Hospital Provision: Tees Valley

Debate between Jill Mortimer and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered hospital provision in the Tees Valley.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I start by thanking all the hard-working staff of the three main hospitals in the Tees Valley: the University Hospital of North Tees, the University Hospital of Hartlepool and the James Cook University Hospital, south of the Tees. They include my son, who I am proud to say is a student nurse at one of those hospitals.

While we have had some welcome new additions to provision in the Tees Valley, for example the new diagnostic and mental health care hubs in Stockton, in the light of the state of disrepair at the North Tees hospital, we are still in need of improved hospital facilities. The trust and the wider Tees Valley are experiencing severe challenges around current estate capacity, which is not suitable for the needs of the population it will serve over the next 10 to 20 years. For example, a significant volume of elective surgical procedures are performed within the private sector because of a shortage of resources within our NHS trust.

It is my contention that the University Hospital of Hartlepool could fill that provision gap, and that it is underutilised in providing services to the people of the Tees Valley. Not only can it play a greater part in delivering these services, but it can take some of the pressure off the other hospitals, which are undergoing renovations. It can do both those things with a relatively small amount of investment.

It should be pointed out that, in its heyday, Hartlepool hospital served not only the people of Hartlepool, but all the communities north of the Tees. Its position in the north of the trust’s geographical area meant that it also provided vital health services to the mining villages to the north and west, in County Durham, which saw Hartlepool hospital as their local hospital, too. It has provided much-needed healthcare to all those communities since it was founded in the late 19th century. The hospital’s generous 28-acre site has a lot of potential, with a significant amount of cleared land that we should use to build more services for the people of Hartlepool, of the Tees Valley to the south and of the ex-mining communities to the north.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my next-door neighbour for giving way. I congratulate her on securing the debate and her son on his role in the NHS. Does she remember that it was her Government who cancelled our new hospital 13 years ago without a plan for future health delivery? Recently, the Health Minister, who is in his place, wrote to the Labour candidate for Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash, turning down the funding for a centre of excellence in the town despite cross-party support, including from the Conservatives in Hartlepool. Does she have any thoughts about how we might change the Minister’s mind and deliver for Hartlepool and wider Teesside?

[Jill Mortimer]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has brought that up, because he has mentioned two things that I want to address. I will talk about the new super-hospital later in my speech. I think we dodged a bullet there, because it would have created another private finance initiative like the unsustainable one at James Cook University Hospital.

[Alex Cunningham]

It was not a PFI.

[Jill Mortimer]

It was. The other thing I want to say is that this is an extremely good example of Labour putting politics above the people of Hartlepool. The Labour candidate in Hartlepool, the councillor Jonathan Brash, has had no interest in the hospital. He has had no interest in anything in Hartlepool for a long time. However, every time it looks like I am going to succeed in bringing something forward for the people of Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash is there, ready to have a photo opportunity or write a magic letter to try and take the credit. I am grateful to hon. Gentleman for raising that so I can clarify the situation.

Some may wonder why there is a need to invest in new services. If the hospital had been properly loved and maintained, there would be no need to do so. Sadly, Hartlepool has not been championed by my predecessors —the Labour MPs who went before me—resulting in a significantly lower amount of investment compared with surrounding regions. The Labour centralisation policy of the mid-2000s meant that it became Labour party policy to close down Hartlepool hospital. Indeed, the candidate who stood against me in the by-election, Dr Paul Williams, co-authored the report that recommended that critical care and other services be taken away from the hospital and moved elsewhere. As I have said, there was Labour talk of a new super-hospital, to be funded by one of Labour’s public-private finance initiatives, and we have seen the issues that have arisen from that at James Cook—a prime example of the huge amount of money that the schemes now leech from our NHS.

[Jill Mortimer]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, less than a year’s-worth of the £1 million a week that goes into propping up James Cook’s PFI deal—£40 million—would be enough to upgrade and put in the services that we want Hartlepool.

Sadly, my constituents got caught in the political crossfire and were left with a shell of a hospital at Hartlepool and faced with long journeys to North Tees and James Cook for many hospital services. When the accident and emergency unit was closed down in 2011, local opposition was so strong that roughly a third of the population of Hartlepool signed a petition organised by the “save our hospital” campaign. It was incredible—there were more than 30,000 signatures, and there were marches through the town.

I was elected in 2021 on a promise of bringing positive change. That includes bringing education, skills, jobs and prosperity to the town, but there was also an overriding call on the doorsteps for the return of services to our much-loved Hartlepool hospital. I set about trying to find a solution for this long-standing and ignored issue. I have therefore been working directly alongside North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and its excellent chief executive, Julie Gillon, for in excess of 18 months. During that time, I have built a strong working relationship with Julie. Sadly, she has recently announced her decision to retire from her role and pursue other things, but she intends to dedicate the next six months to championing our proposals for Hartlepool. She will be a sad loss to health provision in the Tees Valley, and I will be one of many who will miss her. She is a competent leader and a good, strong woman—the sort we excel at in the north-east.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jill Mortimer]

I need to make some progress.

The first plan that Julie and I favoured was an upgrade and return of services to Hartlepool, new diagnostic hubs in Hartlepool and Stockton, and a new hospital closer to the A19 in Hartlepool, which would be the major trauma centre. This was a bold new model. It would allow people to access diagnostic and out-patient facilities very locally and to travel to the true central point of all the communities in the Tees Valley for major procedures in a state-of-the-art new facility. Sadly, with the huge pull on public funds created by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living, it has become clear that that project will not be possible in the near future.

Undeterred, Julie and I returned to the drawing board with a plan to upgrade Hartlepool further and maximise the return of services to that site. I mentioned that there is not enough capacity for the significant volume of elective surgical procedures in Tees Valley NHS sites. The upgrade at Hartlepool, with a proposed 40% increase in operating theatres, would address that lack of resources and increase capacity to perform those elective procedures in a new centre of excellence. That would be alongside a new, much-needed primary care hub and a community hub, which would enable patients to be fully rehabilitated before being discharged. That would free up hospital beds on wards.

I also point out to the Minister that, like most things that I inherited in my constituency, hospital services had not been championed by predecessor Labour MPs for too long.

Middlesbrough Development Corporation

Debate between Jill Mortimer and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andy McDonald]

Let us deal with all the rest of them; I am just about to do that very thing.

I was talking about a conflict of interest that the Mayor of Middlesbrough now has. The geographical boundary of the MDC takes in an area called Middlehaven and vast swathes of the town centre, and it includes an area of the town where Mr Preston owns or has owned property. According to the latest Tees Valley Combined Authority register of members’ interests, Mr Preston owns vast swathes of land and properties on both banks of the River Tees—well over 50 properties in total. Clearly, the decisions that the MDC board makes could have a direct bearing on any increase in value of any such interests, and they could potentially directly and financially benefit him.

In local government and in all public institutions, the greatest of care has to be taken regarding such potentially conflicting pecuniary interests. That is why Mr Preston was advised not to attend a vote at the crucial meeting. There is an obvious conflict of interest, and the question arises: if he cannot vote on the creation of such a corporation, how can he possibly lead on a letter to countermand that very vote and then serve on the board? It is utterly farcical; it is almost as though we have gone back to living in medieval times, with wealthy feudal landlords controlling political power over their lowly subjects without any proper democratic processes of accountability.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend clearly shares my concerns about how development corporations are being managed on Teesside, with joint ventures being created and then used as vehicles to transfer hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of public assets to private companies, and all behind doors and in secret. Does he fear, as I do, that the new Middlesbrough and Hartlepool development corporations could see more of the same—deals made in private to transfer public assets to private companies?

[Jill Mortimer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Fire Services: North-east England

Debate between Jill Mortimer and Alex Cunningham

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on bringing forward this important debate.

Hartlepool is in the Cleveland Fire Authority area, which has already been mentioned. I met recently with representatives of the CFA, including chief fire officer Ian Hayton, to discuss some of the challenges that are unique to our area. I will illustrate some of those to give the Minister some context. We have a high hazard area, as we have already heard. We have an industrial cluster spanning two sides of a large river, with few crossings. We have 15 power stations, one of which is nuclear. We also have a large number of urban conurbations spread over a wide geographical area—again, split by the large river—including areas of severe deprivation.

That deprivation causes issues with arson, as we have already heard. In Cleveland, we have 10 times the national average of deliberate property fires. They are used as a weapon by drug dealers, money lenders and so forth. That creates a huge strain on our resources in Cleveland. Despite all that, my firefighters have a fabulous record, and I have admiration for them all. They still consistently manage the seven-minute response time for house fires, despite the number of full-time firefighters having fallen by 33%. However, as we have already heard, they are severely hampered by disproportionate funding compared with other fire and rescue authorities. It is unclear how long that will be sustainable with inflationary pressures.

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank the hon. Member and my next-door neighbour for giving way. She will have had the same letter as me from Ian Hayton and the chair of the Cleveland Fire Authority, which tells us that there were 494 full-time firefighters in 2010. There are now 330—a cut of 33%. The chief fire officer and the chair are saying that they cannot keep people safe if they do not get more money through a different formula. Does the hon. Member agree that the Minister needs to make change?

[Jill Mortimer]

Yes, I believe that change must be made, but after my discussions with Ian and his team—I have met them on a couple of occasions now—I do not believe it is all doom and gloom. They do have solutions. This is not just about cuts and funding. We have to accept that money is tight and scarce in this country. We have just gone through a global pandemic and we are fighting a war. It is all our money; there is only so much of it, and it has to be shared appropriately.

The people who know most about this are those in the fire service themselves. They are the people I spoke with. I am not going to stand here and say that I am an expert on how to fund a fire service; they know where to make positive changes, and where to find answers and solutions to the problems. Will the Minister meet me, along with colleagues from the Cleveland Fire Authority area and representatives of the authority, so that she can have the conversations that I have had with them and discuss their ideas, and we can plan positive ways to secure a safe way forward not just for the people of Hartlepool, but for everyone in the Cleveland Fire Authority area?