NHS Winter Crisis

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Peter Kyle

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

If I may make a little progress, because I have been generous, I will then try to take more interventions. I am conscious, however, that this is only a half-day debate.

The consequences of this crisis are not only for those in urgent need, but for everyone using the NHS. Let us be clear that this panic cancelling of elective operations means that patients will suffer. Not only will patients suffer longer waits for operations while in pain and distress, but they will wait for appointments with the uncertainty of not knowing what is wrong with them, and the knock-on effects on NHS services and the wider society are huge. Already, patients are facing a waiting times crisis with 4 million on the waiting list.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Let me make a bit of progress.

A lost month will mean that thousands of patients across the country are stuck with their lives on hold. To call this “routine care” misses the fact that these are big issues for the individual patients affected. The young man awaiting heart valve surgery, who will have arranged time off work and for his family to be around to care for him, now has to cancel it all and does not know when his operation will happen. He also runs the risk of a deterioration in his heart function, which could lead to further hospitalisation in an emergency, adding to the pressures on our emergency services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the system is in such a state because of years of sustained underfunding. His answer would be a cross-party commission, a sort of royal commission, and I have huge respect for his contributions to these debates, but let us be clear that for eight years the NHS has not been getting the level of funding it should be getting in historical terms.

[Peter Kyle]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Down in Sussex, patient transport was privatised and given to a company called Coperforma. Seven months after the contract was awarded, the company was stripped of it for its appalling practices and for completely underperforming in every way, shape and form. It now transpires that Coperforma has been given more money for seven months than it would have received if it had performed properly for a full year. Is that not indicative of the way in which the NHS is being run?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I appeal for brief interventions? I would just point out to the House that no fewer than 38 Back Benchers wish to speak, and even if the debate is allowed to run on beyond 4 o’clock, which is in the hands of the usual channels, probably half of them will not be able to do so. I say now that they will just have to sit, wait and hope—I am not publishing a list; we do not do so—but long interventions do not help.