the myths that the Opposition have been trying to put forward today and during our entire Committee proceedings on the Health and Social Care Bill—one would almost believe that they had not been in power for the past 13 years. It is clear that one of the main reasons why we need to reform the NHS is not just to build on what the previous Government have done in terms of using private sector providers, but to make sure that we put a lot of things right. We are cutting bureaucracy and putting more money into front-line care—that is one of the main purposes of the Bill.
Before I develop my arguments about bureaucracy, I wish to pick up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said in his intervention. He talked about the challenges of dealing with an ageing population. This country undoubtedly faces a big problem in providing health care as a result of many people living a lot longer, although that is a good thing. A lot of people have multiple medical comorbidities as they get older and they need to be looked after properly. The key financial challenge to the NHS is in ensuring that we look after our ageing population, and properly resource and fund their care, so when we cut bureaucracy and put more money into front-line patient care, that is what that is about.
When we talk about the need to ensure that the NHS has local health care and well-being boards—an NHS that is more responsive to local health care needs—it is a response to the fact that some parts of the country, such as, Eastbourne or my county of Suffolk, have an increasing older population, who need to be properly looked after in terms of funding. That is why it is so important that this Government have committed £1 billion to adult social care and are increasing that. It is also why we are putting an extra £10 billion into the NHS budget over the lifetime of this Parliament—the Labour party would not have done that.
On bureaucracy, it is worth reminding the Labour party of a few things it did when it was in power. Under Labour the number of managers in the NHS doubled. In 1999, there were 23,378 managers and senior managers in the NHS, but that figure had almost doubled by 2009, having increased to 42,509.
Dr Poulter
The hon. Gentleman might wish to listen to this, but I will take his intervention.
Owen Smith
The hon. Gentleman has returned to this point about bureaucracy many times during our proceedings in the Public Bill Committee. Does he not share my concern about our shared ignorance as to how many managers and how much bureaucracy there will be under the new structure in the GP consortia and in the regional presence of the national commissioning board? Does he know what bureaucracy there will be under this Bill, because I do not?
Dr Poulter
What we do know—the hon. Gentleman would do well to listen to this—is that the NHS currently spends £4.5 billion on bureaucracy, and that could be better spent on patient care. Under the previous Labour Government PCT management costs doubled by more than £1 billion to £2.5 billion, and that money could be better spent on patient care. By scrapping PCTs, we will have more money to give to GPs to spend on patients and front-line care, and that can only be a good thing.
Labour Members would do well to listen to a few more of the statistics on NHS bureaucracy that I am about to read to them. Under Labour, the number of managers increased faster than the number of nurses in the NHS. How can that possibly be right? Managers were paid better than nurses in the NHS. In 2008-09, top managers in NHS trusts received a 7% pay rise whereas front-line nurses received a rise of less than 3%. The Labour party was obsessed with bureaucracy, management and top-down targets, and we would much rather see that money spent on patients and front-line patient care.
Grahame M. Morris
We have heard about the layers of bureaucracy that the coalition Government propose to take away, but what does the hon. Gentleman have to say about the additional layers that they are imposing through the exponential growth of Monitor, which will be the economic regulator? They are increasing its budget from £21 million a year to as much as £140 million a year. How many more thousands of people will it employ? How many lawyers? It will cost £600 million over the course of a Parliament.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We must have shorter interventions.
Dr Poulter
This is very much the point. Let us not forget that Monitor was introduced by the Labour party to regulate competition in foundations trusts, and the Government are looking at giving it a slightly increased role while also cutting £5 billion-worth of bureaucracy in the NHS, which has to be a good thing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that £5 billion would be much better spent on patients rather than on management and paper trails.
The core of the issue is that Government Members would like GPs to be placed at the heart of the commissioning process. Giving power to doctors and health care professionals is undoubtedly a good thing because the best advocates for patients are undoubtedly doctors and other health care professionals rather than faceless NHS bureaucrats. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) is sitting next to me because far too often in Suffolk damaging decisions to remove vital cardiac and cancer care services from Ipswich hospital have been taken by the strategic health authority and the primary care trust, against the advice of front-line professionals. Community hospitals in my constituency in Hartismere have been closed despite GP advice that we need to look after older people and the growing older population. Putting GPs and health care professionals in charge of the new system will bring better joined-up thinking between primary and secondary care, which does not happen at the moment because GPs are often hindered in what they are trying to do and are unable to communicate effectively with the hospital doctors and trusts they need to talk to because of PCTs intervening in the process. Bureaucrats are getting in the way of good medical decisions and the Bill will deal with that problem.
I am aware that others want to speak in this debate so I shall not speak for much longer. I think that all Government Members must oppose the motion. The hypocrisy of the Labour party in its dealings with health care and the NHS has been ably exposed by my right hon. Friends the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) and the Secretary of State. Government Members want to cut bureaucracy and put money into front-line patient care and helping patients. We believe that GPs and health care professionals are the best people to do that. We want a patient-centred NHS that is locally responsive to local health care needs and that will properly address the fact that we have an ageing population. We want joined-up thinking between adult social care and the NHS, which did not happen under the previous Government. For all those reasons, I commend the health care reforms to the House, and I beg the Conservative party to oppose the motion.
Paul Blomfield
What bears eloquent testimony to who really cares about the NHS is our record. Before 1997, I remember patients being stacked up in hospital corridors in Sheffield every winter because the hospitals could not find beds. That situation has been transformed under Labour over the past 13 years.
The Prime Minister has tried hard to reassure the public that the NHS is safe in Tory hands, but he has failed. In January, a major survey of the British public demonstrated that only 27% of people back moves to allow profit-making companies to increase their role in the NHS. That reflects the way in which our people treasure the NHS and its values, and that is why the Government did not have the confidence to say at the general election what their real intention was: the deconstruction and privatisation of the NHS by stealth.
It is not only the public whom the Prime Minister has failed to convince. The Secretary of State told us again today, as the Government have done many times during discourse on the issue, that we should trust doctors—those who understand the NHS.
Paul Blomfield
I am afraid that I will not; I said that I would give way once and then make progress.
I hope that the Government will take their own advice and listen to doctors, because yesterday the doctors spoke clearly and powerfully with one voice, despite reports that we have seen that under the proposals, doctors could earn up to £300,000. At the first emergency conference of the British Medical Association in 19 years, they sent a clear message to the Government: “Think again.”
Five of Sheffield’s hospitals are in my constituency, and I want to focus on the consequences of ending the cap on private income earned by hospital trusts without providing any safeguards. As hospitals face squeezed budgets, they will inevitably look at every opportunity to enhance their income. At one level, they might see the chance of offering additional services such as en suite facilities to those who can afford to pay, but at another, more damaging level, we need to recognise that in Sheffield and across the country, patients are now being refused non-urgent elective surgery. There are increases in waiting times for knee and hip replacements, and for cataract, hernia and similar operations. Those are not operations for life-threatening problems, but they are hugely important for people’s quality of life. Access to that sort of surgery at the earliest point of need transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people under Labour. Those operations may not be life-critical, but delaying them condemns people to pain and immobility.
Liz Kendall
The Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), also said yesterday, in the Health and Social Care Bill Committee, that EU competition law would apply, and gave me some assurances that that would somehow not change anything. When I asked whether the Government had taken legal advice on that, he admitted that they had. I asked him then to publish that advice so that hon. Members did not have to take my word for it, and I shall do so again. Will he publish that advice so that hon. Members can see whether GP-commissioning consortia and providers will be subject to EU competition law? Sadly, it appears that he will not do so.
Dr Poulter
If the hon. Lady is so concerned about competition and markets, why did the previous Government introduce Monitor, and why were they happy to pay the private sector 11% more than the NHS to provide NHS services?
Liz Kendall
I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows that Monitor was established as part of the regulation of foundation trusts. Removing that responsibility will mean that there will be no outside checks and balances on those trusts as there are now. Government Members should think seriously about that.
Our health and our NHS are not the same as gas, electricity or the railway. That the Secretary of State believes that they are shows how dangerously out of touch he is. What is the likely result? GPs will be forced to put local services out to tender even if they are delivering good quality care that patients choose and like; hospitals and community services will be pitted against one another when they should work together in patients’ interests; care, which as many hon. Members have said is vital as our population ages and there is an increase in long-term conditions, will become more and not less fragmented; the financial stability of local hospitals will be put at risk, and they will have no ability to manage the consequences of choice and competition in the system; and the whole system will be tied up in the costs of red tape, as GPs and hospitals employ an army of lawyers and accountants to sign contracts and fight the threat of legal challenge, huge fines and the potential of being sued. Let us also be clear that the Bill gives Monitor the same functions as the Office of Fair Trading, so it can fine organisations up to 10% of their turnover.
The more we see of the Bill, the more the truth becomes clear. The Secretary of State says that he wants clinicians to be more involved, and “no decision about me without me” for patients, but when the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Medical Association or anyone else tells him that he should stop, think again and halt his reckless NHS plans, he refuses to listen. When the Alzheimer’s Society, the Stroke Association and Rethink tell him that his proposals will not give patients a stronger voice and improve public accountability, he simply tells them that they are wrong. When health experts such as the King’s Fund warn that driving competition in every part of the NHS will make it more difficult to commission the services that best serve patients’ interests, he simply puts his fingers in his ears and walks away. What makes this Secretary of State think that he is right when professional bodies and patient groups know that he is wrong?
Doctors and nurses do not support the Government’s plan, patients do not want it, some Conservative Back Benchers and members of the Cabinet do not like it, and the Liberal Democrats hate it. They had the sense last Saturday to see what the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) called the potential catastrophe as far as the future of the NHS is concerned, and to ask for amendments to the Bill. I hope they have the sense to join us in the Lobby tonight. I commend the motion to the House.
Hospice Care
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to have secured this debate on palliative care and the hospice movement, particularly at a time when the coalition Government are taking the Health and Social Care Bill through the House. It is a great opportunity to talk about this important area of medicine and care, particularly because I do not think that it is always given as much attention as it deserves.
Palliative and hospice care is something that all Members are aware of, because we all have constituents who are suffering with terminal or progressive illness and we all want them to die with the most dignity that can be provided, in the most comfortable and supportive surroundings, and we all want to ensure that their families are looked after holistically. That is why hospices are so valuable to all of us and to all our constituents.
Notably, the previous Government and the new coalition Government have paid a lot of attention to cancer care, but the hospice movement is about not just cancer but a raft of progressive and terminal illnesses, such as heart disease, lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and motor neurone disease. The movement is not just for older people, either; it looks after younger people and, indeed, children with terminal illnesses.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important Adjournment debate. Last Friday I visited the Chestnut Tree House children’s hospice, which serves my constituents and those throughout Sussex, and its concern is that hospice at home and section 64 funding should not be lost in the health reforms. Does he agree that that is important?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He talks about a children’s hospice, but hospice care, and the valuable service that it provides to people with terminal and progressive illnesses, is particularly pertinent to adults. It is also important to children, however, because there is nothing more distressing than a very sick child whom we know is going to die.
I shall explain why we need to invest in hospices and palliative care. The UK population is ageing significantly, and we will have to look after a lot more people with more than one terminal and progressive illness. By 2033, the number of people aged 85 and over is projected to more than double to 3.3 million, and it is predicted that 8.7 million people will be 75 years or older. There is an ever-increasing strain on the palliative services that help to support people with co-morbidities, or several illnesses, and we need to recognise that and invest properly in those services. It is often through the hospice movement that such people are properly looked after and their families properly supported during the terminal illness.
Hospice charities have many concerns, because in the past the top level of government paid insufficient attention to the role that hospices play in easing the burden on the NHS, as well as in providing a vital service for local communities. We are of course in a time of economic belt-tightening, but given the Government’s investment in the big society, there is a unique case for supporting hospices and the valuable services that they provide, alongside their role as a provider of NHS services and a key provider of support for families in the community.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
On the point about invaluable support services, does my hon. Friend agree that hospices, such as Children’s Hospice South West, which aims to build a new hospice in Cornwall to add to those it has in Devon, offer vital support to families through respite care for the children whom they look after who, sadly, have terminal illnesses?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am delighted to hear that a new hospice is emerging in her part of the country. I am sure that it will provide a valuable service. I shall focus most of my comments on the provision of adult care, but she is absolutely right to talk about children’s hospices, because a sick child—especially one with a terminal illness—needs a lot of support and care, as do their families in particular, during their illness. I am delighted that the communities in her part of the world are investing in that service.
I shall now discuss the hospice movement’s background, because it teases out the key areas of support that hospices provide. We all probably know that St Christopher’s hospice in Penge, south London, is likely to be identified as the first modern hospice, and I am delighted that in my constituency we have a hospice, St Elizabeth’s hospice, which provides a key service, supporting most of central and eastern Suffolk. St Elizabeth hospice delivers a number of services. It has 18 in-patient beds, some of which are for respite care, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) alluded. These provide care to give families time off when dealing with a relative who has a terminal illness, and look after people in the very last days of their life.
However, hospices do more than that. One thing that is often forgotten when we talk about the hospice movement is the very valuable outreach service that they provide to their communities. People will want to have as good a death as possible, and part of that is about supporting them in being able to die, where possible, in their own homes in as comfortable an environment as possible. What St Elizabeth hospice does very well, as do many others, is invest in those outreach services to ensure that people can die comfortably at home.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
It was my privilege to spend 12 years of my life working in the hospice movement, particularly on the fundraising side, in adults’ and in children’s hospices. My hon. Friend raises the very important point that there is an ongoing national review of palliative care. Does he agree that it is very important that that takes account of the full range of services that hospices offer, whether for children or for adults, because it is that range of services that the families and the patients value so dearly in the hospice movement?
Dr Poulter
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for contributing to the debate given his experience. He is absolutely right. In end-of-life care, different solutions work for different families, and the whole point is to ensure that people and their families are supported in the way that suits them. Some people may choose to die in the comfortable surroundings of a hospice; many may want to be cared for and looked after in their own homes. I am sure that as part of the review we will see a greater understanding of that, and particularly of what is provided in the vital outreach services looking after people in their own homes.
My hon. Friend is also right to raise the issue of funding for hospices. St Elizabeth hospice and St Christopher’s hospice receive only about a third of their income from the NHS or primary care trusts; the other two thirds are raised directly through able volunteers and their charity activities. The national end-of-life care strategy published in 2008 was rightly accompanied by the provision of £286 million over two years to be spent to support the operation of hospices. I have to say that there were concerns about how that money was being spent. It is right that a review of hospice and palliative care is being carried out under the new Government. In a recent debate in the Lords, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Earl Howe, said:
“A huge amount of money is being spent on end-of-life and palliative care. We know that it is often not used as it should be.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2010; Vol. 723, c. 694.]
The palliative care funding review aims to address that issue by identifying a per patient funding model for adult and child palliative care services across health and social care. An interim report was to be published in December that looked particularly at supporting the role of the outreach services in palliative care. That is a very good thing. The per patient tariff is obviously a complex issue involving how much it would cost to look after somebody at home and how much it would cost to look after them in the hospice setting. How, in the Minister’s view, will the per patient tariff apply at this stage to looking after people at home as opposed to in the hospice? Does he think that some allowance will be made for the additional cost, particularly in rural areas, of looking after people with terminal illnesses at home as part of an outreach service?
There is a great need throughout hospitals and throughout the hospice movement to have more specialist palliative care services. GPs and PCTs tend to associate those services only with cancer, and at the moment they generally tend to be accessed by people with cancer. I hope that one thing that may come out of the palliative care review—perhaps the Minister can comment on this—is a greater move towards Department of Health support, through the dying days of PCTs, for a greater emphasis on hospices being able to reach out to people with other illnesses such as motor neurone disease, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other terminal illnesses, so that we ensure that GPs and local health care providers are more in tune with that. Hospices want to do that and I am sure that the families of patients with those terminal illnesses would receive great support and benefit from such care.
Hospices, and indeed the sector, face a number of challenges. I will raise two. First, as I have suggested, there is a need to improve relationships between hospices and primary care trusts. A good thing that I think will happen as a result of the Government’s health care reforms is that when local GPs, who understand the needs of the local communities, are in charge of health care, they will forge better relationships with hospices, and in particular their outreach services, than there are at the moment. Far too often in talking to hospices over the past two or three weeks I have found that they do not feel that there is a proper corridor or dialogue with primary care trusts. I hope that the Minister will agree that the Government’s health care reforms will better recognise the valuable roles that hospices play in local communities.
Secondly and importantly, hospices often operate under a great burden of red tape, because they fall between a number of stools. They are involved with the Charity Commission because of their charitable role, the Care Quality Commission, Monitor, local authorities, the NHS commissioning board, and possibly other public health regulators. Meeting all those requirements places a great financial burden on hospices, perhaps more so than for other NHS providers or charities that have more discrete accountability. That needs to change. Given that they are charities and organisations that do not have a great deal of public funding, their having to answer to and be accountable to so many bodies through their administration is counter-productive and draws money away from patients. I would be grateful if the Minister outlined how the Government can reduce the administrative burden so that more of the money that hospices have goes to patients, rather than being wasted on administration and bureaucracy.
To conclude, there are a number of areas to applaud. The Government policy is GP-led and there will be locally sourced knowledge, which will much better recognise the needs of local hospices. The per patient funding will be patient-centric, which can only be a good thing. The health care reforms will provide greater transparency in the delivery of funding. Of course, that all ties in with the big society.
I am grateful to the House for having this debate. I have asked a few questions and am sure that the Minister will answer them. I want hospices to have a viable and strong future in which they have more support from public bodies, but are set free from the administrative burden that holds them back and prevents them from spending money on patients. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Health and Social Care Bill
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I, too, rise to speak in favour of the Bill. There is a clear divide in the House between the Labour party, which stands by and defends NHS bureaucracy, box-ticking and putting bureaucracy in front of patients, and the Secretary of State and the coalition Government who genuinely want to deliver reforms that will benefit patients. As the Bill says, the people who are best placed to be the advocates of patients are doctors and other health care professionals. Such people are much better placed to be the advocates for their patients than the faceless bureaucrats who have made so many bad decisions, and who have put tick-boxes and targets in front of patient care.
A key issue in this debate was articulated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), who said that the NHS, whoever were in government, would face unprecedented strains and problems. One such problem is the ageing population. It is great that people live many years longer, but people consume the majority of their health care in the later years of their lives. Unless we reform the NHS, make it more patient-centred, and cut out the bureaucracy and put the money to better use on the front line, we will not be able to properly look after those older patients.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
I agree that the issue of ageing patients is a fundamental challenge. Does my hon. Friend agree that domiciliary care, which is currently delivered through local authorities and primary care trusts, is a vital service that maintains many people’s health for the longer term and often prevents unnecessary stays in hospital? Does he agree that appropriate steps should be taken by the Government in the Bill to ensure access to high-quality domiciliary care for all?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend represents Eastbourne, which has a large elderly population. He is right to make that point. Under the Bill, health and wellbeing boards will be set up, which will deliver a proper partnership between GPs, hospitals and local councils. That will allow, for the first time, properly joined-up thinking about how we deliver social services care that is joined up with NHS care for older people. I am delighted that the Government will put in almost £1 billion to support that initiative, which can only be a good thing.
The second challenge facing the NHS, which my right hon. Member for Charnwood also mentioned, is that we are having to get more and more out of a limited resource, because people expect more and more from their health care, regardless of their age. People want, quite rightly, to be given the latest cancer drugs. They want to ensure that they have top-quality care and access to information that delivers that care. The problem with the bureaucracy that has been in place is that, far too often, it has taken too long to deliver higher quality care and a greater choice in treatment for patients. When we know that a cancer drug works, it should be available as soon as possible. It should not have to go through a process of two, three or four years of bureaucracy to be made available, and the Bill will help to change that. For those reasons, the Bill’s reforms to the NHS will provide an excellent framework in which to deliver better ways of spending limited resources and looking after our ever-ageing population.
A lot of health care professionals will be saying, as I did earlier, that far too often, medicine and health care have been reduced to a tick-box exercise, with targets and top-down bureaucracy getting in the way of patient care. Under the A and E targets delivered by the previous Government, equal priority was given to treating a patient with a broken toe as someone with potentially life-threatening chest pain. That cannot possibly be right. Putting doctors, nurses and other health care professionals in charge of making health care decisions will mean that clinical priorities and better patient care can be delivered.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Has the hon. Gentleman made any assessment of the reduction in the number of managers, consultants and other bureaucrats that will be caused by moving from 152 primary care trusts to potentially 500 or 1,000 GP commissioning groups?
Dr Poulter
The Opposition need to take on board the fact that the cost of running PCTs has gone up by about £1 billion a year since they were first put in place. The cost of bureaucracy and management in the NHS is unsustainable, and most of the money that we are putting into the NHS is going on salaries and bureaucracy rather than on front-line patient care. It is surely a good thing to remove the middle strand of bureaucracy—PCTs, strategic health authorities and other quangos that cost a lot of money but do not deliver front-line patient care. That will help deliver more money to the front line and to patients, and Members on both sides of the House should support such an initiative.
I shall elaborate on the point about how PCTs have been a great source of wasted money. In my part of the world in Suffolk, they have spent millions of pounds each year on external consultants to tell them how they should be doing the job that they should have been doing in the first place. There has also been a total disconnect between primary and secondary care and a breakdown in the relationship between them. For example, as the Secretary of State alluded to earlier, hospitals have wanted to put in place outreach clinics for mental health, dermatology and rheumatology, but too often, as in my area, they have been told that the PCT will not allow them to do that.
Hospitals have said that they value and need community hospitals, because they provide an excellent place for step-up and step-down care and for rehabilitation after an acute hospital stay, but PCTs have closed down community hospitals such as Hartismere hospital in my community. We know that that is not a good thing. Far too often, PCTs have been a barrier to joined-up thinking in the NHS between the primary care sector and hospitals.
Dr Poulter
No, I have taken two interventions and I will not take any more.
The Bill will allow health care to become more localised. Some of our constituencies have urban needs and some have rural needs, and allowing GPs to set up localised consortia that are more responsive to the needs of local communities will enable them to recognise those health care needs. For example, the area of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has an ageing population, so the GP consortia and health and wellbeing boards will rightly focus on looking after the older population. In areas of the country such as our some of our inner cities, including parts of Bradford and Manchester where there are huge health care inequalities, the Bill will provide a real opportunity for the health and wellbeing boards and local GPs to tailor their services much more effectively to tackling local problems. For instance, they may face problems such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity more acutely than other areas.
The Bill is a good thing. It will bring to the NHS framework and the national care standards a much more focused, much less bureaucratic and much more patient-centred approach, which will be much more responsive to the needs of local communities. I am proud to speak in favour of it.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Before I begin my remarks on the Bill, may I say how well the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) made her maiden speech? I suspect that we disagree quite fundamentally on the future of the NHS, but one thing that is true of her and of all right hon. and hon. Members is that we want the very best health care for our constituents; we just disagree on the path that we take to get there.
A fortnight ago, I was privileged to speak on Second Reading of the Localism Bill. The hon. Lady spoke of the desire to be radical, but the Localism Bill is a radical measure that proposes to give power over the future of communities back to the people. The Health and Social Care Bill is very much in concert with the Localism Bill—and legislation on policing that is yet to be introduced—in giving authority, choice and power over the important services that people receive back to them.
Right hon. and hon. Members know that when we engage our electorates, they always—rightly and understandably—express certain priorities such as the future of our communities and law and order. Consistently, people are concerned about the future of health care. Health care is one of those great levellers. It matters not what one’s background is: we are all equally adversely affected when we do not have the right sort of health care available locally. The measures outlined in the Bill go a long way to giving back to people control over that most important public service, on which all of us and our families without exception rely.
I have spoken on many occasions to local GPs in my constituency. They are enthusiastic about their GP consortium pathfinder status. Already, they are brimming with ideas on how they can improve the patient experience in my constituency, which is broadly to be welcomed. Indeed, I have been heartened by the fact that many of my local GPs are enthusiastic about the democratic accountability that the Bill allows. My local GP pathfinder consortium wishes to be a health and wellbeing partnership pilot, working with Crawley borough council—the immediate local authority—and West Sussex county council.
Dr Poulter
I had the pleasure of working at my hon. Friend’s local hospital at Crawley. When I was there, I saw the downgrading of that hospital by the PCT—it lost more and more services. What discussions has he had with his local GPs on how they will improve and enhance services at the local community hospital and generally?
Henry Smith
My hon. Friend is indeed legendary at Crawley hospital, and it is great to take part in this debate with him. Unlike him, I do not have a health background. My wife used to work in the NHS, but my background is as a local elected representative of my community and as a patient, and as someone whose family has had experience of the NHS.
I am afraid that I shared the bitter experience of many in Crawley during the 13 years in which the Labour party was in government. On 1 May 1997, when Labour took office, Crawley had an A and E department and a maternity unit. I am sorry to say that in 2001, Crawley hospital lost the maternity unit. At the time of a rather joyous occasion for my family, it was saddening that my children could not be born in our local hospital.
Public Health White Paper
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
We have been very clear in the spending review and subsequent announcements that we will take the ring fence off many of the grants provided to local government, because we trust local government and we expect those in local government who are responsible for such things to be accountable to their electors. Where public health is concerned—this is separate from the point the hon. Gentleman makes—NHS money will be ring-fenced in the hands of local authorities for health gain. There will be many appropriate uses, so the ring fence will in no sense, I hope, have a constraining effect.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I am sure that, like me, the Secretary of State recognises that different population groups offer and present different public health challenges; for example, the Asian community has higher rates of cardiovascular disease. Does he agree that the White Paper presents an excellent opportunity for local authorities to address specific local concerns that are relevant to their NHS populations?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I do. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The structure proposed in the NHS reform White Paper in July was to bring local authorities and the NHS together to undertake joint strategic needs assessments leading to a combined strategy. Understanding the causes of ill health, and understanding where ill health is occurring and where the greatest areas of unmet need are in a community, will impact positively both on NHS commissioning and on local authorities.
Maidstone Hospital (Maternity Services)
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Walker, for calling me to speak in the debate. My hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) have already made very significant points. I speak as someone who was, before entering the House, an obstetrician working in the London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex training rotation as a registrar. The points that have been made are valid; I just want to add another couple of issues to the debate.
First, it is true that throughout the London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex area, there has been a push to have more midwifery-led units, but generally speaking, if we consider the example of Crawley and East Surrey hospitals, examples that are being developed in Brighton, and the Bromley hospitals, we see that the push has been to have a low-risk, midwifery-led unit alongside a higher-risk unit. We in obstetrics know that a greater number of women—rising to about 30%—are giving birth by Caesarean section, and that number is going up year on year. Many births that we initially think uncomplicated end up being much more complicated.
I will concede that in Crowborough in Sussex, there is a midwifery-led unit that is run very well for a small number of mothers who are multiparous and have a very low risk of developing complications. Generally, however, accepted obstetric practice has been to put the high-risk unit close together with, or alongside, the low-risk unit.
The other issue that I want to raise is junior doctors’ training, because Maidstone hospital has very close links with the unit at Benenden hospital and shares gynaecology provision with Benenden hospital. If we take away the key driver of obstetric and gynaecology training, which is obstetrics, there is an issue about whether there will be a loss of gynaecology expertise at Benenden and, indeed, the whole of mid-Kent.
Having raised those few issues, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will address, I shall conclude my comments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Burns
May I recommend that the right hon. Lady, who from her past ministerial career is familiar with health issues, study not only the White Paper that we have published, but the documents, particularly on commissioning, that flowed from that, because I am afraid that her interpretation of the situation is wrong? This is a great change from the PCT system, because it will basically ensure that commissioning will no longer be remote but be carried out by GPs at the forefront of dealing with patients’ needs and care, who know best how to ensure that patients get the finest and best health care possible.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
8. What plans he has to assist GP commissioning in rural areas.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)
Our proposals in the White Paper will enable general practices to structure commissioning to reflect the character of the area they serve. Practices in rural areas, such as Cumbria and Cambridgeshire for instance, are exploring commissioning models. To support GP consortiums, we will create a statutory NHS commissioning board.
Dr Poulter
The Minister will be aware that many women make the choice to have a home birth and delivery, but unfortunately, in many rural areas, maternity services have historically been under-resourced. What steps does the Minister envisage better to support home delivery in rural areas, and to support GPs in their commissioning of these services in the future?
Anne Milton
I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking up the chairmanship of the all-party group on maternity. I know that his work with it will be very valuable, particularly in the light of his previous experience in the health service. Contrary to what Labour Members believe, this is an important opportunity to put general practices—in all their shapes and forms within all the professions—at the very heart of shaping services. As he said, home births and choice in maternity services are crucial for women.
NHS White Paper
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am adopting an any-willing-provider policy that was the policy of the hon. Gentleman’s Government, until the shadow Secretary of State abandoned it in September 2009 at the behest of the trade unions. I am adopting a policy designed to achieve the best possible care for patients by giving them access to all those who will deliver NHS services within NHS prices.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that Hartismere hospital in my constituency was closed by Suffolk PCT, while at the same time, the PCT was able to afford to spend £500,000 on opening a new car park for managers? Does he agree that community hospitals such as Hartismere are still a valuable part of health care and that the White Paper might see a return to valuing them once again?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I did in fact visit Hartismere hospital with his predecessor, and I entirely sympathise with his point. At that time, the primary care trust in his part of Suffolk was regarded as “initiative central”. It had to pursue every initiative from the Department of Health, and the money just went out the door. Those initiatives lasted just a year or two and then disappeared. That is not the basis on which to design the national health service. GPs are an excellent basis for this work because they are committed to their areas, and to the patients they look after, in the long term.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dan Poulter Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Anne Milton
I thank my hon. Friend for his question—he speaks eloquently and with much knowledge on this subject—and for highlighting the perverse incentives in the contract. It is absolutely critical that we take those out of any new contract.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
4. What steps he plans to take to implement the Government’s proposals to end the target culture in the NHS.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)
On Monday 21 June I published a revision to the NHS operating framework in which I removed the central management of three process targets that had no clinical justification. We will carry on focusing on quality and outcomes, getting rid of top-down process targets.
Dr Poulter
Does my right hon. Friend agree that meeting targets does not necessarily mean improving health care, and that the last Government were far too focused on the process of health care, rather than on improving the patient experience?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was here just a few weeks ago, announcing a public inquiry into the events at Stafford general hospital. Of course, in that hospital the adherence to ticking the box on the four-hour target was one of the things that contributed to the most appalling care of patients. We have to focus on delivering proper care for patients—the right treatment at the right time in the right place—and delivering the best outcomes for them. We will focus on that—on quality—not on top-down process targets.