A&E Services

Henry Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is right to mention those issues, which I will come to later. I pay tribute to him for doing so.

The reason for those pressures on A&E, in addition to the issues that my hon. Friend raises, is the sharp increase in people attending A&E since 2010. In the past the Secretary of State has tried to claim that the increase is the fault of the previous Labour Government, but that is patently nonsense. Annual attendances at hospital accident and emergency units increased by 60,000 in the four years before 2010, whereas in the four years after they increased by nearly 600,000—10 times faster. The reality is that A&E dramatically improved between 2004 and 2010, when 98% of patients were seen within four hours. This is a crisis that only started on the Tories’ watch—after they made it harder to see a GP, after they started stripping back social care services and after they launched their damaging top-down reorganisation.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that the closure of A&E at Crawley hospital in 2005, under a Labour Government, was distinctly unhelpful to A&E waiting times?

[Mr Reed]

The hon. Gentleman has made that point on the Floor of the House on many occasions, and he has been a constant voice with regard to the hospital services used by his constituents. That was a decision made by clinicians in the area, and he will recognise that. He will recognise also how much the framework has changed and how much more difficult the Government have made it for communities such as his to have their say on health reconfiguration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes the case. What is happening in Stoke, I regret to say, appears to be something of a canary in a coal mine for the NHS around the country, and its issues will increasingly be seen in areas all over the country.

It is clear that the GP workforce crisis is a major driver of the problems. The number of full-time equivalent GPs per head has fallen over the past five years, even as demand has increased.

[Henry Smith]

rose—

[Mr Reed]

I have been generous with time, so I must press on.

In 2013, the Government announced a call to action to improve general practice access and experience for patients. They set out six key indicators to rate the quality of access and experience for patients. One year later, every single indicator had shown a deterioration in performance. Fewer people described the overall experience of their surgery as good and fewer people were able to get an appointment. The Government must address that finding. Only by addressing the crisis in general practice in addition to social care can the Government begin to relieve the pressures on A&E departments.

When the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister discuss the NHS in this House, they like to use words such as “openness” and “transparency”. Sadly, their actions betray that sentiment on a routine basis. I refer again to Professor Keogh’s seminal letter to the Secretary of State two years ago in which he refers to the use and principle of transparency in the NHS as representing

“a turning point for our health service from which there is no return.”

Except that, for this Government, it seems that there is a return.

Currently, NHS England publishes the performance measures for each A&E in England every week. Those figures contain a wealth of information for each trust and it makes that data available to the public. The data show how each A&E department is performing across a range of measures, and it can be used to target specific interventions at trusts that are struggling. This reporting time period also means that issues can be identified quickly and resolved promptly. Rather than taking action to ensure that hospitals in England meet this target, the Government are seeking to hide the performance data. We will not be able to see how A&Es are performing each week; we will have to wait until the end of each month. By publishing a significant number of performance measures from across the NHS on the same day, the Government appear to have found an innovative way of burying bad news—publishing even worse news at the same time. Patients deserve better than that. Clearly, Ministers find it more palatable to be reminded of their failings just once a month, rather than at the end of each week. This move is designed to make the red box lighter and the scathing headlines kinder. Will people not conclude that the monthly publication of A&E data—unlike other monthly data sets—has nothing to do with patient care and everything to do with political and media management?

--- Later in debate ---

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I join other hon. Members in welcoming you to the Chair? This is the first time I have spoken with you in your place, and it is very good to see you there. May I also extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) on her maiden speech? Like other hon. Members, I thank sincerely the people who work in our NHS and perform such an important task on behalf of the nation’s health.

When the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), introduced the debate, I intervened and mentioned the fact that, in 2005, under a Labour Government—the decision was made in the then Labour Department of Health—Crawley hospital lost its accident and emergency unit. In the six decades of Crawley new town’s history, that will prove to be the worst possible mistake. The people of Crawley, which is the natural population centre of the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust area, had to travel up to 10 miles up the road, on single carriageway highways, to access East Surrey hospital. The result has been at best inconvenience and at worst dangerous situations for many patients trying to reach the hospital. The South East Coast Ambulance Service does sterling work, but it has been a great challenge.

I am pleased that, in the past five years, hospital services have returned to Crawley hospital. We have an urgent treatment centre that is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We are about to have new GP primary access at the Crawley hospital site in West Green, and I was delighted a few years ago to open the new digital mammography unit. We have increased beds and staff at Crawley hospital, and I was pleased to open a new MRI scanner earlier this year.

None of that would have been possible without the previous Government’s commitment to increase funding on the NHS. Through the Health and Social Care Act 2012, they ensured that many more decisions are made locally by the Crawley clinical commissioning group, which means that local doctors and clinicians have far greater influence to meet the needs of my population and my constituents in Crawley. It was a very welcome development.

I support the Government’s commitment to invest further in the NHS and to increase its funding, and their commitment to ensure that GP services are extended, not only for patients’ convenience, but to ensure that, as far as possible, we divert those unnecessary attendances at the urgent treatment centre at Crawley hospital and A&E at East Surrey hospital. That initiative will have a significant impact on reducing the pressure on A&E.

In addition, I support and welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that social care plays an important part, so that people who should not be detained in hospital any longer, not only for their own health needs but for the health of the healthcare system, are moved into appropriate care settings. That will mean more capacity for A&E.

Finally, on the future of healthcare in the Crawley area, my constituency contains Gatwick airport. Next week, we will hear the results of the Airports Commission into runway expansion. If Gatwick is the commission’s choice, an awful lot of infrastructure investment will need to be placed into the area, not only for transport such as rail and roads but for healthcare. Should Gatwick airport be the Government’s final decision—for the reasons of infrastructure pressure, I do not believe Gatwick is the appropriate location—an absolute necessity would be a new acute hospital with full A&E.

I welcome what the Government have done to support our national health service and their commitment in this Parliament, and I look forward to playing my part in ensuring that the needs of our patients and the needs of our NHS remain a central priority.