Oral Answers to Questions
Karin Smyth Excerpts(2Â years, 2Â months ago)
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Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his re-election. He will know that capital allocations are a matter for the integrated care boards. We are committed to introducing neighbourhood care centres to bring together vital care services, and I look forward to working with him on Labour’s mission to improve the front door to the local NHS.
Bill Esterson
I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their appointments. The predecessors of my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary—there have been quite a few over the past few years—all agreed with me that a health centre in Maghull in my constituency was a priority for the health service, but as my hon. Friend has just said, the allocation of capital by integrated care boards has meant that the priority has been acute hospitals, sometimes at the expense of community facilities. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the importance of investment in health centres such as the one in Maghull, which make such a difference to reducing waiting times in the NHS and improving patient outcomes?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend is first out of the blocks on this issue, and has shown his commitment to improving primary care for his constituents. I am sure the local ICB has listened very carefully to his question, because we know that the existing primary care estate is under a great deal of pressure. That is why building a neighbourhood health service remains at the forefront of our mission to rebuild the NHS, and I would be pleased to meet him to discuss that topic.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election, and I also pass on my best wishes to her and her husband, who I know recently suffered a stroke. We hope he makes a speedy recovery. We recognise the great work of NHS staff for them, and indeed for all our constituents every day, but we do know that the NHS is broken. The latest data confirms the terrible state in which the Conservatives left urgent and emergency care services, with one in four patients waiting longer than four hours in A&E. That is why Professor Lord Darzi will lead an investigation into NHS performance, and the findings will inform our 10-year reform of the NHS.
Uma Kumaran
I thank the Minister for her kind words today, and I also thank my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary for his wishes on the day. Mr Speaker, may I also take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for the care and kindness you showed me?
Residents in my constituency of Stratford and Bow are served by Barts health NHS trust, which includes Newham University, Royal London and Whipps Cross hospitals. In May, their A&E departments had the second highest volume of any trust in England and the highest in London. Overcrowding and capacity constraints mean that the staff at those hospitals are having to treat some patients in corridors rather than on wards. This is the broken NHS that we have inherited from the Conservatives. Will the Minister ask her Department to look at capacity issues at those hospitals and at how community pharmacy prescribing services may be used to alleviate some of the pressures?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point highlighting the challenges particularly around hospital capacity, something well-known on the Front Bench with my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary representing a nearby area. This type of patient experience is unacceptable, but it sadly became normal under the last Government of 14 years. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about pharmacies: they will have a central role in our future system, and I would of course be happy to undertake a visit with her.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
I welcome the new Front-Bench Members to their new portfolios and responsibilities. Essex has actually seen some improvements in emergency care services over the past 14 years, particularly in our ambulance trust, and that should be commended. One way in which pressure on emergency services can be reduced is by having community facilities in our towns and across our districts. Will the Minister commit to meeting me and working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) on looking at ways in which we can safeguard community services at St Peter’s hospital in Maldon, which our communities absolutely need?
Karin Smyth
I thank the right hon. Lady because she again makes for us the excellent point about what has happened in the last 14 years under her Government: these situations have been allowed to get so much worse both in Essex and across the country. She should also welcome our mission to rebuild the broken front door to the NHS and have more neighbourhood services based in communities, bringing those services together where patients are; that is absolutely what we all want and I am very happy to discuss this with her.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
For 14 years the community in Telford and I have worked hard to safeguard our A&E, but the last Conservative Government made Telford the largest town without a fully functioning A&E. Will the Health team meet me and other Shropshire MPs to discuss this discredited and disgraceful decision?
Karin Smyth
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He knows what we all know, and what we know the entire country knows because we spent the past six weeks campaigning: it is the same story across the country. That is why we are committed to restoring standards and why we will fix this broken NHS, and of course I am happy to meet with him.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
A decision by the Conservatives two years ago means that the urgent treatment centre at the West Cornwall hospital in Penzance is now closed at night, and that has put pressure on the only emergency department in Cornwall—a long peninsula—at Treliske, where routinely 20 ambulances are parked outside creating a new metallic ward at the front of the hospital. That situation has had a detrimental impact, of course including avoidable deaths. Will the Minister meet me and colleagues and the local NHS to discuss this issue, to see how we can restore our emergency services?
Karin Smyth
Again, across the country we see the damage done over the last 14 years, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight that the situation in one part of the system knocks on to other parts. That is why we want a 10-year plan to look at this, an immediate look with Lord Darzi, and, critically, to understand which community and primary care services can be supported to support the rest of the system. I am very happy to meet with colleagues across Cornwall, where we now have many Labour MPs.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her re-election and thank her for raising this important issue. It is not right that three out of four parents are not able to stay with their critically ill baby overnight at such an important point in that new relationship. NHS England recently concluded a review of neonatal estates. It is in the early stages of analysing the findings, which will be used to inform the next steps. We are all determined to support parents to be involved in every aspect of their baby’s care.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their re-elections and on taking their places. Recent research from the charity Bliss showed that when a baby receives neonatal care, their parents are routinely expected to leave them in hospital overnight for weeks or even months at a time. Its research found that for every 10 babies who need to stay overnight in neonatal care, there is only one room available for a parent to stay with them. How will the Minister ensure that the existing guidance about facilities for families is followed, and how will she ensure that trusts can access the resources they need to stop the separation of babies and their parents?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the separation of babies and their parents at that time is not acceptable, and about the shocking state of the estate, as we have just heard. We will look at the findings of the NHS review very quickly, and I will be happy to get back to her on those specific points.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her answer. This issue is clearly not just about accommodation; it is also about providing physical and emotional help for mothers who have been through traumatic circumstances, emotionally and physically. What will be done along those lines to ensure that mothers and babies have all the help they need?
Karin Smyth
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about mental health support in that critical period. We will absolutely make sure that is looked at.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the stress that people face when waiting, and we have talked about the disaster of the past 14 years. People with potentially deteriorating conditions are waiting, and we absolutely need to address this issue as part of our work to reduce waiting lists.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)
Karin Smyth
I welcome my hon. Friend to the House. He makes an incredibly important point about this very stressful time, particularly for women, in his area. We will listen to women and deliver evidence-based improvements to make maternity and neonatal services safer and more equitable for women and their babies, and we have committed to delivering the long-term workforce plan.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
Health Services: Rural Areas
Karin Smyth Excerpts(2Â years, 2Â months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Karin Smyth)
It is a privilege to be the first Minister of this new Labour Government to respond to an Adjournment debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for raising this important matter and, indeed, for his kind words.
I hope we can begin this Parliament as we mean to go on, by being candid about the formidable challenges that the NHS faces. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on his first day in the job, the NHS is broken, and it will be the task of this Government to build a new NHS for the future. That means the NHS in our rural and coastal areas no less than the NHS in our towns and cities. I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on that point.
Facing these hard truths does not take away from the heroic efforts of the people working in health and care, who have done their utmost in incredibly difficult circumstances. We all owe them, on behalf of our constituents, a debt of unending gratitude.
Instead, we want to focus our attention on what needs to be done, including early action to improve access to primary care, dentistry and dental health services in particular. We await the conclusions of a thorough investigation undertaken by the distinguished surgeon Lord Darzi to properly understand the scale of the problem. The Government will then begin work on an ambitious programme of action—a 10-year plan to put the NHS back on its feet. It is a privilege to be part of a Labour Government who are committed to fixing the NHS and making it fit for the future.
As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, the Department’s responsibility stretches only to the NHS in England. Healthcare is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it will continue to be so.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being first out of the traps to secure this debate on behalf of his constituents. As a committed advocate for his constituents in one of the most rural parts of Scotland, he has a deep understanding of matters affecting rural communities, as we have heard this evening. He also has a deep understanding of care, about which I have often heard him speak in this Chamber. It is good to see him back again doing just that.
I cannot speak in detail about the NHS in Scotland, of course, but I can speak about many of the common issues affecting access to care that are relevant to rural constituencies in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. I know how rural the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is, and I know the particular challenges that creates in accessing GPs, dentists and emergency care, and in accessing women’s health and maternity services—an issue he has been passionately raising for so long. Maternity services are a problem across the United Kingdom, but I accept the examples he outlined.
Few places in England are as remote as the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but I am very aware of similar issues affecting more rural areas near my Bristol South constituency. We have heard from the hon. Members for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) and for St Ives (Andrew George) about morale and the difficulties we face in the south-west.
I hope that, in the years ahead, we can share and learn from one another across all of our borders. In many rural areas, the challenge of improving access to services is compounded by travel times and by the recruitment and retention of staff. We must recognise the importance of designing services that reflect an area’s particular circumstances, which is a growing challenge. As the chief medical officer has pointed out in his reports, people are moving out of towns and cities to coastal, semi-rural and rural areas as they age. At the time that people are most likely to need care, they are increasingly living in the places where it is most difficult to provide that care.
In England, integrated care systems will have a key role to play in designing services that meet the needs of local people. To do this, they will need to work with clinicians and local communities at place or neighbourhood level. We know that excellent primary care is an essential foundation for improving access, tackling the root causes of poor health and tackling problems early so that people remain in better health for longer, and hopefully do not need to access secondary and tertiary care at the same level. That is why Labour has pledged, as part of our health mission, to train thousands more GPs and bring back the family doctor, and that applies to all the nations.
We are also doing more to use the transformative power of technology. There is enormous potential in ideas such as virtual wards, which allow care to be delivered in people’s own homes. Such models of care can have disproportionate benefit in areas where rurality is a barrier to care.
Equally, we are committed to seeing the NHS app reach its full potential under the new Government. We understand that some people will need support to use that technology and we are aware of the challenges of rural broadband, but we are committed to making the benefits accessible to all.
Andrew George
The Minister has committed the new Labour Government to address those issues, but will she specifically address the matter of the two coroners’ reports into avoidable excess deaths as a result of very long waits for emergency services in Cornwall? They were never addressed by the previous Conservative Government. The reports were about not just the hours spent waiting—sometimes elderly, frail people were on the floors for 10 or more hours—but the fact that sometimes 20 or more ambulances greeted patients when they arrived at the emergency department. Two coroners’ reports were sent to the then Secretary of State, but there was never an adequate response. I very much hope the new Labour Government will review the failings of the previous Government and address those very serious concerns, which affect many other rural areas.
Karin Smyth
I am aware of the issues facing the south-west and, when in Opposition, I spoke in the local media about some of the ambulance challenges. I am not aware of those reports, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details, I will happily look into the issue and get back to him.
We also recognise the additional cost of providing services in rural areas, for example in travel and staff time. That is why the funding formula used by NHS England to allocate funds to integrated care boards includes an element to better reflect needs in some rural, coastal and remote areas.
The NHS faces significant challenges. It needs fundamental reform. The Prime Minister is personally committed to resetting the UK Government’s relationship with devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I echo the Prime Minister’s words today about our commitment to rural constituencies across the entire country and I hope we can work with hon. Members from across the House, including the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
Jim Shannon
I welcome the Minister’s clear commitment to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and particularly to Northern Ireland. Let me declare an interest: I am a member of the Ulster Farmers Union. I know that the Ulster Farmers Union back home, in conjunction with the NFU here, has been trying to work with the health service and with all those with responsibility in this area on the issue of suicides. Farmers mostly work on their own and suffer from anxiety and depression. They face pressures from finance and pressures from the bureaucracy that exists in farming. I know the Minister is compassionate and understanding—I mean that honestly. When it comes to addressing that issue, does she think that it must be done in conjunction with the farmers unions? Trying to work together to make things better must be a step in the right direction.
Karin Smyth
As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I shall certainly ask my colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about that. His point is extremely well made. I know his constituency in Northern Ireland very well. Let me say that we are very committed to working with hon. Members across the House to share ideas. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross has put forward more ideas about how that can happen. I do not promise to implement all of those things, but I will certainly look at them. We want to work very closely across all jurisdictions so that we can make progress for all our constituents to improve the health outcomes across the four nations of the United Kingdom.
Question put and agreed to.