NHS Dentistry

Debate between Emma Hardy and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will have: 700,000 appointments, making a difference straightaway; supervised toothbrushing for three to five-year-olds to reduce future demand on NHS services; and reform of the NHS dentistry contract so that we can rebuild an NHS dentistry service worthy of the name. That change cannot come soon enough.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

My constituent Amy has been in contact with me about the difficulties that she and her five children have had getting NHS dentist appointments. She explained that her husband was in the military and therefore they had to move home frequently, and each time they moved they found it harder to get an NHS dentist. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a shameful way to treat people who have served and given so much to our country?

[Wes Streeting]

I agree. I am afraid that when it comes to serving personnel and veterans, there is a gulf between what the Government say and promise and what they do; that is not the only example.

One thing not in the Government’s amendment to Labour’s motion is a pledge to protect the NHS dentistry budget. That is odd, because the Prime Minister promised to do exactly that 18 months ago. The truth is that the Prime Minister broke that pledge in November when he gave the go-ahead for dentistry underspends to be raided, effectively waving the white flag on the future of the service. Can you believe it? Despite everything we have heard, there are dentistry underspends, and the Prime Minister thinks that other things are greater priorities than this crisis. The consequences of that decision are now being felt. The budget in some areas of the country is running out and dentists are having to stop NHS work for the remainder of the year. It is so deeply frustrating.

NHS dentists want to do more NHS work; it is the Government who are standing in their way. The Nuffield Trust’s stark report into the crisis suggested that NHS dentistry may have to be scaled back and made available only to the least well-off. Such an approach would be the end of NHS dentistry as a universal public service, yet that is exactly the approach that the Government are piloting in Cornwall. Children, the over-80s and those with specific health needs are given treatment; everyone else has to go private or go without. They will not admit it, but this is the future under the Tories: further neglect, decline and patients made to go without.

Worse still, NHS dentistry is the ghost of Christmas yet to come under the Tories. That is not partisan overreaction on our part; that is according to the lead author of the Nuffield Trust’s report. He wrote:

“For the wider health system, the lessons are troubling: without political honesty and a clear strategy, the same long-term slide from aspiration to reality could happen in other areas of primary care too.”

What has happened to NHS dentistry under the Tories is coming to the rest of the NHS if they are given another five years. That is not the continuity that the country is looking for—it is looking for change with Labour.

NHS Workforce

Debate between Emma Hardy and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I do not pretend that our plan is not vote Labour, but of course those are the means by which we get to better ends. What we propose today is the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in history. I will explain how that will benefit patients across the country and how we will pay for it. I think that people in Peterborough, 2,788 of whom are waiting more than a month to see a GP, will welcome Labour’s plan for investment. That is why, after the next general election, Peterborough will have a Labour MP.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I want to raise the case of my constituent, Mr Simpson, whose wife died last Tuesday after waiting 16 hours for an ambulance. On 29 November, his wife was confused. At 3 pm, he first called for an ambulance and was told that one might be sent and that he might hear from the service. At 6 pm, he rang the ambulance again. The person wanted to speak to his wife, but she was very confused and unable. He tried to give her a drink at 2.30 am; there was still no ambulance. His wife went to sleep, but she was still moving a bit. He fell asleep. He woke at 7.30 am and found that his wife was not moving; she had passed away. All the while they were still waiting for the ambulance to arrive. I do not believe for one moment that that happened because the ambulance service does not care. Does my hon. Friend agree that the service is desperately understaffed, desperately short of resources and in desperate need of adequate funding?

[Wes Streeting]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that heartbreaking case. It is every family’s worst nightmare. All of us now know someone who is waiting for treatment. Many of us know someone who has called for an ambulance and waited for hours and hours—and, in some cases, given up on it and gone to hospital. I have spoken to ambulance service staff who, like many other staff across the NHS, feel a real sense of deep personal moral injury because they know that, despite their best efforts and busting a gut at work every single day, their best simply is not good enough because the system has collapsed. Ambulance turnaround times are not fast enough because A&E waiting times are too high. That is because people cannot see a doctor and the social care is not available, so the beds are full of people who are well enough to go home and would be better off at home. This is the problem in the NHS: the whole system is broken. I am afraid to say that political decisions made in this place by the Conservative party have led us to this tragic situation.