Hospitals

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It seems that Members on both sides of the House have been experiencing similar problems in the hospitals that they represent. Years of under-investment has left many hospitals with leaking roofs, for instance. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) spoke of sewage in clinical areas—I thought that sewage was the subject of the next debate; it is outrageous that we should be discussing its presence in our hospitals—and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) told us about a room full of incubators which had to be removed because the ceiling was at risk of collapsing. It is crazy that operating theatres and hospital rooms are unused not because of a lack of staff, but because they are not safe enough for people to work in.

Like many other Members, I regularly meet hospital leaders and managers—in my case, at our local hospital in Winchester—to discuss the problems that they are experiencing. Despite the heroic efforts of the staff at the Royal Hampshire County hospital, they are facing a set of issues similar to those that have been raised time and again this afternoon, including, again, leaking roofs over treatment areas. Like the hospital mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), ours has old, outdated lifts that fail, making it difficult to transport patients from wards to the operating theatre. It has no back-up power generators, so there is a risk to patients’ safety during power cuts.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned faulty buildings and roofs. In Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton, staff are fainting in temperatures of 30°C in temporary buildings where there is no cooling machinery, while mums are trying to give birth in the same ward. That is completely unacceptable. We need interim funding if the hospital—which was mentioned earlier today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey)—is to survive until 2033, when the promised funding is meant to arrive.

[Dr Chambers]

It is indeed unacceptable, in respect of patients’ safety but also health and safety at work, because the health of the staff is being put at risk as well.

These are not minor inconveniences; they are daily threats to patients’ care and they cost us dear, so why are we not fixing them? Failure on the part of the last Government is no excuse for continued delay, and saying “We cannot afford it” when the cost of inaction is higher is simply nonsensical. The longer we wait, the more it will cost the taxpayer. Much has been said about trust in politics, and we will not forget what happened in our part of Hampshire when Conservatives stood on election manifestos promising to deliver a new hospital for which they never had any funds. There was no funding secured and no shovel-ready plan, but they campaigned on the issue repeatedly, hoping that the voters would not find out until it was too late.

Other Members have pointed out that GP surgeries are being particularly neglected. The Budget allocated funds to cover additional upgrades for just 200 GP surgeries out of a total of 6,000. With the Government’s jobs tax hitting GPs, it is becoming harder for those practices to fund their own improvements. However, I was pleased that the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) mentioned the importance of primary care and mental health. This is, of course, a debate on hospitals and hospital infrastructure, but I know there is cross-party agreement on the fact that keeping people healthy in the community—whether that involves investment in primary care, mental health or public health services—is much more cost-effective for taxpayers as well as being better for patients.

We really welcome the Minister’s warm words on social care. We had a social care roundtable just yesterday, and we heard that every pound spent on social care saves the NHS £3. We urge the Government to hold cross-party talks as soon as possible, because for every year that we delay getting a plan for social care, people are languishing in hospitals on delayed discharge which is costing us a huge amount of money.

We have to end the vicious cycle of false economies and fortunes being spent on papering over the cracks. The total repair backlogs at the delayed new hospital sites could reach an estimated £5.7 billion by the time construction starts. Are the Government really of the view that keeping hospitals on life support is a good use of taxpayers’ money? Repairing and replacing crumbling NHS buildings is not just about treating more patients; it is about reviving and boosting our economy. Here is the truth: we will not grow our economy unless we reinvest in the services that support it.

Let us change course. We urge the Government to reverse the long delays in the new hospital programme, because many will not be open until the 2040s on the current timeline, and those hospitals have to be kept functioning until then; to set out a 10-year investment plan to fix hospitals and GP surgeries; to urgently release funds that have already been committed, to start construction straightaway; and to publish a plan to recruit and retain a skilled workforce to carry out the work efficiently. That is what investing to save looks like. It means improving care, lowering long-term costs and building a stronger, healthier economy. The Conservatives chose to cut investment, which led to higher costs. Our plan is to increase investment now so that we can lower costs in the future.

We urge the Government not simply to patch over the damage done to our NHS. As the Liberal politician William Beveridge, who was a visionary behind the formation of the NHS, said:

“A revolutionary moment…is a time for revolutions, not for patching.”

Let us be bold, and let us invest now. It will be better for the taxpayer, it will be better for patients, and it will boost our economy.