Kent & Canterbury Hospital

Debate between Helen Whately and Charlie Elphicke

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I would like to start by welcoming Ken Rogers and campaigners from Concern for Health in East Kent, who have come here today to hear this debate. Ken was born in 1948, the same year as the NHS. He was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia when his daughter was 15 months old and told that he would not live to see her fifth birthday. That was in 1981. Thanks to Kent & Canterbury hospital, he is here today, listening to this debate. There are thousands of people with similar stories—people who would not be here today if it were not for Kent & Canterbury hospital, a treasured hospital with a history going back over two centuries, and for many years a top destination for junior doctors and aspiring consultants.

The hospital has an outstanding reputation in specialties such as urology, providing dialysis for patients across east and west Kent, neurology, neuro-rehabilitation and surgery, with surgeons using a state-of-the-art robot to carry out manoeuvres impossible with human hands. Last week, the Taylor ward was providing fantastic specialist care for cardiac patients and the hospital serves around 200,000 people in Canterbury, Faversham and surrounding villages, but people across that area are worried—very worried—because there is a big question mark over the future of the hospital.

The building is out of date—frankly, it is crumbling—and the hospital is struggling to recruit staff. I said that last week the Taylor ward was providing specialist cardiac care because, this week, that is no longer the case. On Monday, junior doctors were withdrawn from Canterbury and relocated to neighbouring hospitals, after Health Education England said that there were not enough consultants to oversee their training and there was too much reliance on locums. The shift of junior doctors means the shift of emergency care. Heart attack patients in my constituency, who previously faced a journey of under 20 minutes to get to the hospital in Canterbury from Faversham, will now have to travel to Ashford—a longer drive on winding roads, one of which will be closed all summer—or Margate, 40 minutes away. In rush hour or by public transport, these journeys are far, far longer. People are scared that they or a loved one will not make it in time, and that visiting will be harder, or impossible for some. Added to that is the confusion about the transfer of services, and the risk that the pressure to free up acute beds will mean patients being transferred between hospitals before they are ready or ending up in corridors. Nurses, some of whom are here today, are desperately worried about the risk for patients.

Then there is the impact on the staff. Some are now making longer journeys to work. Others are staying at Kent & Canterbury but are at risk of losing their specialist skills. No commitment has been made on when acute services will return to Canterbury. There is great scepticism about the efforts being made to recruit consultants. Public trust has been lost. The point is that these temporary changes must not become permanent. We must not allow the hospital to crumble further and drift towards a downgrade, when there is a real opportunity to seize this moment of change to form an ambitious long-term vision for healthcare in Kent.

What patients really need is a new acute hospital providing world-class care and a medical school attracting the brightest and best doctors and nurses, making east Kent a centre of excellence in healthcare. As a university city and a major population centre with good transport links, Canterbury is the right place for a major hospital and a medical school. The Kent and Medway sustainability and transformation plan is proposing to reconfigure acute services across east Kent’s three major hospitals into one emergency hub with specialist care and a trauma unit, a second emergency hospital also carrying out planned care and, at the third site, a rehabilitation hospital and a primary care-led urgent care centre. The STP is not specific about what will happen where, but all the signs are that Canterbury is the most likely to lose acute services, despite it being the obvious place to centralise specialist services.

We are at a crunch point, but this should not, and must not, be treated as a foregone conclusion. This is not the time for another short-term compromise. It is time to reverse the direction of travel and make the case for a long-term, visionary answer to the challenges of healthcare in Kent. A new hospital is not a panacea; it is not the answer to all Kent’s healthcare problems. We still need to invest in primary care and bring more services out of hospitals and into places such as the Encompass Vanguard in Whitstable and Faversham cottage hospital.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

On behalf of all the MPs in east Kent, I absolutely support my hon. Friend in making a powerful case for a new, state-of-the-art acute hospital in east Kent. Does she agree that cottage hospitals such as Buckland hospital in Dover make a great deal of difference and that we ought to have more services locally, wherever possible?

[Helen Whately]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In addition to the fantastic acute hospitals, community and cottage hospitals are really important. Patients who do not need acute care can be looked after closer to home and be given a different sort of care in the environment of a local community hospital such as the one in his constituency or Faversham cottage hospital in my own, which is deeply loved and enormously valued by the community.

The new hospital that I am asking for will take time, so it will not fix the immediate challenges that the NHS is facing in Kent, but now is the time to look to the future. It has been suggested that the STP consultation is looking merely at the next five years. That is totally inadequate; it is far too short a timeframe. We need to put politics aside and think further ahead than the next parliamentary term, just as we are putting party allegiance aside for this campaign. I am pleased to be working with my colleague, the new hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). She is taking up this campaign from her predecessor, Sir Julian Brazier, who fought hard for many years for Kent & Canterbury hospital.

In conclusion, I shall turn to the specific requests that I want to make of my hon. Friend the Minister. I ask him to note that Kent & Canterbury hospital has strong support in the community, represented here today by members of CHEK, and across the political parties. I ask him to look closely at the temporary changes to services, to challenge the hospital on its contingency plans and to make absolutely sure that, in the short term, these services are safe for patients. I ask him to ensure that these changes do not become permanent. I also ask him to look favourably on the case for a medical school in Kent, and to ensure that the STP consultation takes into account the connection between the medical school proposal and the decision about acute sites.

I have been told many times that one barrier to the idea of a new Canterbury hospital is a lack of capital. I ask my hon. Friend to help us here. More capital has been promised for the NHS, so will he make it clear to the local NHS leaders driving the process that if they, and we in Kent, can make the case, capital will be available. There is a risk that the consultation on Kent’s STP will be presented to the public with no option for an acute hospital at Canterbury. If none of the options propose keeping acute services at Canterbury, it cannot be called a true consultation.

Finally, will my hon. Friend please require STP leaders to look to the long-term, to be ambitious in their plans, and to aim for excellence? There is an opportunity here for Kent—specifically east Kent—to bring an end to the drift of services away from the area, to downgrading, and to the struggle to recruit and retrain staff. Instead, Kent could become a centre of excellence, making the most of the combined assets of the NHS, local universities and the strong life sciences research sector in east Kent to offer people in Kent brilliant patient care, to develop innovative treatments and pathways, and to set an example for the whole country of how we can provide excellent, sustainable healthcare.