Health Bill

Debate between Jen Craft and Graham Stuart

Report stage
Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jen Craft]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Owing to the lack of early intervention for my constituent Elizabeth and her son William, he has missed countless hours and days and weeks of schooling at a critical point in his development.

At a drop-in that I hosted last week, I met a woman called Annika. Her daughter Winnie has cerebral palsy, and her EHCP clearly states that she requires a physiotherapist, but the family have been forced to arrange that for themselves. Countless other families are in the same position. I think that every single Member in this House will have encountered similar constituency cases, and it is just not good enough.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is making a most powerful speech. We will all have experienced the frustration of parents with a child whose EHCP lacks the health element. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that, furthermore, the abolition of Healthwatch might remove one of the few elements that externally and independently marks the homework of the NHS, and that we are moving to a situation in which the NHS itself, and Ministers, will collect the data and mark their own homework, and we will lose yet another of the few tools that a frustrated parent has to hold the system to account?

[Jen Craft]

I agree that there needs to be better accountability in the health service. It currently does not work, and the mechanisms by which we can hold healthcare bodies to account are few and far between. I believe that it is most acutely felt in paediatric care and in the special educational needs and disabilities system, where a mechanism for holding public bodies to account already exists: EHCPs. The idea that the responsibility should fall entirely on local authorities is misguided, because roughly 50% of what a child with an EHCP needs in order to access education is healthcare, which should be provided by a healthcare service. There must be better accountability and transparency for parents, and for their children, when that does not happen. I know that parents often have to go out of their way and spend, on average, £8,500 a year on their child’s healthcare so that they can access education.