Health and Care Bill

Luke Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I declare my interest and my family’s interests in healthcare service.

I welcome the Bill. Those concerned about it should realise that it is an evolution, not a revolution, coming from the ground up. Do not take it from me; take it from the evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee from Simon Stevens, who said:

“We have been working so closely for a number of years with colleagues across the health service and our broader partners. Genuinely, I think this is unusual, if not unique, in having come from the NHS as a series of asks to Parliament rather than something that Parliament is perhaps imposing on the NHS.”

That is the leader of the NHS.

Three minutes is a very short time to try to pull this Bill apart, so I am going to use my time to set out some amendments and new ideas that I would like the Minister to consider. Some are practical, some are short and some are much bigger. The first is simple: annual virus drills for care homes. We have fire drills regularly, but, given the pandemic, care homes may well benefit from being further prepared for future pandemics.

I would like mental wellbeing to be seen as a public health issue. Everyone suffers with their mental wellbeing; not everyone has mental ill health, and this House often gets confused between the two. That is really important, because until we label mental wellbeing as such, it becomes very hard to implement education and protective policies. Many Members will know that my particular interest is body image—the labelling of altered images, just as we label calories on food, so that we have parity between physical health and mental health.

My final idea—this is probably the most revolutionary piece I would like to put across—is to have a named person for change on the frontline. We have named bodies for whistleblowers, and we have protected people who are guardians for data, but fundamentally, change has to come from the bottom. All too often in my career, I was told, “You’re too junior” or “This is the way we’ve always done it.” We want to empower the people on the frontline who understand how the system works to make changes, and I think there is a chance to amend the Bill to do exactly that. I am happy to meet the Minister to explain further.

As I have a little more time, I am keen to comment on the reduction of bureaucracy. It is all very well making sure that there is not a problem when we are commissioning, but fundamentally, we need to look at the admin on the health service side—the barriers between primary care and secondary care. About 5% to 10% of a GP’s workload is dealing with chasing admin. That is not time well spent; it takes services away from the clinical frontline, and it is something that could be remedied, possibly even without legislation.