NHS Winter Pressures

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

As befits the leader of his own county council, my hon. Friend rightly recognises the importance of the integration of health and care. I have pointed to examples where that is already being done extremely effectively in an integrated way. As I recognised in my remarks, the medical director of NHS England has said that helping people to leave hospital with the right support when they are ready to do so is not just clinically the best option for those individuals, but one of the safest options for expanding capacity for everyone who needs care. It is the right thing to do clinically, but his point—one that we are extremely focused on—is about how we then ensure that wraparound service for patients who are released into residential care so that they can move into domiciliary care.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I know that the Secretary of State appreciates that the winter pressures are only exacerbated by the looming strikes. I joined the picket line at Newtownards hospital back in early December. Just before Christmas, I had the opportunity to meet Pat Cullen, the leader of the nurses’ union at St Thomas’s Hospital, just across Westminster bridge, as the protest was ongoing, and we heard in the news that she referred to a glimmer of hope over today’s talks between the Government and nurses. Does the Secretary of State believe that there can be real engagement with not only nurses and midwives, but junior doctors, who are also threatening strikes? Does he agree that it is about not just a pay increase, but an increase in the numbers of staff to secure safety and accountability on shifts in hospitals tonight and every night from today on?

[Steve Barclay]

I agree that a combination of pay and wider conditions have an impact on recruitment and retention. That is why we have been keen to engage constructively with the trade unions; we had a good discussion earlier today. We recognise that there is a range of factors. To take the example of paramedics, the feedback from my discussions with a number of paramedics was that their frustration about handover times and the delays that they were experiencing was more important to them than pay. It is important to have discussions through the independent pay review bodies about pay, what is affordable and what is the right balance, but a range of non-pay factors are also extremely important to staff.