Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

rose—

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way one last time to each of my hon. Friends, but then I must finish my speech.

[Andy Burnham]

I think that everyone needs to consider their position in the light of the evidence that is emerging about pressure on A and E, particularly in London. I pay tribute to the excellent and determined campaign run by my hon. Friend, and I noted what was said yesterday by the hon. Member for Enfield North. Perhaps one of the consequences of today’s debate will be agreement across the Floor of the House to delay any closures pending a personal review of the evidence by the Secretary of State.

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way for the last time.

[Kate Green]

As my right hon. Friend will know, my local A and E unit at Trafford general hospital is one of the 30-odd units that are scheduled for downgrading. Meanwhile, it is more than 30 weeks since the two nearest A and E units, at Central and South Manchester hospitals, failed to meet the 95% performance target last September. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State should also publish advice that he has received from the Independent Reconfiguration Panel which will inform his decisions, so that we can determine whether the latest pressures have been taken into account?

[Andy Burnham]

I think that full openness about these decisions is essential in the current context. I know that the panel’s report is with the Secretary of State, and I think he owes it to local Members of Parliament to be open about its conclusions and the evidence on which they were based. That is why I ask him to review every proposed A and E closure personally, and to give a guarantee to communities such as that represented by my hon. Friend that no changes will be made unless he is personally satisfied that it is safe to make them.

In conclusion, this is a crisis that could have been avoided. For the last three years the NHS has been struggling with the toxic medicine of budget cuts and top-down reorganisation. All the focus should have been on the front line, but instead the Government siphoned £3 billion out of it to pay for a back-office reorganisation that no one wanted and no one voted for—a reorganisation that has placed the NHS on a fast track to fragmentation and privatisation.

But it is worse than that. The Government’s own risk registers, which they refused to publish during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, warned them of the consequences of pushing ahead with a reorganisation when the NHS was facing great financial stress:

“The consequences could be compromised clinical care and patient safety, the failure of the 95% operational standard for A&E wait and a concomitant impact on other trust services”.

So they knew the risks they were taking when they reorganised the NHS at a time of financial stress; they were warned about this A and E crisis, but ploughed on regardless. It is the height of irresponsibility. No wonder they wanted to keep the risk registers secret. But with the looming cuts to jobs and social care, the problems in A and E will get worse, not better, if no action is taken on the points I have outlined today.

We have given the Secretary of State a practical plan, and he either needs to accept it or put one forward of his own. Right now, his complacency is one of the biggest dangers facing the NHS. He has failed to act on warnings about the collapse of social care. He has sat on his hands while front-line jobs are cut in their thousands. He has presided over the disastrous 111 service. He has closed NHS walk-in centres and downgraded A and Es without a convincing clinical case. It is no good his standing up today and blaming everyone else: this is a mess of his making—his first real test as Secretary of State and he has been found badly wanting. People want answers and action, and he needs to start providing them right now.