Health and Care Bill

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Roger Gale

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. He was an excellent cancer Minister. In our time, the biggest pressure was funding, but now people say that the biggest pressure is workforce. It is devastating for morale to refuse to address this issue at a time such as this. Any Government who care about the long-term future of the NHS have an absolute responsibility to make sure that we are training enough doctors and nurses for the future. Any Government who care about value for money for taxpayers should welcome a measure that will help us control a locum and agency budget that has got massively out of control. That is why opposing Lords amendment 29 makes no sense either for the Department of Health and Social Care or for the Treasury. This is why it is supported by more than 100 health organisations; every royal college and every health think tank; people in all parts of this House; many peers in the other place, including Lord Stevens, who used to run the NHS; and—this is the point I wish to conclude with—by thousands of thousands of doctors and nurses on the frontline.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

Is it not the case that what my right hon. Friend is proposing is custom and practice in very many developed countries already?

[Jeremy Hunt]

It is absolutely the case. We need something like this because, as I know—I will do my self-reflection now—when a Health Secretary negotiates a spending settlement with the Chancellor, the number of doctors they are going to have in 10 or 15 years’ time is quite low down their list of priorities because they are thinking about immediate pressures. So we need something that deals with that market failure. I did set up five new medical schools and was proud to do so, but I do not know whether that was enough. That is why we need something to make sure that we never have to worry, whoever the Government and the Health Secretary are, that this fundamental thing that is vital for the future of the NHS for all of us is always properly looked after.

Let me conclude by remembering what we were discussing this morning in the Ockenden review. We talked about the agonies faced by families. We did not talk enough about the agonies faced by doctors, midwives and nurses who find themselves responsible for the death of a child—it is psychologically incredibly devastating for them. We need to be able to look them in the eye and say, “The No. 1 thing in the Ockenden review that came out was that staffing shortfalls can make a difference. We understand that.” They know and we know that there is no silver bullet; this cannot be solved overnight. It takes seven years to train a doctor, 10 years to train a GP and three or four years to train a nurse or a midwife. No one is expecting a solution tomorrow, but we do at least have a responsibility to look each and every one of those people, who worked so hard for us in the pandemic, in the eye and say, “We do not have a solution right away but we really and truly are training enough for the future.”