NHS Winter Pressures

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The very purpose of today’s announcement—I have made it on the first day that Parliament is back—is to give that urgent uplift in funding to local authorities and ICBs so that they can act now, knowing that that funding is available. They have the additional £500 million, which is ramping up as well. That is part of a wider package of measures—NHS England putting in community support with 7,000 more beds—but the purpose is to recognise the very real immediate pressure the frontline has been under. It also needs to be viewed as something that other healthcare systems across the globe have faced: a very sudden and very significant spike in flu seven times higher than last month and 100 times what it was last year.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Yes, but they also have covid and flu in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Holland. Winter after winter, they cope far better because they have much more integrated social insurance systems. Some people like me have been banging on about this for years, but now the former Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), is suggesting a social insurance system, as is newspaper editorial after newspaper editorial. What is our long-term plan? We cannot leave the Labour party to have a long-term plan while we do not. How are we going to reform this centrally controlled construct? People of my age have paid taxes all their life and their only right is to enjoy the back of a two-year queue! What is the Secretary of State’s plan?

[Steve Barclay]

First, integrating health and social care through the integrated care boards. That is what we put in place from July, recognising that actually the pressures on the NHS are often as much about pressure on social care as they are about pressures in the NHS itself. In particular, if we look at ambulances, we see that often it is the delay in domiciliary care that is driving the blockage on the wards, which in turn applies there. Secondly, it is recognising that there are workforce pressures, which is why NHS England has been working on the workforce plan that has been set up.

Thirdly, we have already set out our elective recovery plan. Over the summer, the longest waits—those of over two years—were largely cleared. [Interruption.] Opposition Front Benchers chunter, “How’s it going?” Let us look at how it is going, compared with the Labour Government’s two-year clearance in Wales. Before Christmas, there were about 60,000 people in Wales who had been waiting for more than two years; in England there were fewer than 2,000. We are making progress on the longest waits through the work of Jim Mackey, Professor Tim Briggs and Getting It Right First Time. We are innovating with the surgical hubs and the community diagnostic centres. That, in turn, gives greater resilience to the electives that used to be cancelled when there was winter pressure. With hot and cold sites, they are much more resilient.

Finally, I must take issue with what my right hon. Friend says. In France, Germany, Canada and many other countries, the massive spike in flu and covid pressure, combined with pressures from the pandemic, has placed similar strains on healthcare systems. It is simply not the case that the issue affects England alone.