Healthcare: North Staffordshire

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell]

As I was saying, I pay tribute to Paula Clark, the chief executive of the trust, and the former chair of the trust, John MacDonald, for the work they have done to bring the trust together, for taking on County Hospital when it was in a precarious position and for providing stability not just to the hospital in my constituency, but to the wider north Staffordshire healthcare economy.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Nationally, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have failed to meet one of their key targets for 18 months. I think in particular of the cancer waiting list. Northern Ireland has a non-functioning Assembly due to Sinn Féin’s intransigence—that is our reason. What does the hon. Gentleman think is the reason in Staffordshire?

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman asks the excellent question of what cause we attribute the situation to. I am hesitant to give an answer that points the finger of blame. One reason why north Staffordshire and Staffordshire as a whole have failed to remedy the problem is that there has been a game of pass the buck in determining who is responsible for not achieving what. That means that nobody has taken responsibility. One issue in Staffordshire is industrial disease, which has caused us not to meet A&E waiting times because people who cannot get the secondary healthcare they want present to A&E with their problems. That means that we have missed both the four-hour and 12-hour A&E targets. Although we have met six of the seven targets on cancer waiting times, we are still short on one.

The hon. Gentleman’s question is pertinent because we have a hospital that already has a deficit and has been challenged to make £60 million of savings this year and a further £70 million in the next two years, and North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent clinical commissioning groups have decided that the best way to help that hospital, when it is struggling to meet those targets, is to fine it an additional £10 million. I do not understand the logic of taking a fine of £10 million from an organisation that is already struggling to deliver the services with the cash that it has.