NHS Spending

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Joan Ryan

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

As we have heard, Brexit will present us with many problems, particularly with health care provision. Not only are we not getting large sums of money, but we will actually be worse off. We will face many challenges because of that decision, and if the promise of £350 million led people to vote in a particular way that will undermine the funding we receive, that is a desperate state of affairs.

People feel badly let down by the leave campaign’s empty pledges on the NHS over the past few months, and residents in Enfield are deeply disenchanted by the Government’s failure to fulfil their recent promises to our local health service. Before the 2010 general election, the then Leader of the Opposition—actually, he was then Prime Minister of the coalition Government—stood outside Chase Farm hospital in my constituency and vowed to protect its A&E and maternity units. By 2013, his Government had shut both departments. Many of us warned at the time that closing Chase Farm’s A&E department would put huge strain on other local health services, including North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, which is the subject of the CQC report that I referred to earlier. We were right, and almost three years since the decision to close Chase Farm’s emergency department, the NHS in Enfield has reached breaking point.

Earlier today the Care Quality Commission published its report into the standard of care at North Middlesex hospital, following a spot check by its inspection team in early April. It found that the closure of Chase Farm’s A&E has led to significant increases in patient numbers attending the emergency department at North Mid. Despite being one of the busiest A&E departments in the country, North Mid’s urgent and emergency services have been graded as “inadequate”, and patient safety has been compromised. Patients who arrive at the emergency department are not seen quickly enough by clinical staff, and they are waiting too long to be seen by a doctor. Some blue-light patients are being brought in, and hard-pressed nurses are dealing with them because no doctor is free to treat them.

[Mr Gareth Thomas]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong case for her constituents and their hospital. Does she recognise that although the situation she describes at North Middlesex hospital is particularly bad, such things have also been witnessed in many other parts of London, not least in north-west London where the London North West Healthcare NHS Trust has shut an accident and emergency department at Central Middlesex hospital? As a result, there has been a big increase in pressure at Northwick Park hospital, which serves my constituents.

[Joan Ryan]

Absolutely. North Middlesex is just the first hospital to reach absolute crisis point, but I am well aware that other hospitals, particularly in outer London, are heading down a similar path and facing real difficulties. If we consider A&E waiting times, we see that hospitals are sliding into that difficult scenario.

Junior doctors and trainees have been left unsupervised in North Middlesex hospital’s A&E department at night, without competent senior support—in fact, no consultant has been available from 11 o’clock onwards. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) referred to such cases. In one instance, one commode was available for 100 patients in the whole of the emergency department. Staff raised concerns about the lack of vital medical equipment, including missing leads for cardiac machines so they could not get an instant read-out. Trolleys in the resuscitation area lacked vital equipment. There was an oppressive, overbearing culture at the hospital that meant staff did not feel confident in raising concerns, and they even stopped reporting incidents of staff shortages, as management had not responded to them in the past.

The CQC report reinforces the findings of Health Education England and the General Medical Council. At a high-risk summit in May, the GMC threatened to withdraw junior doctor post-graduate trainees if the numbers of A&E staff and middle-ranking doctors and consultants were not increased. That would effectively close the busiest emergency department in London. This is an unprecedented situation. The future of North Mid A&E has been put at risk. Even medical trainees at the hospital are not prepared to recommend the A&E for treatment to their friends and family. In interviews with Health Education England, they said that that was

“because they felt the department was unsafe.”

My constituents have had to suffer the consequences of shocking mismanagement and a lack of leadership at North Mid. The chief executive is now on leave and I understand she is stepping down. Although there is a lack of leadership, she cannot be held solely responsible for what has happened. The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have told us repeatedly that the NHS is safe in their hands, yet huge pressures have been placed upon North Mid due to a lack of central Government funding. Patient care has suffered further as a direct result of the hospital not having enough equipment, consultants, doctors and nurses. It has had to spend large parts of its budget on locums and agency nurses.

What is the Government’s solution to ensuring that hospital departments, such as those at North Mid, do not remain dangerously understaffed? Is it to divert a large amount of funding to help to solve this situation and put patients first? No: they decide to go to war with junior doctors over their contracts and abolish NHS bursaries for student nurses, while we have hospitals going abroad to try to recruit staff. That is an insult to dedicated professionals who deserve our admiration, respect and support. The Government’s actions will discourage the future frontline staff we so desperately need.

The NHS is facing a huge financial challenge, so a commitment to spend an extra £350 million a week, or even £120 million a week, on the NHS in lieu of our EU membership was clearly a very attractive offer to our constituents. NHS England needs to plug a funding gap of £30 billion a year by 2021 and a few months ago it was revealed that nearly every hospital in the country was in deficit. We are obviously not going to get £350 million or £120 million a week and I think that that was always known by the leave campaigners. In fact, the Government are seeking to suck out £5 billion in savings through the sustainability and transformation programme. I know that savings and efficiencies, particularly in back-office services, can and must be found, but not at the expense of patient safety.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), the former shadow Health Secretary, warned that the scale of savings required could

“not be delivered without putting patient care at risk… These ‘efficiencies’ will mean cuts to staff, cuts to pay, rationing of treatments. And it will be patients who suffer.”

Her analysis is spot on. We have witnessed the disastrous effects of this course of action in Enfield. We need more investment in North Middlesex University hospital, and in the NHS in general, not less. I join my parliamentary colleagues on the Labour Benches in calling on the Government to increase spending on our NHS. It is most regrettable that, given the urgent need for more funding and the very real and justifiable concerns of people in Enfield, they should have been led to believe Brexit could possibly mean major new funding for the NHS.

In closing, I think I corrected myself wrongly. In the run-in to the 2010 general election, the current Prime Minister was, of course, the Leader of the Opposition, and he made a promise to keep our hospital open, which, when he became Prime Minister, he then closed. That kind of behaviour is very similar to what the leave campaigners did in promising money that does not really exist. It is hoodwinking the voter and it is not acceptable. It desperately undermines the voters’ faith in politics and democratic processes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). I will be unashamedly parochial and pursue the point that I made in an intervention on the Secretary of State about the future finances of the Harrow clinical commissioning group and the London North West Healthcare NHS Trust. It includes Northwick Park hospital, which serves my constituents. I should declare an interest in that I have been operated on and indeed members of my family have been born at Northwick Park hospital, with which I therefore have a particular affinity, as do my constituents.

[Joan Ryan]

My hon. Friend is right to remain parochial and focused on his hospital. One of the scandals of North Middlesex is that all the local MPs have been kept in the dark about all the serious faults that were known to the hospital and to NHS officials. None of that was shared with the local MPs.

[Mr Thomas]

My right hon. Friend made a very powerful speech about North Middlesex hospital. I am pleased to say that I have a positive relationship with the managers at North West London Hospitals Trust as they have always made themselves open and available to answer my questions. I hope that they will read Hansard and see my right hon. Friend’s warning in relation to the difficulties that she has had with previous managers at North Middlesex hospital and will do even more to provide transparency in our area.

Let me talk now about my concerns about the finances at Northwick Park. Back in 2014-15, North West London Hospitals Trust had a deficit of some £55.9 million. That had risen to £100 million by the beginning of this financial year. The trust management board is optimistic that it can get that deficit down over the course of the next financial year to just over £88 million, which is an enormous sum in its own right and will, if that figure is achieved, still be without question one of the biggest deficits in the NHS in England. To achieve that target, it has committed to axe 140 posts. My concern, and the concern of many of my constituents, is that services at Northwick Park and indeed in other parts of the trust will be affected despite the intentions of the management.

The situation at Northwick Park has been compounded by the decision to close a number of accident and emergency departments in north-west London in recent years. In particular, the decision to close Central Middlesex hospital has undoubtedly had an impact, increasing the pressure on the services at Northwick Park hospital. Although it was great to see some new investment at Northwick Park—we now have an upgraded accident and emergency department—no extra beds were created in the hospital, which is a major concern.

I recognise that time is a concern, so let me underline my last point, which is about the funding of Harrow clinical commissioning group. In the past three years for which parliamentary figures were available, it has received the lowest funding of any London CCG. The Secretary of State was very generous in offering to go away and review that situation. I ask the Minister who is due to reply to this debate whether he would be willing to receive a deputation of local general practitioners and me to discuss the funding of Harrow CCG, which is one of the causes of the difficult financial situation at Northwick Park hospital that serves my constituents.