Health and Social Care Bill

Gordon Birtwistle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Let me follow on from what the previous speaker said about the legacy of the Labour party by expressing to him my concern about happened to the hospital in my constituency. “We went through the process of meeting patients’ needs.” Well, one would think that if a Government were meeting patients’ needs, they would speak to them to ask what they would actually like. That would be the normal thing to do in meeting patients’ needs: one would want to hear their views. Did the previous Secretary of State speak to the people of Burnley and ask what they wanted within that process? Not a one. Did the previous Government, in their programme to “meet patients’ needs”, ask the GPs what they would like? Not a one.

What did “meeting patient’s needs” mean to the people of Burnley? It meant the closure of our accident and emergency unit and our children’s ward, and their transfer 15 miles away to Blackburn. Hon. Members will recognise from what happened that the strategic health authority and the primary care trust, which made those decisions after taking advice from a gentleman called Sir George Alberti—hon. Members will also recognise from the name that he is not well known in Burnley—did not understand what the people of Burnley wanted. The strategic health authority and primary care trust transferred our A and E unit, which supported 250,000 people, if we include Pendle and Rossendale, and a children’s ward supporting the same number of people, to Blackburn, without one comment accepted from the people in my constituency. That was an outrage.

We campaigned vigorously to get that stopped. I held a march of more than 1,000 people through Burnley. What happened? Our local MP at the time—hon. Members will probably notice that after 77 years, the colour of the MP in Burnley has changed, and it has changed because of this—[Interruption.] A lot longer than you think. What happened then was that our MP was glad to support a change that meant taking a vital service from our town and relocating it 15 miles away. People were having to travel 15 miles to Blackburn after having heart attacks or suffering major trauma in car crashes. An example of a lady—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) wants to ask me a question and apologise for what Labour did, I am happy to take it. No? Fine. One lady had a car crash in the Burnley hospital car park—her foot slipped off the pedal and she crashed her car. She was in sight of the urgent care centre that we have now—an excuse for an A and E unit. What did they do? They did not treat her within 100 yards of the accident; they brought an ambulance all the way from Blackburn to take her there and sort out her problem.

Are Labour Members telling me that that is really good, when there is a chance that in future the people of our town will be able to have a say in what they want? Decisions about the health service will be taken by the GPs and the people they represent. If I have a problem I will go and talk to my GP. I cannot talk to the PCT, and I certainly cannot talk to the SHA, which sits in its landed glory in the centre of Manchester, so what is wrong with the Bill? We cannot allow what has been happening to continue, so I disagree with my hon. Friends down here below the Gangway. We cannot delay; we need to get on with it. We need to sort out the problems that we have. We cannot continue with what we have now.

There is a young lady called Rachel living in my constituency who suffers from myalgic encephalopathy, or ME. She has a friend in Blackburn who has the same problem. The friend in Blackburn was given treatment by the PCT, because it was a decent PCT. When Rachel asked the PCT that represents Burnley for the same treatment to help her, she was turned down—for £3,000. I went with her husband and her parents to speak to the people at the PCT and beg them to fund her treatment—I even had a letter from her doctor—yet the two ladies we spoke to cruelly turned us down. Her doctor was keen to do it; he will still do it in Rachel’s case. I support the Bill; let us get on with it.