Health, Social Care and Security

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood]

I absolutely agree. As part of the increased capital investment that the Prime Minister announced earlier this year, the £10 billion capital investment for the national health service will mean not only that new buildings such as the one to which my hon. Friend referred—the new hospital in Sandwell in the west midlands is an example—become more common, but infrastructure such as the new urgent care centre at my own local hospital in Russells Hall is provided so that our NHS can become more effective.

The Secretary of State should take great pride in the changes that he has introduced to guidance on section 135 and l36 powers, which mean that a safe place should usually be a place where patients can receive medical help, rather than the default position of a police cell. It is time for those changes to be given a statutory footing, and I hope that the new Bill will deliver that. There should be parity of esteem so that people with mental health conditions receive the same respect and equivalent status, and are treated with the same dignity, as people with physical health conditions. It is a positive step that that has been legislated for, and I hope that we will see more and more efforts to make sure that that commitment becomes a reality for constituents who receive treatment for mental health conditions.

If I may briefly speak of my own experience of the health service. As some hon. Friends know, I received rather more direct and personal experience of our hospitals, GPs and outpatient clinics than I had planned at the beginning of the year. I should like to place on record my thanks to the doctors, consultants, nurses and support staff who were all absolutely fantastic in keeping me alive so that I am here now. It has also given me the chance to work with the UK Sepsis Trust and the formidable Ron Daniels. I hope that during this Parliament the Secretary of State will have a chance to look at calls from the trust for simple measures that it is estimated would save perhaps a quarter of the 44,000 lives that are lost as a result of sepsis every year in the UK. They include instigating a national registry to record accurately the true burden of sepsis, raising awareness nationally, and looking at commissioning levers to deliver best practice and reinforce that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I call Dr Philippa Whitford.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It will be obvious to the House that a great many people still wish to speak. I have to warn the House that after the next few speakers, I will have to reduce the time limit on speeches to four minutes. I so appreciate the good wishes that everybody has given me on my re-election this afternoon, but I realise that I will not get any more now. That is fair enough; we will try to get everybody in. Still with six minutes, I call Gill Furniss.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on being back in the Chair.

During the election campaign, I spoke to many doctors, nurses and other NHS professionals in my constituency, as well as service users, and listened to what they said about the state of our NHS and social care. At each and every meeting, I listened to people, many of whom felt demoralised by the state of the profession after seven years of this Tory Government. From longer waiting times to missed A&E targets to the cancelling of operations to record numbers of nurses leaving the profession, the NHS has suffered greatly since 2010.

The anger and frustration felt during the election campaign were reflected in the result: a vote that reduced the number of Conservative Members and wiped out the majority of the Government. The public have simply rejected the Tories’ austerity agenda. I hope I shall be forgiven for being hopeful—like many others—that that would be reflected in the Queen’s Speech, which, instead, reflected a continued total disconnect between the Prime Minister and Government and the wider public.

The Queen’s Speech failed to begin to tackle the issue of chronic underfunding in our NHS. Among the top 10 economies in the EU, the UK spends the smallest proportion of its GDP on health: 9.8%, compared to a 10.4% average. If the UK only half-matched the EU average, there could be 35,000 extra hospital beds and 10,000 more GPs, and the cuts in public health budgets could be reversed.

After the election, the Prime Minister and her Ministers appeared to be listening to the electorate when they were reported to have said that austerity was over. Sadly, that was just Tory rhetoric, and far from the reality. Only this week, secret cost-cutting plans drawn up by the Tories were leaked, suggesting shocking details that could pose further danger to our NHS. Reports suggest that NHS managers are being told to “make difficult choices” to curb overspending in a drive to cut costs. Full details of those plans have not been announced; in fact, I do not believe that the Secretary of State had any intention of announcing them before the leaks occurred. Instead, they are being worked out secretly behind closed doors. They could lead to even longer waiting times, rationing of care, job losses, and ward closures in hospitals. I am deeply concerned about what that could mean for my constituents, and I ask the Government to disclose the plans fully for the purpose of public scrutiny. The NHS belongs to the public, and should therefore be accountable both to Members of Parliament and to the public at large.

As for pay, while workloads have increased, nurses have been handed a 1% pay cap for seven years in a row. That does not even cover the rise in inflation. During the election campaign, the PM said that nurses went to food banks “for a variety of reasons”. I suggest that the only reason is that the Government have made them £3,000 worse off since 2010, while continuing to give tax breaks to the richest.

We know that their current conditions are causing more staff to leave the NHS out of desperation. Many of those vacancies are left unfilled. According to the Royal College of Nursing, there are 40,000 registered nurse vacancies in England, and an average vacancy rate of 11.1%. The rate has doubled in the past three years, and we are seeing the effects in NHS hospitals up and down the country. Furthermore, the Government’s shambolic approach to Brexit has created a feeling of uncertainty among EU nationals. No wonder the number of applications from EU nurses to work in the UK has plummeted by 96% since last year.

Nurses and doctors are not crying wolf when they warn us about the health and safety issues that are arising from the lack of proper staffing levels. Has the Secretary of State made any assessment of the impact of the drop in applications on the NHS, and, if so, what action does he propose to take to ensure that it does not affect the health and safety of patients?

The proposal in the Queen’s Speech for an immigration Bill provides no details to reassure those EU citizens currently living in the UK. Labour has been calling for all their rights to be guaranteed since the referendum was decided. I concede that the Prime Minister has finally made an offer for EU citizens, but it is a half-hearted one at best, containing little clarity.

I welcome any suggestion that would help and support the NHS, and I therefore welcome the Government’s commitment to reforming mental health legislation to give it greater priority. However, last Wednesday the Prime Minister gave no assurances that no mental health trust would see its budget cut this year, as 40% of them did last year. If the Government want to be taken seriously, they must back their rhetoric with the financial support that is needed. They have not done this. It is clear that the Prime Minister will find the money to cling to power, but not to secure mental health spending.

Finally, the debacle over the dementia tax revealed that this Government will gladly force the most vulnerable, particularly those suffering from long-term debilitating diseases such as dementia, to cover their own social care bill entirely. Surely we need to merge health and social care to get the best results, but we must pool the risk and not let the most vulnerable fend for themselves in old age.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

To make a maiden speech, I call Alex Burghart.