Future of the NHS

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers]

I have shared concerns about NHS dentistry from my own part of the world, and I am fairly confident that the Minister will fill us in and give a more extensive response.

The NHS carries the weight of our country’s health problems on its shoulders, which is why I am delighted to support the Government’s ongoing commitment to it. The biggest cash boost in the history of the NHS is allowing us to put thousands more doctors and nurses into our hospitals, coupled with major capital investment programmes that have already benefited my local hospitals. I know that the Minister is only too aware of my ongoing campaign to secure more sizeable improvements at the University Hospital of North Tees. That said, I know from my constituency that there remain huge challenges for the NHS and its role in improving the health of the nation.

In 2018, Stockton was labelled England’s “most unequal town” by the BBC. It is a town where people born in one area can be expected to live 18 years fewer than those living just a few miles up the road. Such health inequalities are not acceptable in modern Britain. The NHS rightly looks to prevention as well as cures, and furthering this cause requires not just more resources and improved efficiency, but joined-up co-operation with other agencies, which lies at the heart of the reform agenda.

Putting my experiences and observations aside, the lead petitioner, Mr Hynes, and those from Unite wanted to let me know that they are fundamentally opposed to the Health and Care Bill. As part of their reasoning, petitioners cited concerns about the staffing crisis, overwhelmed human resource departments and the backlog as core reasons for their belief that the Bill should not be brought on to our statute book. Petitioners shared their concerns about staff shortages and worker fatigue in an NHS that already stretches itself to meet the needs of the UK’s ageing population and the exponential growth in the public’s health needs. They talked of how the pandemic has compounded this problem.

Moreover, the pandemic paused elective surgery, leaving the NHS to deal with backlogs and extended waiting lists. The view of the petitioners was that the NHS should be given time to stabilise and respond to those challenges before taking on the challenges of reform. On a more institutional level, Unite said that it fears that this Bill would open the NHS up to deregulation, worsening staff shortages, and create a pay-for-use system akin to America’s.

The petition states that

“The Government has no democratic mandate to privatise the NHS”.

I agree: the Government have no democratic mandate to privatise the NHS, which is why they are doing no such thing. Access to NHS services will continue to be based on clinical need, not an individual’s ability to pay.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having secured this debate. I put to him—this is perhaps a challenge to the Minister and the Government—that we need to be careful with the NHS as it is today. We all love the NHS—we love the workers and we love what it does—but if we are not careful, it could come to a point where if a person does not have the money, they cannot pay for their care. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if that were to happen, the whole principle of the NHS would be knocked on the head?

[Matt Vickers]

This is a debate that we have in every election campaign, and other than the issues around dentistry, which I am sure we will come to, the NHS remains free at the point of use. I will fight the corner to keep it that way, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will do so as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I concur with the comments of others. Like the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), I acknowledge the incredible work of all healthcare workers across all spheres of the health system over the past two years, through the pandemic. The commitment and dedication that they have all demonstrated throughout the public health crisis is of course not unique to the pandemic but is a defining characteristic of all the staff our wonderful national health service produces. Each one of us present is here to say thank you to them from the bottom of our heart.

I commend the NHS staff who have been working hard day in and day out to ensure that their patients are looked after in the same caring way as they are in normal times. It is important that we acknowledge the sacrifices made by the families of nurses and doctors who have been called in at short notice when wards and A&Es have been short-staffed. Many of my constituents do that every day, and have done it almost every day through the crisis. Many do so having only just left a long overnight shift, and many saw very little of their families during those times. We tend to take it for granted that our NHS staff will go above and beyond to serve the public, which should make us even more proud of them. There is an onus on us in this House, and on the Minister and the Government, to ensure that we deliver for our staff for all that they have done.

The NHS is very different in the scope of the services that it delivers from how it was at its inception on 5 July 1948. I am certain that if Florence Nightingale walked its corridors today she would be more than impressed by how far the delivery of medical services has advanced, but she would also see the familiar aspects of local doctors delivering a first-rate service in community hospitals. The building blocks remain unchanged, and as our NHS looks to the future it is vital that the foundations never change. The NHS is central to our society. We do not want it to be Americanised. We all know what that means: that we would have to pay for it, which would be wrong. We have a duty to deliver for the people we represent, without having to gauge whether their wage packet can pay for treatment, or whether their wallet is big enough.

The future of our NHS will be supported by revolutionary technology, just as revolutionary as the first penicillins when they worked what seemed to be miracles. We do not have a crystal ball, but we can be certain that increased funding will be necessary to support the radical adoption of innovative technology, to improve resources and, without question, as the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) said, to pay our NHS workers a wage that reflects the work that they do, have done, and will do in future.

I will conclude, as I am conscious of the three-minute limit, Mr Gray. Today, GPs and hospitals are under severe pressure, which I believe will not ease for the next generation of GPs and NHS workers. In order to ensure that the original building blocks of the NHS that we cherish remain in place, we need, as policy makers, to build firm bridges between now and then. Most importantly, the NHS of the future must have the same ethos of care and compassion at its core in 2050, when we may not be here, as it did at the beginning in 1948, when I was not here either.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady now. I have given way to her before. I will try to make progress, but if there is time I will try to give way to her.

We have seen innovative new ways of working: new teams forged, new technologies adopted and new approaches found to some old problems. There is no greater example of that than the phenomenal success of our vaccine roll-out. That would not have been possible without the staff, who are the golden thread that runs through our NHS. As we look to the future and a post-pandemic world, we know that, as the shadow Minister said, there is no shortage of challenges ahead of us: an ageing population, an increase in people with multiple health conditions and, as he rightly says, the challenge of deep-rooted inequalities in health outcomes and the need to look at the broader context. I do not know the shadow Minister as well as I knew his predecessor, but both his predecessor and I had a career in local government as councillors. I suspect that the shadow Minister may have had one too, so he may well know that I understand his point about the broader context.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I will make a little more progress. If I can, I will then try to give way to hon. Members.

More needs to be done, and we are giving the NHS the support that it needs and has asked for. In addition to our historic settlement for the NHS in 2018, which will see its budget rise by £33.9 billion a year by 2023-24, we have pledged a record £36 billion for investment in the health and care system over the next three years. The funding will ensure that the NHS has the long-term resources that it needs to tackle the covid backlogs and build back better from the pandemic.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Member for Stockton South referred to recruitment within the NHS. What is the Government’s response to that, to ensure that we have the recruitment and the staff in place?

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, there are 1.2 million full-time equivalents in the NHS—a record number of staff. Take one example: our pledge for 50,000 more nurses by the time of the next scheduled general election in 2024. Last year alone, we saw the number of nurses in our NHS increase by 10,900. We have a plan in place, and we are recruiting and training more staff through increased numbers of places—at medical schools, for example.