Health and Social Care: Winter Update

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I welcome the hon. Member’s question, and I agree with the thrust of his question that we need healthcare to shift from hospital into the community, with care closer to, and in, people’s homes. The configuration of services locally is a matter for local NHS leaders. I encourage him in the first instance to be in touch with his local integrated care board. If he gets a particularly unsatisfactory or unreasonable answer, he should feel free to raise it with Ministers.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I associate myself with the comments about the nursing colleague who was so brutally attacked in Oldham. I am thinking of her and her team at this time.

I have been thinking back to when I was starting out as a junior nurse. We faced the same problem—it was just after Labour had taken over from a Conservative Government, and the backwash of winter crises caused by that failed Government was very similar in the first few years. Improving staff pay and the NHS plan made a difference. What else has my right hon. Gentleman learned from the successes of his forebears about tackling this winter crisis now and tackling such crises in future?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend brings expertise and experience to the House, and I am particularly grateful for his support and concern for the colleagues of the nurse who was so brutally attacked in Oldham, because I know that they will be acutely affected. In fact, the NHS workforce right across the country will have felt the shiver down the spine that I felt when I read about that horrific case.

My hon. Friend is right that I am fortunate to be able to call on every single one of my Labour predecessors, from Alan Milburn to Andy Burnham, to ask for their advice, experience and insight. As our great late friend John Prescott said, we need

“traditional values in a modern setting”.

I am bringing that modernising tradition to our approach to investment and reform, because the combination of both delivers results. That is how the last Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Kevin McKenna to ask the final question.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome yesterday’s announcement about using initiatives such as community diagnostic centres to move services closer to the public. In the Isle of Sheppey, we are particularly exposed as a coastal community, but thankfully a new CDC will really help. Unfortunately, my experience in the NHS over the past few years shows that while the previous Government talked the talk about shifting care to the community, they failed to deliver. Will the Secretary of State set out what steps will be taken, so I can show my constituents that this shift will actually happen?

[Wes Streeting]

I am delighted to have my hon. Friend and his experience in the House, standing up for his community and giving us his advice and wisdom as we develop our 10-year plan. We are already walking the talk on the shift to community, not least through the big uplift in funding for general practice announced before Christmas. Many people assume our elective reform plan is just about hospital waiting lists, but a big part of it is about delivering the left shift by asking and funding general practice to do more to manage patients in the community.

Income Tax (Charge)

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate about the Budget—a Budget I am very proud to support as the first Labour Budget in 15 years.

I also thank the various Members who have made their maiden speeches in this debate, particularly because like myself, so many of them have worked in the NHS. Many of us have felt the urge to get selected for, and elected to, this House because of our experiences over the past 14 years. I understand that among Opposition Members, there is a feeling that Labour Members do not understand business, but I can tell them that we understand the public sector, public services and our communities—and actually, that is a disservice to all the Members on the Labour Benches who have run businesses. It is particularly important to me that a couple of Labour Members have previous experience as NHS managers. In his report, Lord Darzi made it very clear that one of the problems the NHS has faced is an undervaluing of the management side, as opposed to the clinical side, so those Members’ voices will be really important in this debate.

This Budget gives us solid foundations for investment and rebuilding this country—of that, I have no doubt. This Budget is also what people in my constituency have been crying out for, because they know that our public services are frayed to a point that is almost beyond repair. Honestly, that is what people in my constituency keep telling me. Unlike some Members, who have apparently had some very negative responses to the Budget, I can tell those Members from canvassing at the weekend and from what is in my inbox that I have seen a really positive response to this Budget. People are really glad to see that the investment has started, and frankly, there is a sense of reality—a recognition that this is not going to be a quick fix.

On the health service and social care in particular, I applaud the fact that the Secretary of State has not just commissioned the diagnostic investigation from Lord Darzi, but has now commissioned a 10-year plan for the NHS.

[Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin McKenna]

I do not think so.

That plan will be needed to get the NHS back on its feet, and as a counter to some of the comments about national insurance and burdens on businesses, the Secretary of State was very clear that he is going to look at the NHS allocations to GPs and other people supplying the NHS—that comes with the plan. Beyond that, it is really important to recognise the damage that has been done to businesses over the past 14 years by all the other costs that have been accrued. The mental health crisis damages recruitment and retention, and businesses have had to cope with all those extra costs across the board.