National Health Service (Amended Duties and Powers) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Dan Poulter

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that all Members exercise their right to speak loudly, quietly, in stage whispers and in other ways in this Chamber. I am listening very carefully to the level of noise, and if it reaches much higher than it already has, I will ask Members to be more courteous to the Minister. However, I am quite sure that the Members present will wish to be courteous to the Minister and to hear what he has to say.

[Dr Poulter]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that Members in all parts of the House—although perhaps not the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood—would like to reaffirm their commitment to and the value they place on all NHS staff, no matter what background or culture they come from. We want those staff to continue to practise in and work for our NHS to the benefit of patients.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The Minister is not giving way.

[Dr Poulter]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The point was articulated very well by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) in one of the best and most accurate speeches of this Parliament in an NHS debate.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

There has been much discussion this morning about who has said what about what. My concern in the Chair is that the Bill should be discussed. That is the matter before the House, and we will discuss it.

[Dr Poulter]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think the tone of that point of order made my point for me better than I could have done.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said in what was one of the best speeches on the NHS I have heard in this Parliament, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 did not introduce competition into our NHS. To say that it did is factually incorrect, scaremongering and distracts the NHS from addressing the key issues it faces. It was the creation of a mixed health economy, implemented by the previous Labour Government, that exposed our NHS to competition law, not the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act.

General Practices (Coventry)

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Dan Poulter

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempt to be helpful, but I will invite the Minister to move that the House do now adjourn, after which he may recommence his speech.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Dr Poulter.)

[Dr Poulter]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for the lack of the usual accompanying member of the Treasury Bench team to conclude proceedings, but I am pleased to continue the informative debate we have been having.

I was addressing the point about practice closures. The way the information is collected sometimes leads to a headline of “practice closures”, but it may well be that practices have merged, and it is important to recognise that when we have a debate, even an informed one such as this. When a number of practices have co-located locally to improve premises and there has been improved investment, that is an enhancement of services; it in no way diminishes the services available to patients. I do not know the details of each and every surgery in Coventry, but clearly collaboration has taken place, along the lines of the Darzi model outlined by the hon. Member for Coventry North West, whereby surgeries can pool their resources and work together. That can bring benefits to all their patients and mean an additional freeing up of money to invest in other community-based health services, for example, physiotherapy or speech and language therapy. That approach has worked well in many parts of the country, including in the examples I gave in Coventry.

I understand that NHS England has also given approval for new premises for the Prior Deram Walk practice in Canley, Coventry, with the new facility expected to be completed next summer. Ongoing investment is taking place locally. Practices in Coventry have a good provision of extended hours, through the enhanced service for extended hours, and have adopted online booking for appointments and repeat prescriptions. NHS England’s area team monitors complaints from patients and is currently receiving no complaints about access or difficulty in registering with a practice in the Coventry area, although if there are concerns, I would be happy to take an intervention.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Dan Poulter

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman was listened to with courtesy. The same courtesy must be shown to the Minister.

[Dr Poulter]

I have repeatedly read out supporting evidence from the previous Government and from the impact assessment that showed that they recognised that the regime had to take into account the wider health economy. It is not my fault or the fault of hon. Members on the Government Benches that Labour’s legislation was not properly drafted, and that it did not do what it intended—

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The Minister’s state of health is not a matter to be dealt with from a sedentary position. If he is not giving way, he is not giving way.

[Dr Poulter]

I must make progress. I want to address the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). I will not give way until I have made better progress. On the point made by the right hon. Gentleman—and this is important—when he put forward the legislation on the TSA, he envisaged potentially turning it into a hospital closure clause. In 2009, on Second Reading of the Health Bill, he said:

“We believe these measures will provide protection against the possibility of NHS providers continuing indefinitely.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2009; Vol. 493, c. 544.]

That would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman thought that whole organisations might be shut down or closed as a result of the TSA regime. We do not believe that that is the case. We recognise that trusts, when they severely fail, may have to change the services they deliver. We want to protect trusts from the closure that the right hon. Gentleman envisaged in his remarks. His own words indicate that Labour had a hospital closure clause in the TSA regime. The Government, however, are making it clear that this is about service change in the interest of patients when all other avenues have been exhausted, which is a good thing.

Let me turn now to new clause 16, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and other hon. Members.

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[Dr Poulter]

I am happy to give my right hon. Friend that assurance. It will be for him to lead the review, and we look forward to the work he does.

New clause 16 would make a second key change: to prevent the Secretary of State or Monitor from making decisions about recommendations affecting other trusts. Instead, local commissioners would have to undertake a further process of consultation and make their own decision. The effect would be to completely undo the changes that clause 119 is seeking to make—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. If hon. Members across the Chamber wish to have private conversations, they should leave. The Minister is answering some important points and ought to be listened to.

[Dr Poulter]

It would take outside the administration process and the timetable recommendations that affect other trusts. It could mean that a complete solution for the trust in administration and local patients could not be found. As before, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam said that examining in isolation a trust that is failing significantly would be like throwing it to the wolves on its own. New clause 16 would render the strict legal timetable for the regime ineffective by significantly delaying resolution. I know that it is not his intention, but the new clause would undo the core purpose of clause 119 and the very aims of the regime, which are to put in place sustainable and safe health care services for patients when a trust has significantly failed.