Leighton Hospital Rebuild

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Wednesday 28th February 2024

(1 month ago)

Westminster Hall
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Carolyn Harris Portrait Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)
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I will call Dr Kieran Mullan to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered the rebuild of Leighton Hospital.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. My aim today is to take this opportunity to ensure that the rebuild of Leighton Hospital is front and centre of the Minister’s priorities, because a successful rebuild and management of the short-term challenges on the way there are vital to ensuring that my constituents, and residents across the region more broadly, can access excellent healthcare from their local hospital.

All of us involved in the campaign were delighted when we secured Leighton’s place in the £20 billion new hospital programme, which will see 40 hospitals benefit in the largest concerted effort in a generation to modernise our hospital estate. As part of that, Leighton Hospital will receive hundreds of millions of pounds in funding to be rebuilt. The current hospital is a crucial part of our local healthcare services. Built in the early 1970s, Leighton Hospital was opened by the late Queen in 1972. Generations of families have been born there and millions of people have received treatment there, and I know our local community is incredibly proud of its local hospital. Each year, the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, of which Leighton is the primary site, has more than 100,000 A&E attendances and 290,000 outpatient appointments, and carries out more than 100,000 diagnostic tests. Leighton provides not just healthcare, but over 4,500 job opportunities to members of staff employed at the trust. Those fantastic members of staff cover a whole range of roles, including porters, cooks, receptionists, cleaners, occupational therapists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors and many others.

Having worked in the NHS prior to becoming an MP, I know the difficulties that can arise working in buildings that are in need of refurbishment or, in this case, replacement. The physical infrastructure of the building being worked in is outside the control of the frontline staff, and they often have to do whatever it takes to make it work, but it would be better if they did not have to. Since it was built, Leighton has been expanded with new, modern buildings added on, including a new intensive therapy unit and theatre suite, campaigned for by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) when he represented Crewe and Nantwich.

More recently, I worked with others to secure £15 million for a new A&E department. When it was originally built, much of the building was made with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. RAAC is a lightweight, bubbly form of concrete, which was often used in schools, colleges and hospitals from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. It is usually found in roofs and occasionally walls and floors, and has since proven to be at risk of structural failure. Since that came to light, it was clear that something needed to be done to ensure that Leighton remains safe for patients.

By the time we started our campaign for a new hospital building, much work had already been done to manage that risk, but it was clear that remedial work would only take us so far and that the best thing to do—not least the better use of taxpayers’ money—was to have a whole new building, so the campaign was launched. Thousands of local residents signed our petition for a rebuild and shared their positive experiences of being treated at Leighton, often having been born there, and they very much wanted to see its future secured. The inclusion of Leighton Hospital in the hospital building programme is a win for its staff and the patients it serves. It has been a privilege to have played a part in securing it, alongside the hard work of so many other key players, including my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury, and the cross-party support we achieved.

My hon. and learned Friend very much wanted to be here today, but is on an important visit with the Justice Committee. As I know he has done already, I have been glad today to be able to sit down and discuss this important local issue with the excellent Chester South and Eddisbury Conservative candidate for the forthcoming general election, Aphra Brandreth, who is in the Gallery. I know Aphra will continue championing the cause if she is elected as the next MP, which I very much hope she will be.

Having spoken recently with the leadership at Leighton Hospital, I understand that the building programme is coming along well, and I want to thank all those working on the project at Leighton, in NHS England and in the Department of Health and Social Care for their hard work to date. I am delighted that the Leighton site has been selected as the national low-rise hospital 2.0 design template reference site. Procurement of technical advisers is ongoing, and there has been positive engagement with the Cheshire East planning department. The funding allocated for the purchase of the land required to enable a new build has been received, with the purchase expected to be made in the next few weeks. While the trust is waiting for full DHSC and Treasury approval, the current timeline for completion runs through to 2029. That achieves the Government’s goal of ensuring that the proposed projects in the hospital building programme are done before 2030.

However, as with any large infrastructure project, there will always be challenges and room for improvement. Most critically, the RAAC issue has not gone away. The hospital building programme is the long-term solution and we intend to have a whole new hospital to deal with the issue, but in the meantime, remedial works are absolutely necessary to ensure the continued safety of the building.

These challenges can be expected to persist for the next six to seven years. There has been encouraging support to manage them to date, with over £55 million spent in 2022-23 and £28 million in 2023-24, with further spending likely to be needed in the next financial year. A wide range of work has been undertaken, including the construction of a two-storey modular decant ward building. The development provides decant accommodation, which in turn has allowed the trust to undertake essential RAAC refurbishment and stabilisation works to existing wards, ensuring patient safety.

However, the remedial works inevitably create challenges for the dedicated team of staff. Access routes and clinical areas sometimes need to be closed, forcing staff to make large detours and creating a negative impact on the patient and staff experience. It can be difficult to deliver business as usual. Although I appreciate that disruption is at times unavoidable, it would greatly assist the trust if the Minister could talk to colleagues in DHSC and the local NHS to agree a clear, forward-looking timetable for the RAAC work, which will need to carry on and progress as the rebuild does. If there are elements that cannot be agreed in advance, perhaps there could be a smoother mechanism for sign-off to allow more timely decisions to be made.

My second ask is for the Minister to use his considerable skill to work with officials and agree the full cost envelopes and timescales for the whole rebuild as soon as possible, and agree a more streamlined approval process for the elements that are tentatively agreed locally but need sign-off higher up as the work progresses. His attention will benefit the rebuild process not only in Leighton but in other areas if changes can be agreed and implemented across the programme. I am confident that a deep dive by the Minister to understand how it has all been working to date would help identify where improvements in the process could be made.

While I have the Minister’s attention, I want to highlight the potential for Leighton and other NHS hospitals to be heated by deep geothermal resources. A recent study by the British Geological Society identified more than 100 hospitals that sit on deep geothermal resources. As the Minister knows, with a net zero target of 2040, the NHS and hospitals in particular face a considerable challenge to secure net zero heat. I have been working with the Carbon and Energy Fund to develop proposals for identifying the best public sector candidates for deep geothermal, with a focus on NHS sites. I was glad to have the opportunity to meet the Hospitals Minister from the other place, Lord Markham, and his team. We are continuing discussions with them, the Treasury and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to see what we might be able to achieve.

I conclude by again paying tribute to all those who were part of the campaign to secure a rebuild of Leighton Hospital, and to all those at the hospital and in the wider NHS who put in an enormous amount of work to secure the progress we have made to date. I know that the Minister will take my questions in the spirit in which they are intended—as positive suggestions as to how we might deliver even more efficient progress—and see what he can do. We remain very happy to have secured the rebuild. We just want to ensure that it is delivered as swiftly as possible, and that Leighton staff and patients are supported to keep on delivering and receiving healthcare within the existing building in the meantime.

New Hospitals

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Thursday 25th May 2023

(10 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Steve Barclay Portrait Steve Barclay
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On the issues that my right hon. Friend raises, it is agreed that a replacement is needed and that North and Mid Hampshire will go into the rolling programme for the new hospital programme. As a result, a site will be found, and the intention is to work to a 2032-33 timescale—that is the plan. The original timescale was already stretched because of some of the complexity involved, and I have also signalled just how long previous designs for hospitals have taken, so we are speeding up the construction side but we also need to address some of the issues, particularly around junction 7 and the site design.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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I very warmly welcome this announcement and pay tribute to the leadership of Leighton Hospital, who have relentlessly advocated for this. It has been a three-year, team-effort campaign, particularly with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others. I thank the thousands of residents who signed the petition backing this campaign, and I know the team will be itching to get started. Could my right hon. Friend perhaps outline what the next steps will be for Leighton and the other sites?

Steve Barclay Portrait Steve Barclay
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s campaigning work, as well as the work he did in his local hospital as a volunteer during lockdown, which was extremely well received. It is why he has campaigned—along with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton —to make the case for this investment. I am very happy to have further discussions with him as liaison with the trust on the next steps moves forward.

Patient Choice

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Thursday 25th May 2023

(10 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Steve Barclay Portrait Steve Barclay
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We are talking about the wider workforce. The hon. Lady mentions private capacity. This patient choice will enable people to make much better use of the independent sector and to do so free at the point of access. Given the size of the challenge of pandemic backlogs, the question is: how can we make full use of capacity across the NHS and in the independent sector?

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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The problem of variation in waiting times is symbolic of all sorts of variations across the NHS. My previous employer, the national clinic audit programme commissioner, focused on identifying and spreading good practice. Will the Minister join me to meet the programme’s CEO, Jane Ingham, to hear her insights on how to tackle this challenge, and also join me in paying tribute to her as she retires after 10 years of dedicated public service in this role?

Steve Barclay Portrait Steve Barclay
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I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to Jane Ingham, who, as he says, is retiring after 10 years in that post. She has a long history of working to improve the quality of healthcare in the NHS and it is right that we pay tribute to her. I am sure the ministerial team are keen to engage with her on lessons to be learnt from her career.

Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Wednesday 1st March 2023

(1 year ago)

Commons Chamber
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Helen Whately Portrait Helen Whately
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I fear that the hon. Lady did not hear my previous answer, which was that the public health advice and the advice of the chief medical officer was followed. Of course there is a job to do when advice is given, and then there are the practicalities of implementation. As the volume of tests became available, those tests were used as advised, following the public health advice.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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I will not forget the totally shameless politicking by Opposition Members during the pandemic. I specifically remember the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who is no longer in her place, and the Leader of the Opposition talking about how we had the worst death toll in Europe. They said that again and again. [Interruption.] I hear the shadow Minister say from a sedentary position that we did, but the studies now show that we were ahead of Italy, ahead of Spain, broadly in line with France and Germany, and very far from the worst in Europe. Have we ever heard any Opposition Member come to the Dispatch Box and apologise for misleading the British public about our record during the pandemic? Does my hon. Friend agree that they might seek to do that before criticising us any further for our record?

Helen Whately Portrait Helen Whately
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend is right. The right thing for us to do as a country is to reflect overall on how we handled the pandemic, on the decisions that we made and, indeed, on how prepared we were in the first place. That is the right way to do it. Of course we regret every life that was lost; I think about the families who lost mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and grandmas. It is so deeply sad that so many lives were lost, but that is something that affected us here in England, across the UK and, indeed, across the world. But the right thing for us to do is to look at these things in the reasoned environment of the inquiry and then use the lessons learned and the reflections from that inquiry to make sure that, in the event that we ever have to face another pandemic like it, we can do better.

Government PPE Contracts

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Tuesday 6th December 2022

(1 year, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Angela Rayner Portrait Angela Rayner
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My hon. Friend is right to capture the mood of the public on this. At a time when the public are told that we have to show restraint, at a time when they can see the finances—not least because the Government’s former Prime Minister and former Chancellor crashed the economy—it absolutely galls them to think that Ministers were not doing the due diligence that was required with the funds we needed. Now we have a situation where we are spending billions of pounds on wasted PPE and we also have thousands of pounds every single day being wasted on storage for PPE.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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Obviously in government you have to get on and make decisions, and we do not often get to see what the Labour party would do in our place. On this occasion, we did have an insight because the Labour party recommended a whole series of people who could supply vital supplies for us during the pandemic, including a football agent supplying ventilators. What assessment has the right hon. Lady made of the quality and credibility of the Labour party’s own suggestions for supplies during the pandemic?

Angela Rayner Portrait Angela Rayner
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the hon. Member for his comments, but I ask him: how many Members from across the House who were not Conservative Members got access to the VIP lanes? I can give him the answer: none, zilch, zero. That is the problem. The due diligence was not done on those contracts and it was his Government’s problem, his Government’s responsibility and his Government’s failure.

--- Later in debate ---
Will Quince Portrait Will Quince
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under those circumstances, in those conditions, we had to be quick and decisive to protect colleagues on the frontline so that they could continue providing life-saving care. With lives on the line, of course we had to change our approach to procurement and adjust our appetite for risk. I do not believe the British people would have forgiven us if we had stuck to the same old processes. We had to balance the risk of contracts not performing and supplies being sold at a premium against the real risk of harm to the health of frontline workers, the NHS and the public if we failed.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition want to have it both ways? They criticise us for our procurement decisions but, as I said earlier, they recommended a football agent to supply ventilators, and the Labour Welsh Government procured PPE from the same Serco company that they criticise us for procuring PPE from,

Will Quince Portrait Will Quince
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am keen not to get into a political slanging match on this point, but my hon. Friend is right that all Members on both sides of the House were receiving multiple emails from people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said, were panicking because they wanted to ensure that we procured PPE as quickly as possible.

Colleagues across Government and beyond worked day and night, taking tough decisions, to keep our country safe. Those efforts secured billions of items.

--- Later in debate ---
Brendan O'Hara Portrait Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
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It is a pleasure to follow the Minister’s robust performance. He said at the end that the Government have learned many lessons. Lesson No. 1 appears to be, “Apologise for nothing.” He knows that no one I heard was criticising the civil servants. Everyone on the Opposition side of the House knows that the civil servants were working in impossible conditions—conditions created by this Government.

I can understand why the Minister has been told to come out swinging and apologise for nothing. Let us be honest: from the moment we first learnt of the existence of the VIP lane for the politically connected, it was inevitable that it would come to this, with Members of this House discussing the eye-watering sums of public money that was earmarked for procuring vital PPE during the pandemic but instead found its way into the hands of fly-by-night chancers who had little or no knowledge or experience of PPE procurement, but who—and this is probably the most charitable thing I can say about them—became fabulously wealthy while making an absolute pig’s ear of it while trying to learn on the job.

Long before the PPE Medpro scandal broke, many of us were already trying to work out how the brains behind this “get rich quick” scheme ever believed that a plan in which the Government would fast-track their cronies, their politically connected pals and now, it would appear, their parliamentary colleagues was ever going to end well. I suspect, as I said during the urgent question on 24 November, that the shocking allegations that have been levelled against PPE Medpro in both The Guardian and The Times—allegations that lead directly to a Member of the other House—may well be the tip of a very large iceberg.

I suspect the reason the Government have been so reluctant to release the papers containing the advice, the correspondence and all the communication between Ministers and special advisers relating to the awarding of that contract is that they do not want to create a precedent that would require them to open the Pandora’s box that is the VIP lane for PPE procurement. However, the Minister would do well to remember that there is another precedent here. The similarities between today’s motion and the motion of 17 November last year, when the Government were instructed to release the papers in relation to the Randox/Owen Paterson scandal, are striking. They will also recall how that scandal rumbled on for two and a half months into February, before the papers were finally made available. Similarly to last year’s debate, the same very simple questions go to the heart of today’s: do this Government have something to hide? Is there something this Government do not want us to see?

The Minister must be aware that the more the Government dodge scrutiny, so public suspicion will grow about this PPE procurement programme being little more than a get-rich-quick scheme for their politically connected pals. Given what we already know, who can blame the public for thinking that? Byline Times recently said that the covid contract winners with direct links to the Conservative party—donors and associates—have seen their collective financial position improve by in excess of £300 million. Was anyone really that surprised when Private Eye described how

“The DHSC’s London-controlled PPE ‘cell’ was dishing out contracts like confetti to opportunistic businessmen”?

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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What would the Scottish public think about the Scottish Government awarding PPE contracts, without competition, to more than 20 brand-new suppliers that were unknown to the Government?

Brendan O'Hara Portrait Brendan O’Hara
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I hate to say it, but my goodness you are predictable, Sir. That was probably the most predictable question I could ever have imagined. I will come to that later in my speech. Compared with what went on in this place, the audit of the Scottish Government’s treatment of the procurement process is squeaky clean. I so look forward to having that conversation in about six minutes.

Many of those opportunists hit the jackpot in the Government’s VIP lane for PPE procurement. Prominent among them was PPE Medpro, whose bid to supply the UK Government with face masks and surgical gowns was in the high-priority lane after, we are told, some particularly enthusiastic lobbying was carried out on its behalf by someone down the corridor. Indeed, the peer in question was so enthusiastic about the abilities of PPE Medpro to deliver that she made her passionate pitch to Ministers before the company was even incorporated. Through remarkable powers of persuasion, she persuaded Ministers to propel that embryonic company—one with no experience in delivering medical or protective equipment, and one with which, she told them, she had no personal involvement and from which she did not stand to gain financially—straight into the VIP lane.

--- Later in debate ---
Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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The hon. Member is talking about the Scottish Government’s track record on procurement and value for money. Does he think that that applies across the piece? How well are they doing when it comes to ferry procurement in Scotland?

Brendan O'Hara Portrait Brendan O’Hara
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

It is remarkable—we can always spot when a Tory is sinking beneath the waves when they start shouting “ferries” at us. Let us remember that this is a Government who awarded a ferry contract to a company with no boats.

Hospital Building Programme

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Wednesday 3rd November 2021

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Virendra Sharma Portrait Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
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Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That can be done either at the testing centre in the House, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered the hospital building programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I welcome the chance to discuss the Government’s £3.7 billion hospital building programme, and particularly welcome the opportunity to make the case to the Minister for my local hospital, Leighton, to be included as one of the final eight sites chosen by the Government.

Leighton Hospital was built in the 1970s, and officially opened by the Queen in 1972. I have looked back at the pictures of her visit, and it made me think about just how long Her Majesty has been serving our nation in this way—visiting, before I was even born, the hospital that serves my constituents today. At that time, Leighton Hospital represented a huge change in how healthcare was provided in the area, going on to pick up the role of several smaller hospitals spread across the patch. Its importance and role have only grown since then, serving a population that has increased significantly and now stands at more than 300,000 people.

Whether it is the hip and knee replacements it carries out, the babies it helps deliver, the thousands of cancer screening tests and treatments it undertakes, the cataracts it repairs, or the urgent GP and accident and emergency care it provides, Leighton is at the heart of our local health services. In an ordinary year, Leighton provides around a quarter of a million out-patient appointments, carries out more than 30,000 operations and more than 200,000 diagnostic imaging tests, and has more than 90,000 visits to its emergency department. Of course, none of that would be possible without its fantastic staff: Leighton employs more than 4,500 staff, and that fantastic team of cleaners, porters, cooks, receptionists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, doctors, volunteers and many others is what turns a building into a hospital.

Those staff can be proud of their achievements in the battle against covid. Not only have they cared for covid patients, but they have also vaccinated 47,000 people under the leadership of their director of pharmacy, Karen Thomas. I had the absolute pleasure of volunteering alongside the staff during the first lockdown. I was quite uncomfortable with the media attention on me for doing this for only a short period of time, when those staff do it day in, day out without any fuss or attention.

As I have seen again and again during my time working in the NHS, its staff have an enormous amount of dedication, often going above and beyond, and are perhaps too accustomed to working in departments and environments that make doing a really good job more difficult than it should be. That is why, although we are talking about buildings today, it is important to highlight that—as others have said—we will only be able to make the most of new facilities if we are able to carry on with the success we have had so far in recruiting more staff.

Edward Timpson Portrait Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
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My hon. Friend is making a strong case for Leighton, and he will know that, as a former Member for his constituency, I was able to work with that hospital very closely. All four of my children were born at Leighton Hospital, which sits in my constituency, and I also spent a week working in that hospital and cannot praise its staff highly enough. I hope that this building programme will give those staff the environment they deserve in order to provide the healthcare we know they can deliver, which is world class.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and what he has said is typical of people who live in the area, who have also experienced their children being born at that hospital and receiving excellent care there.

Fiona Bruce Portrait Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
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Speaking as a neighbouring constituency MP whose family has also made great and beneficial use of Leighton over many years, I strongly support my hon. Friend’s campaign for additional resources and support for Leighton. I very much respect him for that effective campaign, which I know has strong support across our constituencies.

My hon. Friend has spoken about the number of people who seek services from Leighton at the present time. Does he agree that that number is not going to diminish: it is going to increase, due to the additional numbers of houses that are being built in our areas? I note, for example, Northwich, where there is a huge amount of house building on the former ICI site, Middlewich in my constituency and Sandbach. Altogether, in recent years, thousands of new houses have been built for people who will want to look for support from Leighton.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great things about the plans for the new site is that they take into account those future projected increases in population. I do not know what we will do if the resources are not there to do that.

Going back to staffing, we have more nurses and doctors and more staff overall working in the NHS than ever before, but it remains a huge undertaking for the Government to continue to work on recruitment and retention to staff new facilities. I know a lot of the media and campaigning by Opposition parties has focused on pay. While it is important, my experience is that fixing staff shortages would be the priority for most staff. The obstacles for further recruitment will not simply be solved by higher pay; the challenges are more complicated than that.

Of course, buildings and facilities matter, but we have to remember that the material used to build Leighton was expected to last only 30 years. It might seem odd to us now to create a major public facility with that sort of life span, but that is the reality.

Mike Amesbury Portrait Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
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The hon. Gentleman is a neighbouring MP. A reference was made to Northwich in my constituency. This proposal certainly has cross-party support. I support the hon. Gentleman and all Cheshire MPs in arguing this case with the Minister in front of us for much-needed investment in a first-class hospital facility in our patch.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
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It is great to get cross-party support to demonstrate to the Minister how important it is to all our local communities. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.

As I was saying, the building was not designed to last this long or to serve the size of population that it serves. My view is clear that we can be more efficient and do more in the community, but an aging population will have an ever-increasing demand for healthcare. We can delay the need for the most specialist hospital care in a population, but we can almost never remove it and stop the demand increasing overall.

How has Leighton managed this challenge over recent years? Rightly, it has benefited from major investment, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) who is working closely with me on this campaign alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I remember his excellent work in helping to secure funding for brand new theatres and a brand new ITU.

My first campaign after becoming the candidate for Crewe and Nantwich was to reverse the decision to turn down a request for an emergency department extension, which was ultimately funded in 2019. More recently, Leighton received £15 million to build a brand-new emergency department. As the Government understand the necessity, Leighton has had funding to tackle the parts of the original building that are simply not fit for use in the short term. However, there comes a point where the costs of one-off investments, accumulated maintenance and the need to replace the original building structures become a cost that cannot be borne by the ordinary capital spending, and when a whole new building becomes the best option financially and for patient care. That is where Leighton is at.

The life span of the original building is coming to an end. I suggest to the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury that they view the funding committed to the hospital building programme as a unique opportunity to look at estates that are winding down towards the end of their life span and address that now.

Under the leadership of the chief executive officer, James Sumner, Leighton has done an enormous amount of work for many months to develop its plans for a new hospital. The team sought expert advice on the life span of the current estate and, importantly, the cost of maintaining it and to keep the existing original buildings in use. I know the Minister will scrutinise the figures and see for himself the financial sense in the case that has been made. Independent analysis demonstrates that the ongoing refurbishment of the present failing infrastructure over the next 15 years will cost substantially more than projected new build costs.

Importantly, the plans are ambitious in ensuring better healthcare is delivered in a better environment for patients and staff. As well as providing the mentioned much-needed bed capacity to meet the projected demand later in the decade, the new facilities will deliver single rooms to improve privacy, dignity and infection control. The new layout will incorporate the latest design advice for supporting patients with conditions such as dementia.

The site as a whole will be reorganised some of the long journeys from key locations, such as the emergency department, to other parts of the hospital that have grown as a result of sporadic development to date. They will future proof the hospital with the most up-to-date digital infrastructure which is becoming increasingly important for delivering the best possible care and doing so efficiently. A new site will enable Leighton to play its part in the race to net zero with more energy efficient buildings and solar power and even, potentially, a geothermal heat source, which is a technology I am campaigning for the Government to support to get off the ground across the country.

The team at Leighton have a track record of delivering improved and innovative care to back up their pledges. For example, the trust recently received an award for its same-day emergency care programme, led by surgeons David Corless and Ali Kazem. I am sure that, with improved facilities, they will continue to find new and better ways to care for their patients.

Edward Timpson Portrait Edward Timpson
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend has been extremely generous with his time. Will he also confirm that this project, if delivered, would save more than £400 million in backlog maintenance, as well as helping to free up a lot of the community care, which at the moment is under extreme pressure because of the lack of beds available at Leighton and in the surrounding area?

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is actually about saving money in the long term given the unavoidable costs at the existing site.

Of course, building the hospital will provide jobs and opportunities for local people, with apprentices at South Cheshire College and others well placed to take advantage in the parts of Crewe where employment and salaries are still not where we would want them to be. I know that the plans have the full support of my hon. Friends for Congleton and for Eddisbury. Leighton’s bid is also supported by both Cheshire West and Cheshire East, as our local authorities, and the Cheshire clinical commissioning group. There is also cross-party support with the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury).

The chair of our newly formed Crewe Town Board, Doug Kinsman, has been keen that the whole board support the proposal, and the rest of the board have seen how important Leighton is to Crewe, both economically and in improving the health and wellbeing of Crewe residents. Importantly, we have the support of those residents. So far, more than 1,000 people have signed our petition supporting the hospital in its efforts to make it into the final eight. The residents include Betty Church, whose daughter was born in the hospital the year it opened, 1972, and Steve Burnham, who explained that not only were three members of his family born there, but his mum worked there for 40 years.

I asked residents to tell me about their experiences and share why they were supporting the campaign. Janice Butler wrote:

“My husband, elderly mother-in-law and father-in-law have all received fantastic help and treatment here. The hospital serves a huge population now and help to improve and upgrade its facilities is desperately needed and has been for many years. Despite the huge pressures, we have experienced excellent help here.”

Susan Marsh wrote:

“I started work at Leighton in 1972 and worked there for 35 years. Since retiring I have been a patient there numerous times. It has changed in the care it delivers since my day, both numbers and treatments. With a new build it will be able to continue to grow along with the population in the area, which will be badly needed.”

I will finish with what a current staff member said about Leighton, both as somewhere to work and as somewhere their family received treatment. Sophie Morris has shared her perspective from what must have been a difficult time in her life, which makes her words even more powerful. She wrote:

“I have worked at Leighton A&E for 6 years now and over that time the demand on the hospital has increased massively. Our last few summers have been busier than most winters. Shortly after starting as a nurse in A&E, my husband became ill. We found out he had terminal throat cancer when I was 7 months pregnant. From beginning to end we had fantastic support and care from all over the hospital.

I think it says a lot about the place and the fabric that is the staff who work there, that I could carry on working in a place that holds so many raw memories. As a body of staff we work so hard to look after the people who come to us for help, now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us. Now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us.”

I could not have put it better myself.

I know that the Minister will hear the case for investment in many other sites. He will need to consider all the applications carefully. I will work with residents to campaign for this much-needed investment, whatever the outcome of this opportunity, but I hope that I have left him in no doubt today that the case for Leighton to be included is a strong one and there is a whole community of people who want to see it succeed.

--- Later in debate ---
Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
- Hansard - -

I thank the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for the time they have taken to listen to us all in Westminster Hall today. I particularly thank the Minister for his openness and frankness in discussing this issue. I am sure that, as Members, we all understand why he cannot commit today to the various programmes we have put forward.

I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who have worked very closely with me on pushing forward this campaign for Leighton Hospital. I also thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for showing cross-party support for Leighton. The contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) reminded us all of what a unique role an MP plays in their constituency, having that individual voice on behalf of their constituents. My hon. Friends the Members for North West Norfolk (James Wild), for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) all spoke powerfully and passionately about their commitment to their local hospital and the investment they are seeking.

There were a couple of common themes that I want to pick out, the first of which was about house building and population growth, which touches on work I have been doing in my constituency to address the postcode lottery when it comes to the voice of the NHS in the planning system. Very often, schools’ education provision is supported by housing development, but it is not very often that our local hospitals are supported financially by developers. Those developers have a role to play, and I encourage the Minister to look at what more he could do centrally to spread best practice. I have been doing that locally, but we need that central drive to make sure that hospital developments, mental health and primary care get the money they deserve where there is new housing.

We are all facing a similar challenge when it comes to the shelf life, so to speak, of our hospital buildings. There is no shame in that—when things are built, they have a timeline—but it is very important that the Minister makes sure that for those of us who may end up disappointed, particularly in relation to the RAAC plank issue, the Government have a clear and strong story about how they are going to tackle that issue and what investment will be put in place, regardless of which hospitals make it into the final round of the hospital building programme. I will finish by inviting the Minister to Leighton Hospital, if he does not mind,

Edward Argar Portrait Edward Argar
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

What is one more visit on a tour? I am delighted to accept; it would be a pleasure.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
- Hansard - -

I look forward to seeing him there with my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury and for Congleton. I thank the Minister for his time, and thank you, Mr Sharma, for chairing proceedings today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the hospital building programme.

Covid-19 Update

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Monday 28th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. I agree with him that as we move towards removing restrictions and step 4, we should take seriously into account what he said about people attending churches and the restrictions that they currently face. That is certainly my intention.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con) [V]
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

The Secretary of State will rightly focus on the immediate challenges of covid, but his Department is also about to make decisions related to integrated care systems, which have potentially enormous long-term implications for the provision of healthcare for my constituents and the constituents of fellow Cheshire MPs. The NHS wants to create a Cheshire-Merseyside ICS, which will not serve the best interests of our residents. Will the Secretary of State meet us urgently to discuss the proposal before it is quietly pushed through?

Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

First, I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he personally has done to support the NHS, especially through his work in A&E departments. I also thank others who have contributed in that way. On his particular question, no final decisions have been made on ICSs. I absolutely understand the importance of his point. I want to make sure that we get these things right and, although I understand that he has already met Ministers in the Department, I would happily meet him myself.

Coronavirus

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Wednesday 16th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have listened carefully to the contributions this afternoon and we have done a good job at articulating the challenge we face. Basically, what is reasonable to do to stop coronavirus spreading, infecting and killing enormous numbers of people and overwhelming the NHS? The answer to that asks us to consider what the costs are for doing something, and what the costs are for doing nothing.

There has been a cost to freedom from lockdowns, but freedom is complex. What freedom would people aged 50 years and up have had to venture out of their homes when coronavirus ran rampant and left them with at least a one-in-200 chance, or worse, of dying if they caught it?

There has been a cost to businesses, particularly those in hospitality and other businesses that people have been prevented from visiting. I am certain that had our NHS been overwhelmed, had one in 200 people aged 50 started dying en masse, and had the news shown patients being turned away from intensive therapy units, the impact on those businesses would have been similar to, if not the same as, that of lockdown.

There has been a cost to children’s welfare. Which parent would really have carried on sending their children to school, knowing that there would be no help if there was an outbreak of meningitis or measles? How traumatised would the nation’s children have been when one in 200, or more, of their grandparents died in the space of a year or two?

There has been a cost from lockdown to people with illnesses such as cancer. Where exactly would cancer patients have gone after their operations when ITUs were full? Which immunocompromised patients having chemo would have risked visiting their local hospital for treatment and catching covid? It is wrong for critics of lockdown to think that they alone care about freedom, hospitality businesses, children and those suffering from other illnesses; we all do. I do, but I just took what I thought was a rational choice in weighing up the costs across the board. I must take issue with people today who have talked about our freedoms not being used to support the NHS, as if that were some kind of abstract concept. What we are talking about is supporting the patients, their friends and their family who would have been prevented from accessing the NHS if the restrictions had not prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed.

It was always inevitable that, over time, these judgments would have become more finely balanced, as they have done, but I will not be told that I am not capable of continuing to make these finely balanced judgments. It is right that the next phase means a new discussion. Like others, I find these types of restrictions—restrictions that stop us living out our fundamental desires to mix, socialise and spend time with each other—a heavy, heavy price to pay. I have no doubt that the public will be willing to pay a similarly heavy price to remove most, if not all, of them. That is not to say that people will not mind wearing a mask on the tube, for example.

We have some tough decisions ahead of us, and I welcome the recognition of that from the Government. It is now time for the Government to state more clearly and starkly what these choices are, so that the British public can decide together what sacrifices we are and we are not willing to make.

Covid-19: Effect on People with Learning Disabilities

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Tuesday 15th December 2020

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

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Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
- Hansard - -

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani; I appreciate the generosity of spirit you have shown in calling me to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on securing the debate.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a huge impact on people with learning disabilities. As was mentioned, the recent Public Health England report identified a much higher death rate among people with learning disabilities. Particularly worryingly, it found that the gap is even greater for young people. The death rate for people aged 18 to 34 with learning disabilities was 30 times higher than those in the same age group without disabilities. I expect some of that relates to the overlap with other physical health conditions that are present at a higher rate in this population, as the report alludes to, but I do not imagine it will be the entire answer to why people with learning disabilities have suffered as they have in the pandemic.

My speech will focus on an issue that has been brought to my attention as a local MP: the risk of economic consequences that the pandemic poses.

--- Later in debate ---
On resuming
Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Mullan
- Hansard - -

To continue, I will focus today on the risks that the economic consequences of covid pose to the job opportunities of people with learning disabilities. Locally in Crewe and Nantwich, there are a range of organisations that try to find job opportunities for people. Organisations such as Safe Opportunities and Seetec Pluss, employers such as AO.com and charities such as Community Recycle Cycles have all worked tremendously hard, and secured successful and ongoing employment for people with diagnoses associated with learning disabilities, such as Down’s syndrome and autism.

Those organisations are understandably concerned about the impact the covid-19 pandemic we will have on their ability to carry on delivering this work. We know that even before the pandemic there was a significant gap in the employment of those with learning disabilities. I have heard from residents who have struggled to find work because of their disabilities, and from their families. Recently, I took part in a meeting with Scope that explored this issue and heard from people with lived experience of it.

What might happen now? Employers might rightly be concerned about the health risks their employees could face, given what we discussed earlier regarding the additional risks that we have seen for people with learning disabilities. If we are being realistic, employers who are laying people off and struggling to make ends meet might not go as far as they ordinarily would to try and stretch people’s employability and support people into employment who have disabilities of any kind, including learning disabilities. That is the reality we will face.

Nevertheless, we cannot afford to have a lost generation of young people with learning disabilities who have missed out on employment that they would otherwise have been able to secure. The Disability Confident campaign was launched by the then Prime Minister in 2013, and it aims to encourage businesses to employ disabled people. By December 2019, more than 15,000 employers had signed up to the scheme, as they wanted to offer disabled people roles in their organisations.

There are also local initiatives. As I mentioned, we have an organisation in Crewe and Nantwich called Safe Opportunities. It has launched a campaign called Big10forSEN, which is building towards having 10 big employers locally that are putting in the effort to secure employment for people with learning disabilities.

There are other measures available. There is the 2017 personal support package, which gives people access to a disability employment adviser, and the Access to Work scheme, which provides financial support for the extra costs of being in work that go beyond the reasonable adjustments that are required in law. As part of the Access to Work scheme, specialist support is provided to people with learning disabilities and other less visible disabilities through a hidden impairment specialist team.

In response to the pandemic, the Department for Work and Pensions has worked tremendously hard to develop policy to prevent ill health-related job losses, but we must not forget the Government’s ambition to get 1 million more disabled people into work by 2027. We cannot allow the coronavirus to prevent that from happening.

Nusrat Ghani Portrait Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

There is now a formal time limit of five minutes. I call Ms Olivia Blake.

Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Kieran Mullan Excerpts
Tuesday 8th December 2020

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

This year, I have sometimes turned for inspiration to the bard:

“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

So it was a delight and a coincidence to find that Mr William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, a constituent of the vaccine roll-out Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi)—by coincidence; Members should not get any ideas—was called forward to be the second person to be vaccinated by the NHS. It is absolutely terrific to see that people right across this United Kingdom are being vaccinated right now according to need, and I hope it can bring us all together.

Kieran Mullan Portrait Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Can I start by joining my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to the scientists, clinicians, trial volunteers and many others who have made it all possible? They have given us the light at the end of the tunnel. We have to remember that there were no guarantees that we would get any vaccine; to have at least one is fantastic. I am glad to see a number of sites in the north-west have been allocated for the roll-out, but my constituents will probably be asking for and expecting somewhere closer to home—for example, at Leighton Hospital near Crewe and Nantwich. What are the plans for expanding the sites available for vaccination?