Community Hospitals (North-East)

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

In December 2011, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) told me:

“Local community hospitals provide a vital community resource to support patients in need of rehabilitation, recuperation and respite care”,

and that they support

“a rapid return to independence and good health.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 560W.]

It was a pleasant surprise to find myself agreeing with him. Unfortunately, community hospitals, especially those in my constituency and in the north-east, are facing ever more challenges.

Hospitals such as East Cleveland hospital and Guisborough hospital play an essential role in the communities that they serve. My constituents prefer and would ordinarily choose to receive care near their home and their family, whether it be palliative, minor injuries or maternity care. That is also the case elsewhere in the north-east and north Yorkshire, where my colleagues and local residents have been speaking out to protect and extend the services in their local community hospitals and district general hospitals, which are increasingly under threat.

Demographic change means that we are increasingly dealing with social care. Given that community hospitals tend to be truly local and cherished, and the need for health and social care to be seamlessly integrated, it should be painfully obvious that local community hospitals are able to provide effective liaison between NHS staff and local adult social services, especially when discussing arrangements for the discharge of elderly patients and their continued need for community-based care facilities and services. The Government are, at least nominally, following the previous Labour Government’s good example of recognising the importance of patient choice.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is giving a powerful speech that rightly highlights the importance of community hospitals. Does he, like me, regret the fact that more than 3,000 beds in community hospitals were closed by the last Labour Government? Does he recognise that only a huge campaign across this House made them see the error of their ways and reverse their savage cuts to this most vital of local assets?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Any intervention in this debate must be put in the context of the fact that more than £600 million from my region is going to be relocated to the south-east. I know that, as a Yorkshire MP, the hon. Gentleman will be concerned about the news of the cuts to Yorkshire’s health care services that came out only today in The Northern Echo. We can talk about the whys and wherefores of that, but there is certainly a kernel of truth in it. Community hospitals and secondary hospitals, such as James Cook university hospital on the border of my constituency, are having to consolidate and centralise their services far more than has been the case before.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

I certainly note the point the hon. Gentleman makes, and I have read a number of his local newspapers, in which he and a number of his hon. Friends have been making it too. I am delighted that he accepts my argument that every single penny that is saved from the £20 billion of efficiency savings—which, of course, we inherited from the last Government and accepted, because it was the right policy to pursue—will be reinvested in the NHS.

I think the hon. Gentleman attended Health questions on 12 June, at which the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) raised the funding formula and the basis for it with me. I explained that a variety of factors, of which health is one, will determine the allocation of funding—just as it was determined under his Government—and that the question was also being looked at by an independent body. I have seen the newspapers, and I fully appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are trying to drum up a storm by suggesting that they are going to be hard done by. However, if he reads the answer I gave to his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East in Hansard, I hope it will reassure him, on reflection, about the current situation.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The Minister will recognise that community hospitals in the north-east, as well as in Beverley and Holderness, were starved of funding under the last Government. We saw gross distortions in funding, as the formula used deprivation as a way of pouring funding into urban areas, where there were young people who, regardless of their social background, were not in need of health funding. That starved the community hospitals serving ageing populations, which did need the funding. What we need is not reverse gerrymandering, but health funding that follows clinical health need. We did not have that under the last Government, who starved rural community hospitals of funding. I congratulate the Minister on having the courage to face down the vested interests of the Labour party.

[Mr Burns]

Let me return my hon. Friend’s compliment in kind by saying that I am grateful for the valid points he makes. He knows as well as I do that this Government, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), are totally committed to community hospitals. I know that he will also be reassured that, unlike with the last Government, there is no question whatever of this Government gerrymandering the funding formula.

I know that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is aware of the scale of the challenge facing his local NHS. Like every local NHS economy, the NHS organisations that commission and provide services in his constituency must take some fairly tough decisions to deliver sustainable health services in future. Let me also say to him—in the nicest possible way, because I respect him—that we are in the situation of protecting the NHS budget and giving it a modest real-terms increase, given our commitment to the NHS, simply because of the economic mess that we inherited, thanks to the actions of his Government, under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). That meant that there was not enough money to sustain the levels of real-terms investment that might have been available earlier this century.

I turn now to Guisborough hospital. I am aware that Chaloner ward, which provided palliative care and rehabilitation, closed permanently in February 2012. I am advised, however, that services were transferred to the hospital’s larger Priory ward, which I am assured has adequate room and staffing to continue to provide high quality care. I understand that the decision to close Chaloner ward was based on the need to deliver services safely, efficiently and effectively, as the ward had been under-utilised and was not making the best use of nursing resources. Staff were engaged on the decision. In fact, they advised closure—I hope that the hon. Gentleman heard that. The staff advised closure, and staff at the ward were redeployed within Guisborough hospital and to the nearby Redcar primary care hospital.

I am also aware that temporary changes were made to the opening times of the minor injury unit at Guisborough hospital. The MIU now opens between 9 am and 5 pm from Monday to Friday, and between 8 am and 8 pm at weekends. I understand that patients requiring treatment outside those hours use Redcar hospital, local GP walk-in centres or the accident and emergency department at the James Cook university hospital. I have been informed that the MIU is staffed by a small team of nurses, and that the changes enabled the unit to continue to provide a safe service for patients. I also understand that the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is looking at whether other staff can provide support to the unit.

I have been informed that, in the longer term, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is reviewing the provision of acute and community services across all its sites, including Guisborough hospital. The review is aimed at ensuring the future safety, quality and sustainability of services. The trust has been working with GPs, commissioners and local authorities to establish models of care that will enable more patients to be cared for at home and avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital—whether at the larger acute hospital, James Cook, or community hospitals such as Guisborough. Once that work is completed, the trust expects to take a more definitive view of the future role of community hospitals such as that at Guisborough. It is not yet clear when the review will conclude. However, I am assured by the local NHS that there are no plans in the near future for further service changes at Guisborough hospital. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman. Should there be any changes in the longer term, once the trust has completed its review of service provision, local stakeholders and the public will be engaged in this process. He might be aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out strengthened criteria for service changes. Any proposals for major service change need to be assured by the local NHS against the Secretary of State’s four tests for service change and, when necessary, to be subject to public consultation.

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman met the chief executive of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to discuss these matters in February 2012. I also understand that the trust provides him with regular briefings on these issues, and I hope that he finds that helpful and useful in formulating his views on the provision of health care in his area. I hope that being briefed personally by his local health service providers will allow him to have a more open mind in regard to what is actually going on in the NHS, rather than simply accepting the propaganda that all too often distorts his views. I strongly encourage him to continue that dialogue with the trust as it completes its review of service provision.

Question put and agreed to.