Hospital Services (North-East)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) for allowing me to speak in this debate. I accept and acknowledge that fundamentally he secured the debate to raise issues in relation to the role of hospitals in Hartlepool. However, as it is a debate on hospital services in the north-east and as I am the Member of Parliament for the largest constituency in the north-east and have responsibility for many rural areas that cover well over 1,000 square miles, I want to lay down a few markers in relation to the hospital services in my area.

The Government are engaged in a widespread review of everything from care to hospital facilities, but rural areas—I know that I speak for other Members who represent rural areas—have to be treated and reviewed in a slightly different way. In my constituency, I have a wonderful hospital, which was opened as a general hospital by the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and which has been consistently downgraded over the past few years. That is a source of great upset to the people of Hexham. The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and others will know of the issues relating to the proposed Cramlington hospital, which is still in the pipeline. I have been told by health officials in the local primary care trust and the strategic health authority that there is no difficulty with the hospital going ahead because the funding is assured. Although health has not been as affected as other areas, will the Minister none the less reassure me that the hospital has survived the funding reviews?

In dealing with rural services, let me turn to the issue of the rebuilding of Haltwhistle hospital. Again, it takes the best part of an hour and a half to get there from Newcastle and the various hospitals there. There have been significant difficulties relating to the hospital, not least the fact that people have been waiting for the hospital to be rebuilt for well over 10 years and that has not yet happened. I sincerely hope that those matters will be reviewed. Will the Minister write to me over the next month with some assurances about the way forward?

I have two final points to make. I know that others wish to speak in this debate. The hon. Member for Wansbeck knows of my concerns because they have come up in discussions between ourselves. The issue of care and how it is provided in Northumberland and, I suspect, throughout the north-east has been a nightmare of bureaucracy and difficulty. Tremendous attention to detail is required to improve the situation. Regrettably, at present, care is provided by a multitude of providers, and the budgets are split and differentiated between individual providers and individual utilisers. I accept that a commission has been set up to review care, but it must consider how provision is made, particularly in rural areas such as ours. I blame no particular Government for the problem because it has developed over a period of time, but this is an area that clearly needs review.

Let me finish on an issue that relates to the way in which we review the provision of health care. We need to ensure that the healthy choice is the easy choice. My constituent, Dr Steven Ford, who ran against me as an independent candidate in the recent general election, said that we must be living in a very odd world when, in the middle of an obesity epidemic, the European Union cuts the price of sugar by more than one third. Therefore, we are trying to address the problem of obesity at the same time as we are cutting the sugar price. It seems to me that we would benefit greatly if we addressed that issue in future.

I am grateful for having the opportunity to speak in this debate. I do not need any specific replies from the Minister today, but I hope that he will write to me in due course about the points that I have raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Phil Wilson]

That is absolutely right. Over the past 13 years, the number of apprenticeships in the region has gone up astronomically. In 1997, in my constituency, there were fewer than 30 apprenticeships, but there are more than 700 today. Obviously, anything that curtails the growth of apprenticeships in the future should be frowned on.

As far as other jobs are concerned, the hospital would be a catalyst for inward investment and private sector investment. Wynyard Park Ltd worked closely with the hospital, local universities and further education colleges because it realised that high-value medical and other research jobs would come to the area. The company estimated that 12,500 jobs would be created on top of the 3,000 jobs that the hospital would create. There would be 12,500 private sector jobs in the area on the back of the hospital development—just think of the Government’s income tax and national insurance take and all the other benefits that they would pick up on the basis of that growth in the local economy. Public sector investment would kick-start growth in the private sector.

The hospital would also have become an anchor tenant—a tenant that attracted a lot of other investment to Wynyard. In addition, it would have brought greater investment in infrastructure: the roads and transport networks would have improved, which would have brought more businesses to the park. This is not just about the hospital, as great as that would be. My family and I have used the North Tees and Hartlepool hospitals, and they are great hospitals, but it is time to replace them and to have a new hospital. The credible case put by the new hospital’s designers was that the development would be not only a hospital, but a catalyst for growth in the private sector economy in the south Durham and Tees valley area. That case has been completely ignored.

I really get annoyed when people try to say that the project was worked out on the back of a fag packet a few weeks before the general election. I have been attending meetings on the issue since I was elected in 2007, and meetings were going on before then. We need the development to happen.

The Government’s proposals prove what the Prime Minister said during the election campaign when he pointed out that the north-east would feel the brunt of the cuts. He was right to say that we rely too much on public sector jobs, so the Government should give us the opportunity to change that, but that opportunity was taken away from us when the hospital programme was cancelled.

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Gentleman asserts that the area should be given the opportunity to address the lack of private sector jobs, but that that would not be done by spending more public sector money. We cannot address the deficit on every single occasion by creating private sector jobs through public sector spending, which is surely the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s hospital argument.

[Phil Wilson]

We are not saying that we should do that at every opportunity, but when we spend public money, we should take the opportunity to ensure that it pump-primes the local economy. That is what the Wynyard scheme was bound to do. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not think that the public sector is of any value, but Opposition Members do.

[Guy Opperman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Phil Wilson]

No, several other Members want to get in on the debate.

Figures have been bandied about, such as the £5 billion and the £11,000 difference, which was actually £11 million—the Minister corrected that error, and I noticed it, too, and went up to correct it. That £11 million, over 35 years, means the difference between a new hospital and a hospital that is falling down. Surely we could have found that money somewhere to help to maintain the hospital.

I want to end with a question to the Minister. Three or four weeks ago, we brought down the foundation trust’s chief executive and the chair for a meeting, and I was pleased that the Minister could meet us. I took away from that meeting the view that the Department would look again at the development if the trust could come up with a credible scheme or initiative to get money from the private sector. If all the figures stacked up, would the Department underwrite such a proposal? We are talking about a foundation hospital. Are we saying that foundation hospitals will be around for ever? Things might change—Governments might change, policy might change—but the hospital must still be funded. Are the Government prepared to underwrite any financial arrangements with the banks and the private sector?

On that point, I will sit down and listen to what other Members have to say. The proposed hospital is a missed opportunity for growth in not only the public sector but the private sector in the region.