Health Services (Halifax)

Debate between George Freeman and Linda Riordan

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. I think it important to be guided by what the local professionals—clinicians and NHS staff—are saying. I have spoken to them this week, and I can indeed confirm that there are no plans to close the A and E at present. A clinically led consultation is taking place, quite properly, and before the local NHS leadership recommends any decisions, they will be the subject of public consultation with local people.

[Mrs Riordan]

I can tell the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) that I have read the strategic review. Let me also make it clear that when the consultation began, the acute trust recommended the closure of the Halifax A and E.

[George Freeman]

As I have said, the local NHS leadership is looking at all the issues on behalf of the patients whom they are there to serve. My point is merely that playing party politics is not helpful. We need to be guided by the local clinical experts. It is important for the NHS to engage widely on the future provision of health services, and it has done that over the last three years. Thousands of local people have given their views on what matters most to them, and that feedback is shaping thinking locally.

Local clinical commissioning groups are focusing on the phased delivery of improvements in community services ahead of any changes in hospital services. Our health system is evolving to adapt to the new landscape of modern medicine, and I think it is in the interests of our patients to encourage that, provided that it is led by clinical decision making. Local commissioners recognise the need for change in hospital services, and I suspect that, as a user, the hon. Lady would recognise that as well. The local NHS believes that the way in which services are currently organised in Halifax does not deliver the safest, most effective and most efficient support to meet patients’ needs. Patients rightly expect that when they see the initials “NHS”, they can expect the very best service that is available, and when they do not receive that service, it is incumbent on the system to adapt so that they do.

The trust is affected by shortages in middle-grade doctors and the high use of locums in A and E, which has an impact on the safety of patient care, and difficulties are involved in providing senior consultant cover overnight and seven days a week. Those are classic problems, which often affect smaller hospitals. We need to ensure that we are delivering the very best care to our patients.

There is often a need for inter-hospital transfers owing to the lack of co-location of first-class services on both sites. The co-location of emergency and acute medical and surgical expertise can result in significant improvements in survival and recovery outcomes, most notably for stroke and cardiac patients. Those who are most seriously ill, with life-threatening conditions, have a much greater chance of survival if they are treated by an experienced medical team that is available 24/7.

It is right for the local NHS to address those challenges to ensure that it can continue to deliver safe, sustainable, high-quality services. Heaven forbid that the hon. Lady should fall ill and require any of those services, but I am sure that, were that to happen, she would want to receive the very best care, and that if that were available in Huddersfield, she would want to be treated in the best possible place. To that end, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has considered a number of options for the future delivery of services, one of which involves one hospital delivering planned care and the other delivering unplanned care. At this stage, no proposals have been ruled in or out. Preferences have been expressed in regard to how services can best be delivered, but no decisions have been made, and I can confirm that there are no formal proposals for changes in hospital services.

In August, the local CCGs decided to delay public consultation on hospital services. While they are signed up to the need for change, they have chosen first to focus on the delivery of improvements in community services in order to build confidence in the changes and demonstrate to local people the benefits they are confident they will deliver. That seems to me entirely appropriate. The CCGs are following a process of change. They understand the need to take people with them, and to build confidence in the changes that they propose. It is incumbent on all Members to encourage and support our NHS leadership locally in building that public confidence in the services.

Change can be difficult to explain to patients, particularly the most vulnerable and elderly patients whose focus is, rightly, on the immediate availability of care. Patients’ reasonable anxieties are often exacerbated by speculation in the media about potential changes and their possible local impact. Services are sometimes described as closing when in fact they are simply being provided in a neighbouring facility or changing for the better in response to advances in treatment.

I know that local people care deeply about the future of their local health services and will want to be involved in decisions about the future of their local hospitals. This is, and should be, a locally led process. Local people should continue to make their views known to those developing proposals for the future of local services, as they have done throughout the engagement process. I also want to encourage them to listen to the reasoning behind any proposals from local NHS clinicians and management for any service changes. I encourage the hon. Lady to work with the local NHS as it further develops its proposals. I know that the CCGs have met hon. Members and are happy to continue to do so.

When talking about potential changes to hospital services, it is important to remember that it is the services, the people and the co-ordination—not the bricks and mortar—that really matter in getting people the right care at the right time. The flexibility and co-ordination of services are just as important as how they are geographically configured. In supporting our local NHS we often end up supporting the current institution—the building in its present location and configuration—but we need to allow the service to evolve and allow our local clinicians and NHS leadership to develop the best possible provision for the people it is designed to serve.

The NHS is one of the great institutions in the world; it is one of this country’s great legacies. Ensuring that it is sustainable and that it serves the best interests of patients sometimes means taking tough decisions. Freezing a service in aspic out of love for it will not allow the NHS to develop and maintain its leadership in the provision of 21st century health care. These decisions are made only when representatives of the local NHS, working in collaboration with local people and local authorities, are convinced that what they are proposing is absolutely in the best interests of their patients.

I make no apology for the fact that it is this Government who have taken these decisions out of the hands of the politicians and the mandarins in Whitehall and put them into the hands of local clinicians and local NHS managers who have the interests of local patients at heart and who are driving those decisions in their interests. It is important that the NHS in Calderdale and Huddersfield develops solutions that will allow it to provide high quality, safe, effective and sustainable services to local people for generations to come.