Defending Public Services

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let me repeat that we do keep this matter constantly under review. The important thing is that, for the first time, we are charging people who come to the UK on a long-term basis for their use of NHS resources. That is something that did not happen before.

Let me return to the crucial issue of this link between the quality of care and good finances. Why is it that it is so important not to see this as an artificial choice between good care and good finances? Very simply, it is because poor care is about the most expensive thing that a hospital can do. A fall in a hospital will cost the NHS about £1,200, as the patient typically stays for three days longer. A bed sore adds about £2,500 to NHS costs, with a patient staying, on average, 12 days longer. Avoidable mistakes and poor care cost the NHS more than £2 billion a year. We should listen to inspiring leaders such as Dr Gary Kaplan of Virginia Mason hospital in Seattle, which is one of the safest and most efficient hospitals in the world. He said:

“The path to safer care is the same one as the path to lower costs.”

That brings me on to the second way that this Government are fiercely defending our public services, which is our restless determination to raise standards so that people on lower incomes can be confident of the same high quality provision as the wealthiest. To their credit, the last Labour Government succeeded in bringing down NHS waiting times. I hope that that decade is remembered as one when access to NHS services improved. However, because of poor care identified in many hospitals post Mid Staffs, we should surely resolve that this decade must become the one in which we transform the safety and quality of care. Mid Staffs was the lowest point in the history of the NHS, so we must make it a turning point, or a moment that we resolve to offer not just good access to care, but care itself that is the safest and the highest quality available. The record of the past three years shows that we can do just that.

The King’s Fund has given credit to the Government for their focus on safety and quality of care. Patient campaigners have said that the NHS is getting safer and the main indicators of hospital mortality and harm are going in the right direction. However, there is much more to do, so what are our plans? First, we must deliver a seven-day NHS. It should never be the case that mortality rates are higher for people admitted at weekends than for people admitted in the week. Last week’s junior doctor contract agreement was a big step forward, but we also need to reform the consultants’ contracts, improve the availability of weekend diagnostic services and increase the number of weekend consultant-led procedures.

Secondly, a seven-day NHS also means a transformation of out-of-hospital services, especially access to an integrated health and social care system that needs to operate over busy weekends as well as during the week. It also means more GP appointments at convenient times, which is why we want everyone to be able to see a GP in the evening or at weekends. We are backing general practice with a £2.4 billion increase in its budget.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

One group of people who particularly need integrated care are those who are addicted, as their life chances are most blighted. They need to be able to make a full recovery. Will the Secretary of State tell us what has been done to support that full recovery? Like me, is he looking forward to hearing the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), conclude the debate, as we will perhaps hear how blighted communities are impacted by high-stakes fixed odds betting terminals? I would like to hear what is being done by the Government on that, as we need to act now to show that we have an all-round approach to improving life chances.

[Mr Hunt]

It is a pleasure to sit on the Treasury Bench with my hon. Friend the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy for the first time in several years. I will leave him to respond to that point, but I will make a broader point in response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) which is that the change we need to make in the NHS is to prevention rather than cure. If we can stop people becoming addicted in the first place, whether to drugs, alcohol or gambling, we will reduce costs for the NHS in the long term. That is the purpose of many of our plans.

Thirdly, a seven-day NHS requires a big improvement in access to 24/7 mental health crisis care, so that whenever a problem arises we are there promptly for some of our most vulnerable people. We will deliver that alongside our broader plans to enable 1 million more people with mental health problems to access support each year by 2020.