University Hospital of North Tees Debate
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Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
University Hospital of North Tees
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of University Hospital of North Tees.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I am grateful to the Minister for being here to respond to the debate.
I was born in North Tees hospital. So were tens of thousands of my constituents and many of their children and grandchildren. For nearly 60 years, it has been where Stockton goes when something goes wrong. It is where we are stitched up after an accident, welcome our children into the world and sit beside our parents in their final days. There are very few families in our town whose story does not run through North Tees at some point.
I want to begin by thanking the incredible people who work at North Tees: the doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners and everyone who keeps our hospital going day and night. I have seen for myself their dedication and the challenges they face in a building that makes an already difficult job harder. They deserve decent facilities. Their patients deserve them, too. I have to tell the Minister plainly that the building they work in is running out of time.
When my party was in government, I campaigned for a new diagnostic centre in Stockton. Thousands of residents signed my petition and backed that campaign. Around £25 million was secured, with a further £8.4 million from the community diagnostic fund, to bring scans and tests into the heart of our town. For somebody waiting to find out whether they have cancer, that means answers and that treatment can begin. Alongside that came £3 million for the new mental health hub at Brook House, a new respiratory unit, upgrades to the urgent care centre, and a £4.3 million robotic and emergency maternity theatre, where a woman who needs urgent surgery in labour can now get it next door to the delivery suite. That is what investment can achieve, but we cannot keep bolting 21st-century medicine on to a 1960s frame forever.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, which is not specific to one corner of the mainland; as an example, our South Eastern health and social care trust has to find savings of £50.7 million. Does he acknowledge that the capital and resource crises across our United Kingdom are interconnected and that patient safety should always be paramount? Ensuring the availability of the resources it needs to keep patients safe should be the NHS’s priority at all times.