NHS: Targets

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for securing this debate and look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox.

My proposition is that, all things considered, the performance of the NHS in delivering free-at-the-point-of-need healthcare to the people of the United Kingdom is utterly outstanding, and that the credit for that should go to the 1.5 million people who give of their all every day to make it so. Each year in England, 300 million GP appointments, 23 million attendances at A&E and over 10 million operations take place. The NHS in England treats 1 million patients every 36 hours, yet, according to the 2018-19 NHS England annual report, of these hundreds of millions of engagements, just 6,395 complaints and 7,967 concerns were raised by the public through the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Most find their treatment to be good or outstanding.

Opinion surveys agree. The NHS comes top of Mintel’s list of things about Britain that make us most proud. In 2018, a YouGov poll found that 87% of people were very or fairly proud of the NHS. And it is not just at home: the Commonwealth Fund’s latest survey ranked the UK as the best healthcare system in the world for the second successive time, with Sweden ranked sixth and France 10th.

The NHS has come a long way since its formation in 1948. At that time, total government spending on health was £11.4 billion in today’s prices; today the budget stands at £134 billion—12 times higher in real terms. Staffing in 1948 was 144,000; today it is over 1.5 million, a figure which does not include 369,00 GPs, dentists, opticians and temporary staff. The demands on NHS services have changed too, with breakthrough surgical procedures and new drugs. Life expectancy has risen from 68 in 1948 to 80 now. Age is a principal driver of demand for the NHS. Those over 65 require, on average, 2.5 times the NHS resource needed for the average 30 year-old, and those over 85 an average of five times more. The over-85 age group is the fastest-growing age group in the UK and is set to double in size over the next 25 years, hopefully with my help.

All things considered, the NHS is performing extraordinary well, with its productivity growth running at three times that of the rest of the economy, which means that staff are working harder and smarter. Cancer detection and survival rates are increasing while deaths from heart disease are falling, but we cannot expect them to take all the strain. This, after all, is our NHS and we need to work together to ensure that it can meet the challenges of the future. I will make three quick suggestions as to how it can.

First, the NHS should not be used as a political football. The NHS is currently under the stewardship of the Conservatives in England, Labour in Wales, the SNP in Scotland and the power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland. It has prospered and struggled under Governments of all political parties. Every healthcare system in the world is struggling with advancing science and advancing ages. It would be true political leadership if we could work together to find solutions, rather than blaming each other for mistakes.

Secondly, we need to treat staff in the NHS much better. They are not a vending machine delivering care packages but human beings putting their heart and soul into it. That makes all the difference. Yet clinical negligence claims have increased by 200% over the past 10 years, reaching £2.4 billion of claims in 2018—enough to train 10,000 doctors. Most worryingly, the number of attacks on NHS staff is increasing at an alarming rate, as pointed out by Unison and the Nursing Times. They have estimated that the number of violent incidents could be as high as 75,000, or 200 per day.

Thirdly, we all need to take greater personal responsibility for our own health and our use of precious NHS services. Fifteen million GP appointments are missed each year, while hospital admissions for obesity have doubled in just five years. Our NHS is our shared responsibility. If politicians and the public can all play their part to the same standard as our NHS staff demonstrate every single day, our beloved NHS can not only survive but thrive in the future.