NHS: Access to Treatments

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve access to treatments for NHS patients.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

To improve access to treatment, the Government have committed to spend over £8 billion from 2022 to 2025, and this in addition to the £2 billion elective recovery fund and £700 million targeted investment fund made available last year. This funding is increasing capacity through community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs, supporting hospitals to prioritise treating the patients waiting longest, as well as accessing capacity via the independent sector. We are also making it easier for patients to choose treatment at different providers with shorter waiting times.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that access to the NHS, whether in primary care, the ambulance service, A&E or discharge, has become worse and worse. All the organisations that submitted evidence this week said that the core issue is workforce. I declare my interest as a member of the GMC. Can the Minister explain why has the number of medical training places this year been drastically reduced to 7,500 compared to 10,500 for last two years, and 9,500 in the pre-Covid year? The Medical Schools Council has said that we should have 14,500 medical places. How can the Minister justify 7,500?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We are looking at a number of different things when it comes to doctors across the service. One is clearly opening new medical schools in areas which are underserved: sometimes we have doctors, but not in the right areas. We are also looking at overseas recruitment but, on the specific issues, we are having discussions—let us put it that way—on the cap. That is constantly being debated and I will take that back to the department.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, NHS leaders have warned of a life-threatening situation in which clinically vulnerable people are being admitted to hospital after having their energy supplies cut off. This is obviously horrendous for the patients involved, but also risks putting tremendous pressure on NHS systems, which cannot bear that pressure at the moment. I urge the Minister to advise the incoming Health Secretary to take action to prevent the cost of living crisis becoming a health crisis when we can least afford it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important point. It is not just in my department; across government a number of different departments are looking at the impact of the cost of living crisis and higher energy bills. Clearly the NHS, but also individual practitioners and centres within the NHS, will be affected by rising costs. Discussions are going on at the moment. One of the things that my right honourable friend the incoming Secretary of State has said is that she is very clear on the priorities—ABCDD: ambulances, backlog, care, dentists and doctors—but also understands the energy crisis.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister’s Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, does not seem to address the question. What we are seeing, of course, is a reduction in the number of doctors, whether from retirement and not being replaced or for whatever reason, or from a lack of training. Are the Government intending to reduce the number of doctors, as they have been doing, and how do they intend to substitute for proper medical care by a doctor, which is what patients want to see?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord raised a number of different points, which I will try to respond to. One issue is that, although we are recruiting more doctors, at the same time clearly there are doctors who are looking to leave. There is a demographic of people reaching a certain age, and one of the issues is pensions and whether they hit the limit. Those discussions are going on. There are also lots of discussions going on about how we can improve retention of those staff who feel overworked and have had enough.

In addition, at certain levels, for example primary care, it does not always have to be a doctor that the patient sees. It could be a practice nurse or a physiotherapist. There is also more emphasis on the Pharmacy First programme, whereby people can get advice from pharmacies, unless they actually need to see a doctor.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, for elective surgery, it does need to be a doctor that the patient sees. On Monday, a patient waiting for a long-delayed hip operation was told by his doctor about the delay. He thought he heard “18 months’ delay”: the doctor corrected him. It is 80 months’ delay in that particular area. This is the workforce problem that other Peers have already raised. What are the Government going to do? Setting up emergency elective places does not solve the problem when there are not enough doctors to go around at the moment.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

If we look at elective care, we have seen a record number of referrals. We are also seeing more people receiving treatment. Of those on the waiting list, 16% are waiting for in-patient surgery. A lot of those on the waiting list are waiting for diagnostics. We have the surgical hubs and community diagnostic centres. On top of that, the two-year waiting list has been virtually eliminated, except difficult cases and those who need complex treatment. The next target is to eliminate the 18-month waiting list by 2023. It is a concerted effort right across the system, looking at a number of innovative solutions.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, some of the conversations that we have had show that the availability of services in the NHS depends to a large degree on efficient access to social care provision. Could the Minister tell the House what the Government are doing to sort out the social care problem in this country, which is getting worse?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. There are a number of issues to do with social care. One of the reasons, frankly, is that it has been treated for far too long as a Cinderella service. One of the things we are doing is registration—there is a debate in the care community about whether it should be a voluntary or compulsory register; it is voluntary to start—to make sure that we really understand the sector. No one really has an overall picture of the care sector, and there is a range of different qualifications, which are quite often inconsistent. If we can get all that together, understand what is out there and understand the qualifications, we can make it a proper vocation and career for people. That is what we are doing at the moment.

[Baroness Morgan of Huyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I urge the Minister to talk to the new Secretary of State and urge her, after 12 years, to actually start governing rather than campaigning. As we have just heard, a series of headlines—ABCD and all the rest—may tick some boxes for the media but does not change the system. The fundamental issue is social care and there is still no plan to change that.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am afraid I shall have to disagree. I ask noble Lords to think about what we have been doing with the Health and Care Act: for the first time, we are talking about properly integrating health and care together. They will be completely connected from the beginning of life and all the way through life. We also had the paper on integration and we are taking a number of different steps to make sure that social care is no longer the Cinderella service, but properly joined up all the way through people’s lives.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that access for NHS patients depends on hospitals that are fit for purpose and structurally sound. Is he aware a number of hospitals around the country, built in the 1970s, have leaking roofs and ceilings that are being propped up, including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn in my old constituency? Can he tell the House about plans to announce the new phase of rebuilt and new hospitals?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

This is something that the previous Secretary of State, who had a very short term in office, considered. When he was looking at the priorities, one of the issues for him was the hospital programme—how we make it more streamlined and modular, and how we simplify the whole process of building new hospitals. Sometimes, these will be hospitals based on old models; at other times, this will mean things such as surgical hubs, which, whatever is happening elsewhere, will focus specifically on the conditions that need to be treated.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, the QualityWatch report by the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation found that the record waiting lists we now see cannot be attributed to the pandemic, as has so often been suggested in this House. What is the Minister’s response to this report’s findings?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are well aware of the waiting list problem. In fact, we have virtually eliminated two-year waiting lists, except for some of those difficult cases. The targets, working with various partners across the system, is to make sure that we eliminate 18-month waits by April 2023. When we look at this, those waiting 18 months or longer will be reviewed every three months at a minimum. Diagnosis and treatment of patients will be prioritised according to clinical urgency, then length of wait. NHS England has introduced six categories of prioritisation and is regularly reviewing those to make sure that patients are treated appropriately.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Why have the Government reduced the number of doctors being trained and when will this be changed?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

A number of noble Lords have already asked that question. I will take it back to department and get an answer.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, could I ask the Minister to read and circulate an article from Saturday’s Guardian by Merope Mills, a devastating account of the preventable death of the journalist’s 14 year-old daughter, Martha? Would the Minister note that Ms Mills, an erstwhile, uncritical NHS cheerleader, stressed that this

“had nothing to do with insufficient resources or overstretched doctors and nurses … austerity or cuts, or a health service under strain”?

Can the Government recognise that this crisis goes far deeper than simply listing numbers, money or technical solutions?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is not just about money, although money does play an important role; it is also about processes and efficiency. In my conversations with people who have been in the NHS or medical services for years, many have commented that we still have the same old model: you go to see a GP, you hope to see them for five or 10 minutes and then you are referred to someone in secondary care. There is a much more efficient way of doing that in this day and age. We have to look at the whole model of both health and social care and modernise it.