Allied Health Professionals

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jen Craft

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

I add my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for introducing the debate and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for bringing it forward and setting out her role as a physiotherapist.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the practical contribution of AHPs to delivering this Government’s priorities for health and care. I agree with many hon. Members who have spoken that the 10-year health plan, “Fit for the Future”, and the forthcoming 10-year workforce plan, due in the spring—we are now in the spring, so hopefully very soon—provide a real opportunity to optimise the AHP contribution for the years ahead, including by supporting AHPs to work at the top of their skills. As a Department, we are clear that the three shifts that patients and the public need—more care in the community, a stronger focus on prevention and better use of digital and data—must be delivered in day-to-day services. AHPs will be central to making that happen.

As we have heard, AHPs make up the third largest workforce in the NHS. They include physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, speech and language therapists, paramedics, dietitians, podiatrists, and arts therapists, among others. They work across hospital, community, primary care, mental health and education settings, bringing regulated, evidence-based practice that supports faster access, better outcomes and better value for the taxpayer.

The contribution of AHPs is not confined to any single service line. AHPs assess, diagnose, treat and rehabilitate. They support self-management and they work in multidisciplinary teams spanning health, social care and education. That combination—clinical autonomy alongside team-based working—is exactly what we need to redesign services around neighbourhoods and around people’s day-to-day lives.

First, on the shift to community, AHPs work across neighbourhoods, primary care and community services, including in people’s homes. They prevent avoidable admissions and they help people leave hospital sooner and recover well. Physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists support rehabilitation and independent living. Paramedics are increasingly part of urgent community response and neighbourhood teams, helping people get the right care, first time, closer to home.

Secondly, on the shift to prevention, prevention is fundamental to AHP practice, as we have heard. AHPs support earlier intervention for long-term conditions. They play a key role in falls prevention, respiratory disease and musculoskeletal health, and in improving population wellbeing. That work helps people stay well and independent, and it reduces pressure on urgent and emergency care and on hospital waiting lists. That contribution aligns directly with the Government’s work and health agenda.

By providing early intervention and rehabilitation, AHPs help people with long-term conditions, disability or injury to remain in, return to and thrive in work. We heard no better example of the role that they play than in the very moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). I thank him for sharing his experience and I hope he is still enjoying playing with his son. It is good to have him in the Chamber being able to articulate that experience, which is not easy to do. Whether supporting recovery after illness, managing pain and fatigue, or enabling reasonable adjustments and independence, AHPs reduce avoidable time away from employment and help more people to remain economically active, benefiting individuals, employers and the wider economy.

Thirdly, on the shift to digital, AHPs are helping to lead the adoption of digital tools to improve access and continuity. That ranges from imaging and diagnostic technologies led by radiographers, to virtual rehabilitation, remote monitoring and data-enabled triage. Alongside shared care records, these approaches can support safer, more efficient and more personalised care. Remote consultations should be used where appropriate.

Across each of those shifts, AHPs also make an important contribution to mental health and wider wellbeing. Occupational therapists support recovery and independence, speech and language therapists help to address communication needs that can affect engagement, and arts therapies, which we heard about, including art, music and drama therapy, offer clinically led support. As was well articulated by many, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), those skills in neighbourhood teams can help to provide earlier, more joined-up care, including for children and young people.

I place particular emphasis on children and young people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock did so ably, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. AHPs play a vital role in early identification, assessment and intervention, supporting communication, mobility, sensory needs, mental wellbeing and participation in education and community life. Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physios and others work alongside families and schools so that children can develop, learn and thrive, meeting their needs before they escalate.

For children with SEND, timely access to AHP support is fundamental. Delays affect speech and language development, social interaction and educational attainment, and they can place additional pressure on families and carers. That is why work is already in train with the Department for Education, NHS England, integrated care boards and partners in local government to strengthen community speech and language therapy and other AHP provision. Our aim is earlier support closer to home and better, joined-up services.

I recognise that many hon. Members will understandably focus on the current access and waiting times, particularly for speech and language therapy. We as constituency MPs all recognise that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, that is critical to achieving the Government’s ambition.

More broadly, in neighbourhoods, AHPs support people of all ages to avoid deterioration and to recover well through rapid assessment, rehabilitation and support management. That point was well made by the hon. Members for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). Working alongside GPs, community nursing, social care, mental health services and the voluntary sector, they help prevent complications, reduce frailty and improve long-term condition management, easing pressure on acute services, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) rightly said. I thank her for her support for George Eliot hospital as it improves its services for her constituents.

Delivering those shifts depends on having the right AHP workforce in the right place. That includes those smaller AHP professions such as podiatry, orthoptics, and prosthetics and orthotics whose specialist skills are essential to prevention, independence and quality of life. Through our work with system leaders and professional bodies, we will continue to support education and training routes to improve retention and enable new ways of working across systems so that people can access specialist expertise when they need it.

As part of enabling AHPs to work at the top of their skills—that is what we want—we are also taking forward work to increase their ability to prescribe medicines where it is safe and appropriate to do so. That point was well made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney); others noted that duplication issue. I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles)—I thank her for her expertise in operating department practitioners—that that does include ODPs.

We must also address variation in access, including in rural and underserved areas. Neighbourhood delivery models, stronger integration with local authorities and the voluntary sector, and sensible use of digital services can all help broaden reach while maintaining safe, personalised care for those who need face-to-face support.

AHPs bring the clinical skills and professional leadership to redesign pathways, strengthen neighbourhood teams and intervene earlier so that people receive effective care in the right place at the right time. My focus as the lead Minister for the workforce plan in the Department of Health and Social Care is to support systems to deliver those priorities. As part of that, I work closely with the chief allied health professions officer—it was news both to her and to me that there is concern about her ongoing role—and will continue to do so. I thank her for her help so far—indeed, including in preparing for this debate.

The 10-year plan set the direction to rebuild the NHS, but it absolutely depends on all our staff to deliver it. The long-term workforce plan produced by the previous Government essentially looked at supply, but it did not look at future service models, it did not look at the role of technology, it did not ensure sustainability for the future and it did not base itself on future workforce models. That is some of the reason why we have problems with, for example, bottlenecks and frustration—particularly for young people coming out of their training—in not being able to get into the right roles in the right places. That is part of the problem that we need to address with the workforce plan, which we will bringing forward in the spring, so that we ensure patients and the public have the services they deserve, and particularly so that young people and children get the best start in life. I look forward to bringing forward those plans.

I have been asked again for several meetings—it is always nice to be popular for meetings—and I look forward to working with people as we bring forward that plan. We are working closely with all representatives of the sector—I know that there is a lot of interest in this work—and I very much look forward to working with hon. Members in the House as we go forward with delivering the plan.

[Jen Craft]

I really appreciate the Minister giving way—I know that she was concluding her speech. She obviously cannot reveal the contents of the workforce plan before it is published, but particularly on paediatric care, can I ask specifically for reassurance that there is something in mind for the plan when it comes to servicing the SEND Experts at Hand provision? That will be key to delivering the White Paper aims and key to young people’s life chances. We hope to be able to see that soon.

[Karin Smyth]

I was literally on my last words, so let me go back. My hon. Friend tempts me to reveal more about the workforce plan. As I said, we are not waiting for the plan to work with our colleagues across the Department for Education, NHS England, locally in ICBs and so on to ensure that we deliver on that ambition. We will of course set out the overarching plan and where we want to have people in the future. I look forward to working with her and others on how that will work. We certainly want to engage with colleagues across the piece.

As my hon. Friend knows, the SEND White Paper—we all know this through our constituency work—is central to that and to the Government’s wider ambitions. We are due to publish the plan in the spring; I look forward to doing so very soon. I look forward to working with hon. Members on that, and I thank them for the debate and their contributions this afternoon.

Women’s Health Strategy

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jen Craft

Thursday 16th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the Liberal Democrat representative for his comments—frankly, that is the way it is done.

Let me turn to some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. May I take the opportunity to mention endometriosis in particular? There have long been campaigns on that issue in this place from many women and men such as him talking not on behalf of their partners, but for them about the suffering. That is all very welcome.

I commend the work of Sir David Amess, a former Member of the House whose plaque is behind us, and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis. When in opposition in 2017 or 2018, I had a member of staff—I hope she does not mind my saying so—who opened my eyes to this issue. Persistence works. We have got to where we are by supporting women’s voices across the country, and that is front and centre in this strategy.

On the hon. Gentleman’s wider point, I am sure that when he gets all the way through the strategy, he will see that there is a list of 102 actions—if I remember rightly—with dates aligned to them. I am sure that all hon. Members will look at that. I notice that my friend Baroness Merron is in the Gallery; she will be keeping everybody’s feet to the fire, including the Secretary of State’s, to deliver on this work. That list is in the strategy, and we wanted to set it out very clearly. We are waiting for the roll-out of NHS Online during the summer, and seeing how that works will be a litmus test for us, so I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s challenging us on that.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome the women’s health strategy, and I congratulate both Baroness Merron and my hon. Friend the Minister on their work on it. Since its publication yesterday, my inbox has received a number of emails from women in my constituency who suffer from endometriosis.

I wanted to highlight that, because it is very rare that constituents contact us on the publication of a Government report to comment on its contents so quickly. That shows what an absolute hotbed this issue is and how profoundly it affects people. They speak of sometimes having decades of debilitating pain, going into debt while looking for treatment, losing housing, and suffering from relationships being impacted, their jobs being undermined and experiencing a loss of income, but overall they talk about how the condition is just not recognised and how their pain goes unheard.

One of my constituents said that women need better understanding, better support and better options, and seeing that set out in black and white in a Government report has really meant so much to women. Will the Minister join me in thanking these women for their bravery in continuing to raise their voices despite their continued experience?

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is unusual to receive emails saying good things. There will be challenges in this work, but it speaks to a wider issue. Many of us as women experience much of this ourselves, and we have women in Parliament who are able to articulate that. There are some fantastic women clinicians whom we have been pleased to work with and who have really pushed forward those voices as they have become more senior in the medical and clinical professions to help us with those clinical pathways. We have been able to build on all that in bringing this strategy forward.

May I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? He was on various media yesterday and he has been working with people such as influencers to give voice to those women. I think that this is an important part of our democracy. It is worth emailing MPs—I am sorry if that elicits more emails to other Members and to my staff—because we listen and we are engaged. It matters when people raise these issues in our surgeries and come forward with them. Sometimes policy development and getting action is a struggle for all of us; it is tough and takes a long time. The process of politics sometimes takes too long, but those women have made this happen, and I thank them for it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jen Craft

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the hon. Member for her almost support for the Bill that we will present later to address much of this problem. Again, we are clearing up the mess we were left by her party, which, by changing the rules in delivering a workforce plan in 2023, essentially ramped up the supply of staff by extrapolating existing trends without any reference to the constraints or needs of the service. Our workforce plan will be different. We do hope for support for the Bill to remove some of the problem with foundation and specialty training places, and we look forward to rigorous debate on that subject.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, my constituency is not unique in seeing long waits for diagnosis of neurodiversity. From 18 to 24 months is the expected waiting time in Thurrock, and some have to wait much longer. Given that, for a child, a wait of 18 to 24 months can sometimes be their whole lifespan or half their lifespan, will the upcoming workforce plan make sure that there is a plan for paediatric care, particularly for allied health professionals such as occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, and clinical physicians?

[Karin Smyth]

The services my hon. Friend outlines cover a number of different areas in different locations, and I think it is very important that the workforce plan we are bringing forward reflects a different model of care. We have seen more services going into secondary care and particularly hospitals, at the expense of community care and particularly primary care. That needs to change across the age spectrum, and the new workforce plan will be designed in lockstep with a new service design, more staff in neighbourhoods and more digital support, as well as to address the issues she outlines.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jen Craft

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Gentleman is not correct: maternity funding is not ringfenced at the same level—I think that is what he is referring to. It has, however, absolutely been committed to as far as ICB allocations are concerned. Local leaders will decide how best to allocate that money. We will continue to work with Donna Ockenden and the families who have been affected by previous incidents and ensure that the recommendations of her report and the maternity review are fully implemented.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

As colleagues will be aware, there is a consistent failure in maternity units to listen to women and put their experiences—and quite often their pain during childbirth—at the heart of driving improvements. What assurances can the Minister give us that women’s experiences and voices will be at the heart of any maternity improvement strategy that the Government focus on?

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that point, which has been found in all the reviews that have been undertaken. It is completely unacceptable. That is why the Secretary of State has continued to meet families and hear their experiences to ensure that we learn from them, continue to support the implementation of those recommendations and, crucially, ensure that women’s voices are taken forward as part of our 10-year plan.

Winter Preparedness

Debate between Karin Smyth and Jen Craft

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call a member of the Health and Social Care Committee.

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

Last week, I visited Basildon hospital, which is relied on by my constituents and people across Essex. Staff in the emergency department told me that they were operating under intense pressure all year round, and that it is indeed winter all year for them. That is due to a lack of beds, the terrible condition of parts of the estate and inadequate primary care services, meaning that people turn up at the ED when they should be somewhere more appropriate. What steps is the Minister taking to turn the page on 14 years of decline, and to ensure that Basildon and hospitals across the country have the resources and structures they need to better manage seasonal and year-round pressure?

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend has already been a fantastic advocate for her local NHS services. Like the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), my hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the acute pressures all year round. We did not always have winter crises under the last Labour Government. It was tough; I worked during some of that time, and it did happen, but getting used to such levels of bed occupancy and pressure in the system all year round is a direct legacy of the Conservatives and what they did to the NHS, particularly with the Lansley reforms, and their refusal to take a grip of it. This matter of a summer crisis going into a winter crisis is a real problem. That is why we are committed to these short-term measures to stabilise and support the system over the winter. However, as I said in my statement, we will also look at medium and longer-term reform so that we do not have to revisit this scenario year on year.