Rare Cancers Bill

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I rise to speak about a Bill that will increase research funding focused on more effective treatments for rarer forms of cancer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for introducing the Bill.

Like many in this House, I rise today because I have lost a family member to a rare cancer, and I also rise as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee. In the last Parliament, the Committee conducted a Future Cancer inquiry, which recommended that

“the UK should be leading on driving up international action to tackle the poor outcomes for the least survivable and least common cancers. “

This Bill will do that—but, as I say, my reason for speaking in this debate is much more personal. On 20 January this year, my brother Alex English passed away from high-grade acinic cell carcinoma, a form of salivary gland cancer. I tell his story to highlight what we can win, because this Bill can give families the gift of more time with the special people they love.

Increasingly, more common cancers are treatable or are illnesses that people can live with, but on rare cancers we still have a way to go, and without focus we will not get any further. There are more than 700 diagnoses of various forms of salivary gland cancer each year, but my search for related terms in Hansard finds only two mentions in this Chamber in the past 30 years—my hon. Friend has just made the third. One of those mentions was from me, following my brother’s death. That is why we need more focus.

In evidence to that Select Committee inquiry, Cancer52 noted that, while they represent 47% of diagnoses of less common cancers, rare cancers account for 55% of deaths. Members across this House have our own cancer journeys—ourselves, our friends or our loved ones—and I want to talk about my brother’s journey. Not all cancer journeys have the outcome that we want, and even with this Bill we will still lose some people, but more investment into research for rare cancers can give us something crucial: time. I would do anything for more time with my brother.

If you will indulge me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk for a minute about the person who Alex was.  The most important thing about Alex was not how he died; it was how he lived and the mark he left on the world. He fit a lot into 53 years. A lot of us think that our elder siblings are rock stars, but in my brother’s case that was literally true. The band he joined at university, called Pure, toured with bands like Soundgarden and reached the top 10 in Japan.

I have always been tremendously proud to call him my brother. I was proud of the horse-drawn narrowboat company he ran in Hebden Bridge, which forms part of many people’s happy childhood memories, and of his subsequent time at the National Trust, where he helped properties to become profitable, worked to restore nature and worked with local authorities. His last major project was creating woodlands near Lunt, in Liverpool. But most of all, I was proud of the person he was. He was always funny—he had a surreal wit. He was unfailingly kind and the sort of non-toxic model of masculinity that the world needs more of. I remember the humour and love in the best man’s speech he gave for me, and I will never not be sorry that I have written eulogies for my brother but never a best man’s speech.

While preparing for Christmas in 2023, I got a call from Alex and he asked if I had a minute to talk, which was unlike him, because he would not generally be over-serious. He said he had a lump on the side of his face that was, in his words, unsightly but not overly concerning. It might have been cancer, but there are a number of other things that it could have been, and if it was cancer, it was likely to be a very treatable form. He instructed me to be aware of it but not make a big deal of it, because, typically, he did not want to worry our mum. Later, it transpired that it was acinic cell carcinoma, but the prognosis was good and they were going to operate. The cancer continued to grow. His operation took 14 hours. The thing about Alex’s tumour is that the version of the illness he had was high grade, which meant that it mutated faster. It is something that has only been identified in about 100 cases, and which no doubt could have been identified earlier had we known more about cancers like his.

Last spring, in my mum’s garden, during a hushed conversation with a different family member to the side, they told me that Alex might only have 18 months to live. I hugged my two-year-old son, who was playing in the garden unaware, because I was trying not to make a big deal of it—but sometimes you need to hug someone. Every update got worse, until I took a day off during the election campaign to visit him at the Christie hospital because his lung had collapsed.

Then, because it is never a straight line, his health improved. He got to sit up there in the Gallery to watch my maiden speech in Parliament. We went to a Pixies concert together at the Piece Hall in Halifax. Then he got worse, Madam Deputy Speaker, and on Christmas Eve last year he was hospitalised again. When he returned home, we knew he was coming home to die. I cannot say enough about his wonderful friends, particularly Matt and Sarah, and my incredible family, who cared for him at the end. All of us would have spent more time at his bedside if we could, because time with people you love is a privilege.

That is what this Bill is about: giving people more time with those they love, perhaps even a full lifetime together. In cases where the cancer is worse and it cannot be treated or cured, it is about giving people more time, better health and an understanding of the journey that they are on. It is about giving people more special moments, be it a Pixies concert or reading a story to a child—Alex read the best stories—and time to organise what you leave behind. People who develop cancers that are rare still matter, and they still deserve more time. The work to help people like Alex in the future must start today.

The Government have a renewed emphasis on tackling rare cancers, in memory of the sister of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) and of Tessa Jowell, and for countless other campaigners, including those in the Gallery. What we need is focus and determination to respond quickly. I thank the House for indulging me today. Let us be that world leader that is so desperately needed in tackling rare cancers. Let us give families special time with those they love the most. Let us pass this Bill.

NHS England Update

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that thoughtful question. Let me say two things to him. First, democratic accountability matters, both in terms of patient outcomes and value for taxpayers’ money. One of the things that I, my Labour and many of my Conservative predecessors have reflected on a lot over many years is what the role of the Secretary of State, and Government, is in a national health service where clinical decisions should always be clinically led. It is the Secretary of State’s responsibility to be the champion for patients and for taxpayers and to ensure that the system as a whole delivers better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers.

The argument that I have started, however, which has ruffled some feathers within the NHS and even more so with some of our country’s most loved charities in recent months, is the fallacy that the Secretary of State can or should just fire endless instructions into the system, as if a Secretary of State or, for that matter, an NHS England could just pull some big levers and drive change in such a vast and complex system. That is a falsehood. Of course, we should set national strategic priorities on behalf of the public. We should ensure that there is more transparency and information so that patients, communities and staff can hold the system and themselves to account to improve performance. However, the overcentralisation has to stop.

In future, it will be for the Department and the NHS nationally to do the things that only the national health service can do, providing the enablers for the system as a whole. What we are presiding over and embarking on, however, is the biggest decentralisation of power in the history of our national health service. That will put more power into the hands of frontline leaders and clinicians, but even more fundamental and transformational, more power into the hands of patients. If we get that right, we will have an NHS that can truly be the envy of the world. If people continue to indulge in the fallacy that more targets from the centre or more—or indeed, less—political control is the answer, we will fail.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the CQC. It has got itself into a terrible mess and I know that that is not what he intended when he rightly made the decision to create the Care Quality Commission. That is why Sir Julian Hartley knows that he has our full support, not just in turning around the CQC as it is, but in reforming it so that it can be the best guarantee and safeguard of quality that patients and the public deserve. Dr Penny Dash’s forthcoming review findings will also help to drive that reform agenda at pace.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for making the statement today. I want to echo the thoughts of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) that it would be helpful to see him in front of the Select Committee to outline his vision for NHS England. Will he tell us today how the new structure of the NHS will help us deliver truly excellent social care and also primary care, and what drivers he can use to make that happen?

[Wes Streeting]

It always worries me when my hon. Friend says he wants to see me in front of the Select Committee because he does not pull his punches, despite being on the Government side of the House. Let me reassure him that on primary care, I hope that we are beginning to turn what I think has been a deep anger, frustration and anxiety among primary care leaders about the state of the system as it is and a pessimism about its future into increasing amounts of quiet optimism and hope. I think GPs can see we are walking the talk, with the biggest funding uplift in a generation and the fact that we have worked constructively with GP leaders to reform the contract and agree that further, more radical reform is needed together. We will be embarking on that under the auspices of the 10-year plan. As well as delivering that significant achievement with GPs, the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock), is also in the very final stages of work with pharmacists to stabilise the community pharmacy sector, which is vital for the NHS’s future as a neighbourhood service.

May I also reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) that under the auspices of the 10-year plan for health, notwithstanding Baroness Casey’s work on the long-term future of social care, we have an eye on social care and the relationship between health and social care? People will not, therefore, be waiting until next year for the first Casey report or, indeed, later for the final Casey report on the longer term to see action from this Government on social care, particularly as it relates to the NHS.

Department of Health and Social Care

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be called to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. When we talk about the NHS, we can argue either about specific investments or about general principles, and like many colleagues, I have received a great amount of correspondence highlighting no end of specific areas where investment is needed. I could also speak about the need to invest in urgent treatment centres in Todmorden, or to celebrate the work of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS foundation trust—two things that I continue to raise with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. However, as I have the privilege, along with others, of sitting on the Health and Social Care Committee, I want to talk in more broad terms about some of the problems facing our health and social care system, and about how the proposed shifts in the NHS need a reprioritisation of resources.

I will focus on what I argue is the most important of those shifts—the so-called left shift of care from hospitals to the community. The hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) outlined the need for that well—even if to hear him speak one might think that it had come from on high, and not as the result of 15 years of the previous Government. One in 10 people are stuck on waiting lists in a healthcare system that is becoming increasingly hospital-centric, and those lists will only grow if we continue on the same course. There is no solution to our crisis in emergency medicine without the left shift of solving problems earlier and closer to home.

Of course we need hospitals and to invest in them, but they should be where people go with acute and complex cases, not where they go for want of working services elsewhere. Despite the need to shift to community care being obvious to just about everyone, one of the most glaring revelations of the Darzi report was how poorly successive Governments have gone about achieving that. Meanwhile, we are not training or retaining enough GPs—that is where the renegotiation of the contracts is important.

In Calder Valley, the retention crisis has meant that Bankfield and Church Lane surgeries, Northolme practice, and Rastrick health centre all have a ratio of patients to fully qualified GPs that is far higher than the local, regional and national averages—averages that simply do not meet what is needed from our health service. More than a decade after the Dilnot report, social care remains the forgotten service—the Cinderella service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) artfully called it. With 1.4 million social care staff, our care system is the same size as the NHS workforce, but it receives nothing like the support or understanding of other areas of our health system. The consequence is that our Committee, week after week, hears about delayed discharge, with 20% of beds in my local hospital taken up by people who should be treated at home or closer to home. Meanwhile, carers are missing their appointments because they are delivering care to loved ones, and they end up with worse illnesses, adding to the strain on the NHS.

In less than a year, this Government have ended the industrial action in our NHS and delivered 2 million additional appointments, and they are now setting up a new deal with GPs. However, that cannot be the extent of our actions. The 10-year plan cannot continue down the same road that the last Government took us on, of trying to fix a crisis in the NHS by putting more money into hospitals and nothing else, because that tackles the symptoms but not the causes of the problem.

Therefore, when setting out the estimates, I urge the Minister to be mindful of the shifts we need to ensure that funding not only increases, but increases with a focus on community and social care. That is what we need for a sustainable system that will protect the rest of our health service in future, because a sustainable system is the only way to deliver better healthcare and better social care for people across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

May I take this opportunity to thank the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for his work, as well as other Members who I sit on the Committee with?

The financial sustainability of our national health service will have an impact on patients now and in future. Given that such a huge amount of money is spent by the Government, it is imperative that they focus on value for money for the taxpayer so that, at a time when demand is going up but resources are limited, we can deliver the very best health service that the British people deserve and that my constituents in Barking can rely on.

For too long the Department and NHS England have taken a short-term approach to budgeting, relying on reallocating capital budgets to cover revenue shortfalls. Between 2014 and 2019, more than £4 billion was raided from the Department’s capital budgets to fund day-to-day spending. As a former council leader, that approach has always been curious to me, given that, as others have mentioned, local authorities are not permitted to have the same approach. Equally, councils are legally obliged to set annual balanced budgets, and even when they overspend because of demand-led statutory services, they cannot set deficit budgets.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Another issue my hon. Friend may wish to reflect on is that the council tax base differs from place to place, so councils are even more disadvantaged than the NHS on funding.

[Nesil Caliskan]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, because health inequalities are determined by a multitude of factors and the work that local authorities do on public health is crucial too.

Compare the point I made about local authorities not being able to set deficit budgets with the situation in the NHS, where every year winter pressures mean that our NHS is at crumbling point and that despite the money poured in, the NHS overspends. Last year, that overspend was £1.4 billion, more than double the previous year. Those issues have not emerged in a silo; they are a result of years of mismanagement and failed leadership by former Ministers and by a Government who decided to allow the chaos of one year budget setting, hindering health leaders from being able to effectively plan for the future.

A lack of political commitment, coupled with a refusal to invest in the future, has led to awful consequences for patients. On the NHS estate, the National Audit Office report shows that since 2019, over 5,000 appointments, surgeries and other clinical incidences have had to be cancelled because of issues in buildings. That is absolutely shocking, so I take on board the points made by Members from across the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Bool]

I concur that I have not seen anything, which is why today’s debate is so important. My GPs tell me that more attention needs to be given to GP practices: they are the praetorian guard who can ultimately protect the NHS. Access to timely appointments is crucial, as is rebuilding the key relationship and contact between a GP and their patient.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Under the last Government, 20% of NHS doctors were thinking about moving overseas. Does the hon. Lady agree that solving GP contracts is a first step towards keeping GPs working in this country?

[Sarah Bool]

I want to encourage all our GPs to remain in the UK, giving back, so I am always fully supportive of anything we can do about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Johnson]

One of the key things about the Government’s deal is that they have given in on money without asking for anything in return in terms of productivity. The Government needed to agree a pay deal that was sensible and affordable, not talk about the money that they are giving to the NHS while taking away with the other hand in taxes.

Let us hear what some healthcare providers have had to say about the implications of Labour’s NICs rises for their constituents’ healthcare. The Royal College of General Practitioners has warned that the NICs increase will force GP practices to choose between redundancies and closure. The hospice sector believes that the cost of national insurance rises could be £30 million a year. The Government have given that sector a capital grant worth £100 million, which is welcome and will improve facilities; however, if those facilities are empty and cannot be staffed, they will not deliver much in the way of improvement. Air ambulances are also under threat from the Chancellor’s rise in national insurance and taxes in last year’s autumn Budget, with the local service in my constituency, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire air ambulance—which is entirely charitably funded—needing to find another £70,000 just to pay for those national insurance rises.

The Independent Pharmacies Association estimates that the rises in employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage will cost the average pharmacy over £12,000 a year, totalling more than £125 million for the sector as a whole. Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, has warned that

“Pharmacies face a financial cliff edge at the beginning of April, with a triple whammy of rising National Insurance, National Living Wage, and business rates all arriving at once.”

What impact will this have on our constituents’ health? The Government talk a good talk about bringing healthcare closer to the community, but actions speak louder than words, and putting extra pressure on community-delivered services is not a good way of delivering their aims.

The Nuffield Trust suggests that the national insurance rise alone will add a £900 million burden to the adult social care sector. With other new costs factored in, the care sector is believed to be facing a bill of an additional £2.8 billion, dwarfing the £600 million extra allocated to the local authorities responsible for providing social care. This will have a devastating knock-on effect: the amount of care that can be bought by local authorities will fall, the cost of private care will rise—so more people will be reliant on the state, rather than the private sector—and the waiting lists that the Government claim to prioritise will also rise. The Nuffield Trust warns that many small care providers will either have to increase prices, stop accepting council-funded patients, or go bust.

That will have a knock-on effect on the hospital sector, as people are unable to be discharged because there is not adequate social care for them. The Government talk about creating a new national care service, but they have managed to damage the existing one by hiking the costs borne by care homes through national insurance rises and other tax and wage increases.

In January, the Government announced a deal with private hospitals in an attempt to cut waiting lists. The deal, which sounded good to start with, would see private hospitals being paid for each patient that they treated, incentivising them to treat as many people as possible. However, The Times reported that NHS England has recently capped the amount that each hospital can be paid. The chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network has warned that the policy will actually lengthen waiting times. Will the Minister comment on that?

The Minister is focused on prevention, but when the Government announced that they would be cutting the overseas development aid budget by 40%, the Prime Minister said that the UK would continue to play a key humanitarian role on a range of issues, including global health and challenges such as vaccination. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister on whether the global health budget will be cut, or whether the cuts will be made from other aspects of the ODA budget.

Workforce is the key asset of the NHS, yet sickness levels are running at around 5.5%, which is a considerable cost to Government and drag on productivity. They vary considerably across trusts and professions, with consistently less than 2% of consultants off sick, but almost 8% of ambulance support staff. If those rates could be reduced, it would lead to improved productivity and patients being treated much faster. What is the Minister doing to look at that? Perhaps she will have another one of her reviews.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The hon. Member has frequently been quick to criticise NHS pay rises. Will there be more or fewer sickness absences in the ambulance service if its staff are better paid?

[Dr Johnson]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that whether someone becomes ill is entirely dependent on whether they get another 2% in their pay packet? I am not sure that it is.

The Government promised a great deal when they came into power last July. Since then, they have handed out inflation-busting pay rises, raised costs and abandoned election pledges. At the centre of the Government’s approach is a classic socialist trick—a sleight of hand, taking money away from NHS providers in taxes with one hand, and expecting praise when they give some of it back with the other. The public will see straight through it.

Maternity Services

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate. I should note at the start my officership in the APPG for infant feeding and the APPG on single-parent families.

Women’s health is often an already under-prioritised area of our health system, with the UK found to have the largest female health gap in the G20, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) noted earlier. Women are falling through the gaps, which have been made worse by the past 14 years of austerity and reorganisations in the health system.

The situation facing midwifery and maternity services is even more dire. As a member of the Health and Social Care Committee I have met the Royal College of Midwives, which made clear its worries about the need for better investment in midwifery and maternity services, and its concerns about safe staffing levels in a workforce facing crisis.

Those real concerns are borne out by the national review of maternity services, which found that 47% of services were rated as requiring improvement on safety grounds. That is not to say there are not bright spots of positivity, and I have nothing but praise for the work of Calderdale’s maternity services, which were fantastic and supportive at the births of both my children. However, the national picture is one of services that are stretched and midwives who are working extra hours to plug the gaps. At the end of last year, figures showed that more midwives than before have left the profession after five years or less.

The story across the health service is, sadly, consistent, and that is the result of pressure in an NHS that Lord Darzi warned was on life support. That is why the NHS 10-year plan is even more vital and timely. It gives us not only a real opportunity to begin undoing 14 years of damage to our health service, but the chance to rebalance our health system and focus on different priorities that have been long neglected, be that maternity services or mental health. Women who access maternity services often do so at a time when they feel most vulnerable, and it is important that those services are there to protect them at that time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Gentleman has outlined the shocking state of some hospitals. I confirm again that we want a site-by-site report of those hospitals for exactly that purpose: to ensure that they are safe and to understand any critical issues before the schemes go forward. We expect that report in the summer.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Given that the Tory predecessor of the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) failed to mention RAAC once, and mentioned Hinchingbrooke hospital only five times in 23 years, does the Minister agree that people in Huntingdon and across the country need a Labour Government committed to rebuilding the NHS, not a Tory Government who pay lip service but fail to back it up?

[Karin Smyth]

I commend my hon. Friend on his research into the previous Government, and for the hard work that he is doing on behalf of his constituents. We are committed to the rebuild of Hinchingbrooke and have put the new hospital programme on a sustainable footing, which is something that his constituents can look forward to.

National Cancer Plan

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, and also for the written parliamentary questions about prostate cancer that he and a number of other Members have tabled. According to the current guidance, screening for prostate cancer is not recommended in the UK because of the inaccuracy of the current best test for prostate-specific antigen. Indeed, it could actually harm men, as some might be diagnosed with a cancer that would not have caused them problems during their lives. However, I am looking at this carefully, and I know that further information has gone to the National Institute for Health and Care Research so that it can, perhaps, reach a different conclusion. Obviously, as technology and other mechanisms advance, this may well be an area where we can make inroads, but I am happy to work with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that every opportunity is met.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I welcome this plan. I note that it was a recommendation from the Health and Social Care Committee in the last Parliament, and, as a member of that Committee, I hope that it sets a precedent.

Two weeks ago I lost my brother, Alex English, to high-grade acinic cell carcinoma. While I pay tribute to all those who gave him care, can the Minister confirm that we will look at rare cancers and make sure that we research some of them and find treatments?

[Andrew Gwynne]

First, may I send my condolences to my hon. Friend and his family on the loss of his brother Alex?

Of course rarer cancers are important, and they are a crucial part of what will be in the national cancer plan. It is in these areas that we must focus our efforts on diagnosis, treatment and, more importantly, getting the research done, so that we can find ways of tackling some of the very rare but deadly cancers that affect many families, including my hon. Friend’s.

Oral Answers to Questions

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

What the shadow Minister neglects to mention is that the Chancellor has protected the winter fuel allowance for the poorest pensioners, and she has also put in place the warm home discount to assist people with their energy bills throughout the winter. If the shadow Minister does not support the decisions that the Chancellor took at the Budget and ahead of the Budget to raise vital investment for our health and care services, that is fair enough, but then she needs to tell people which NHS services she would cut or which other taxes she would increase.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

7. Whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of improvements made to the Care Quality Commission.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

In response to the report by Dr Penny Dash, we have made it clear that the CQC is not fit for purpose and requires significant reform. We have increased our oversight of the CQC to ensure implementation of the recommendations in Dr Dash’s review, and we will continue to monitor the CQC’s progress through this period of improvement. We are also supporting the swift and efficient recruitment of CQC leadership roles, including the new chief executive Julian Hartley, who started in December.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

It is inarguable that the CQC needs improvement. Many who run care services in local authorities have little confidence in its performance. Does my hon. Friend agree that we could go some way to improving how it is viewed by looking at the use of single-word assessments, which create undue stress for social services leads? They were raised by the Dash review as insufficient to support local authorities to improve, promoting box-ticking over real improvement and giving little information to members of the public on the quality of social services provision.

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is right that confidence is the key word in the huge agenda that the CQC has to deliver. Dr Dash and Professor Mike Richards highlighted serious failings that need to be re-addressed. As one of our predecessors said, priorities are our language. Currently, a review of one or two-word ratings is not a priority, but it will be kept under review.

Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

It does. I was talking about the fact that working class people are often left behind in a two-tier system where those who can afford it pay to go private, and those who cannot are left behind. It is the determination of this Government to bring back to life the essential Bevanite principle of an NHS that is there for everyone when they need it: healthcare available to all on the basis of need, not on ability to pay.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I welcome the commission, which hopefully will lead to some certainty on the future of social care. However, a 2023 National Audit Office report found that 17% of local authority directors of social services were concerned about their ability to meet statutory obligations last year, and a further 18% are concerned about their ability this year. I have concerns about what will be done to fix the immediate crisis in social care. Will my right hon. Friend outline what he will do to guarantee the sustainability of our care system now, while we await the further structural reforms that we dearly need?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. That is why in the Budget the Chancellor delivered a big uplift in the spending power of local authorities, with £880 million ringfenced specifically for social care. We are also delivering through measures such as the disabled facilities grant to deal immediately with the pressures—[Interruption.] It is no good the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) complaining. He voted against the investment, so he cannot very well complain about it.

NHS Backlog

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate. Another winter and there are more severe backlogs—the causes are structural and predictable. The shadow of what Lord Darzi found weighs heavy on this debate, with 14,000 unnecessary deaths in A&E each year, waiting times for over-65s in emergency care having more than doubled to seven hours, and over 100,000 under-threes waiting more than six hours to be seen in 2023. Each one of those numbers is a devastated family, a patient at greater risk, or a patient enduring that long, nervous wait. This winter, my local hospital trust has seen average bed occupancy rates hit 98.5%. At one point in mid-December, only three out of 715 beds were free to use.

The crisis in our NHS that my constituents in Calder Valley face is not the result of a lack of work by our NHS staff—I hope everyone in this House can join me in paying tribute to those hard-working staff. Instead, this crisis has come about because of bad policy choices and warnings repeatedly ignored. In his report and when he came to the Health and Social Care Committee, Lord Darzi made it absolutely clear that the root cause of the problem is the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which was pushed through without precedent or preparation by the coalition Government amid repeated warnings from healthcare professionals. This disaster proves that to move forward, we have to learn from why bad health policy gets made: because of a focus on ideology over practicality, on efficiency savings over real improvements, and on treatment over prevention and later-life care.

We must also learn that to rebuild our NHS we cannot be top-down, but must build on a foundation of decent social and community care that is close to home and respects the skills of those who work throughout the system. That brings me to my next point, which is about social care. The scale of the crisis in the NHS means that it will not be fixed overnight—indeed, the Secretary of State talks about a 10-year plan—but we know that problems are solved easier and earlier if patients are treated closer to home. Yet the failure to plan health and social care together over the past 14 years means that more than one in 10 NHS hospital beds are filled by people who simply do not have the right care.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

In my constituency, Bradford council’s Home FAST—first assessment support—scheme aims to get people home from hospital more quickly and to be assessed for any onward care services when they are at home. Since its launch, there has been a large reduction in the need for intermediate care facilities after hospital care. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that such innovations need to be at the heart of the Government’s 10-year plan, ensuring that we integrate health and social care, as he was saying, but perhaps also looking to revise the better care fund so that it delivers both rapid discharge and rehabilitation, which are obviously both critical to tackling NHS backlogs?

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

In fact, the better care fund works best in West Yorkshire when it works to hasten people’s journey out of hospital, and that sounds like a very good example.

In my own local hospital trust, the figure for people on the transfer of care list is even higher: 20% of beds are taken up by people who could be treated at home. That is almost 150 patients in hospital rather than getting social care where they need to be. Even well-run trusts are finding the wait for transfer of care too great, proving again that we cannot fix our health service without fixing 14 years of Tory mismanagement or without fixing social care.

In closing, while this Government face problems not of our own creation, we must still learn from what has gone before. In this regard, I absolutely welcome the announcement on progress in social care today, but I gently express to the Minister, as I did to the Health Secretary at his Committee appearance, that we need to see action on the ground solving our social care crisis earlier than 2028. In 2023, the National Audit Office told us that nearly four in 10 directors of adult social services were worried about meeting their statutory obligations. On top of that, we have a provider crisis because of this instability. The electorate gave this Government a term of five years to take bold steps to reverse the crisis in our NHS. They rejected the previous Government because they wasted each of their terms over 14 years of failure to enact a solution on social care, leaving people in hospital instead of being able to receive care among family and friends. I look forward to this Government acting on that mandate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. We will start the Front-Bench the Front-Bench speeches at 9.35 pm, so our very last Back-Bench speaker is Ellie Chowns.

Hospice Funding

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that the amazing staff at Overgate hospice in my constituency should be focused this Christmas on caring for their patients and not on funding? Will she confirm that this funding allows them to do so? Also, in April I will be running the London marathon for the Overgate hospice’s big build appeal. Will the Minister sponsor me?

[Karin Smyth]

That is possibly one of the cheekiest questions I have ever heard asked here, and I am obviously going to have to say yes. Frankly, rather him than me, but good luck to my hon. Friend on doing that. I know that many hon. Members raise money for their local constituencies and that the marathon is an important part of that.

We understand how different hospices are funded differently throughout the country. We want to make sure that end of life care, with all the different options that people have in their local systems, is well supported. It is really important for people to have some of that security, and I know that this announcement will be welcomed by my hon. Friend’s local hospice, as it is by the sector today.