National Health Service Funding

David T C Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend is eagle-eyed, and I congratulate him on reminding us that the Government should have balanced the books by 2015, and that they completely failed on that pledge.

Then the new Prime Minister made this promise:

“We will be looking to ensure that we provide the health service that is right for everyone in this country.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 333.]

Fine words, but it is by their deeds that they shall be known. What did we actually get? An NHS that is going through the largest financial squeeze in its history. Far from protecting the NHS through the years of this Tory Government, NHS spending will represent an average annual increase of just 0.9%—a decade of barely any increase in spending despite an ageing population with increasingly complex needs.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way in a few moments.

By 2017, NHS spending per head will level out, and, head for head, by 2018 NHS spending will be falling under this Conservative Government. Trusts ended last year in deficit for the second year running—they were £2.45 billion in deficit and they are reported to be heading for a deficit of around £670 million at the end of this financial year.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I will be coming on to those secret plans as I develop my speech.

We will be spending less on the NHS as a proportion of GDP than our European neighbours such as Germany, France and the Netherlands. The NHS maintenance budgets have been repeatedly raided, with billions that had been allocated to capital routinely being switched to revenue to plug gaps.

[David T. C. Davies]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way in a moment.

The maintenance situation has got so bad that the NHS faces a backlog of £5 billion in repairs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I shall make a little progress because many other Members want to speak and I want to give them a chance.

The scale of the financial pressures engulfing the NHS are such that the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said recently:

“The gap between what the NHS is being asked to deliver and the funding it has available is too big and is growing rapidly.”

The King’s Fund said, with respect to the NHS deficit, that

“it signifies a health system buckling under the strain of huge financial and operational pressures.”

In the most damning assessment of the Government’s handling of the NHS, the National Audit Office concluded today that financial problems in the NHS

“are endemic and this is not sustainable.”

Even the former Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said that

“in 2010 we knew we had to implement a tight budget squeeze for five years, but we never thought it would last for ten.”

[David T. C. Davies]

Surely the hon. Gentleman has seen the report from the Nuffield Trust on the four health systems of the United Kingdom, which shows very clearly that there is only one part of the United Kingdom that has seen a real-terms cut in NHS expenditure, and that is Wales under a Labour Government.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

There will be a cash injection in Wales in 2017, whereas spending per head in the English NHS will be levelling out and then falling in 2018.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I am very pleased to pick up where the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) left off. Quite frankly, I find it extraordinary that Labour Members have the audacity to come into the Chamber and trumpet their views about the national health service when they know that they have had 18 years of running the NHS in another part of the United Kingdom and that, on any of the performance indicators that are looked at, the NHS in Wales is performing less well than the NHS in England. I do not for one minute want anyone to think that I am criticising NHS staff—the nurses and doctors—because I am not, and I am not running down Wales either, because I know exactly where the blame lies. It lies at the feet of the Labour party for implementing exactly the same policies that Labour Members are now calling on the Minister to implement.

There is no need to take my word, or that of any Conservative, for this; one can simply get hold of the Nuffield Trust report on “The four health systems of the United Kingdom: how do they compare?” This independent report looked at a range of indicators, and it makes this very clear. I am very happy to read from the report, which in its own way is far stronger than anything the Conservative party could publish. It says that waiting times in Wales have lengthened since 2010, with striking rises in waits for common procedures such as knee and hip replacements. When language such as “striking rises” is used, surely people should take notice of the report, especially when, as Labour Members must realise, those striking rises are being caused by the policies they are asking my hon. Friends to implement.

The report talks about how amenable mortality rates are lowest in England. In other words, people live longer in England. It also talks about waiting times, which are an absolute disgrace. There is a target waiting time of 26 weeks in Wales, whereas it is just 18 weeks in England. More than that, the report shows that some people are waiting for up to 170 days for knee and hip replacements in Wales, as opposed to just 70 days in England.

The report shows that funding in Wales has been cut in real terms. Wales is the only part of the United Kingdom where funding for the national health service has been reduced; in England it has been going up.

The report shows that there is a shortage of GPs. My hon. Friends have increased the number of GPs to 0.75 per 1,000 people, compared with 0.66 per 1,000 in Wales. On stroke care, 39% of patients spent 90% of their time in a stroke unit, as opposed to 51% of patients in England—a much higher amount. The figures for MRSA show, once again, that England is ahead of Wales. The figures for ambulance response times show that 75% of ambulances make it within eight minutes in England, as opposed to 65% in Wales.

Perhaps one of the most shocking differentials in service between England and Wales is in the access to cancer drugs. Constituents have come to see me because they have had to go sofa-surfing with relatives in England to get access to standards of care that patients on this side of the border take for granted.

I issue a challenge to everyone in this House. If Opposition Members think that the Welsh NHS, the policies of which they want to follow, is as good as the English national health service, they should allow patients to choose. I constantly write to my colleagues on the Front Bench asking them to allow patients from Wales to access the national health service that they are delivering so well in England. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to do so. We should have a truly national health service that allows people in Wales to go and be treated in England if they want and, indeed, people in England to be treated in Wales if they want, and adjust the block grant accordingly.

In the meantime, I very much hope that my hon. Friends will stick with the policies that are delivering higher standards of healthcare in England because, if nothing else, it means that my constituents have something to aim for and can demand that the Labour party in Wales follows the successful policies that are being followed in England.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

A couple of Members who were on the list are not in the Chamber and will be written to. That means that the last two speakers have up to six minutes each.