Gynaecological Services: Waiting Lists

Debate between Lyn Brown and Edward Argar

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Edward Argar]

I do not want to prejudge the specifics of that strategy. In broad terms, I hope that I can reassure the hon. Member that we are seeking to look at all the drivers of the challenges that she and other Members have highlighted, and seek to address improvements. Without prejudging, there are points made by hon. Members that I would expect to see included around information, engagement, guidance and empowerment. The importance of empowering women, believing them and engaging with them came through very clearly in the hon. Member for West Ham’s comments.

[Ms Brown]

I am grateful to the Minister for what he is saying. It is about empowerment, but there is no empowerment when the choice is either to go for it now or to wait for months. Over and over, I have correspondence from women who are being belittled by those in gynaecological services, telling them not to make such a fuss “dear”. That is despite the fact that getting up off the floor after something is often awful. I have had meetings with Ministers; what I really want is some action.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful once again for the hon. Lady’s typical forthrightness. I have debated with her on a number of occasions—I was going to say “crossed swords” but that is unfair—and I know that she means it with good intentions, even when she is being rightly firm with Ministers in pressing a case. She is absolutely right. When I talk about empowerment, I envisage that encompassing a whole range of things. That includes believing people, treating them with respect and listening to them.

In terms of action, one Opposition Member—forgive me; I do not remember who—mentioned the need for a clear delivery plan. I have been in the Department for almost three years now. Governments of all complexions are often very good at coming up with strategy documents, which are important. However, the key to whether they deliver the outcomes for all of our constituents is how we deliver and implement them on the ground. We have to get the strategy right; that is the first step and we anticipate publishing that before the summer recess. However, it is then important that we focus on delivery, and that we work not just with the NHS but with patients and relevant campaign groups to work out how we deliver on the intentions in that strategy.

More generally, we set out in our elective recovery plan how we intend to build back from covid-19 and reduce waiting times across all elective services, including gynaecology and menstrual health. The plan included our commitment to tackling long waits, eradicating waits of longer than two years by the end of July 2022, and eliminating waits of over one year by March 2025. We will also ensure that 95% of patients waiting for a diagnostic test will receive it within six weeks by March 2025. To support that, we have committed to spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, in addition to the £2 billion elective recovery fund and the £700 million targeted investment fund already made available to systems.

That will hugely increase the capacity in the system. However—this also relates to the point made by the hon. Member for West Ham—one of the aims of the elective recovery plan, My Planned Care, and similar, is to increase, not just in the space of gynaecological services but more broadly, the opportunities for patients to exercise choice over whether they want something immediately or would prefer to wait, and potentially where they would prefer to have that procedure performed. We are continuing, through this, to try to build in more choice, not just for the patients—although that is crucial—but to help maximise the capacity within the system, to help avoid people having to wait longer than necessary.

[Ms Brown]

What research, if any, has the Minister done on hospital trusts, for instance, that might have people in a number of different geographical areas being served by a group of hospitals, and whether there is any real choice about which hospitals in those families people can elect to visit?

[Edward Argar]

The challenge that the hon. Lady poses is that if we are talking about, essentially, the multi-hospital trusts or similar, as they have grown up, they have often designed their services in x specialism in one hospital, and moved things around like that. In those cases, there are often only one or two hospitals within the trust that do it. We are seeking to try to create greater choice across the entire system, including regionally, which genuinely builds choice. That is a big challenge—Governments of both complexions have tried it with varying degrees of success—but that is what we are seeking to do here. However, there is a lot of work to do in that space. I hope that when she sees the strategy she will recognise the degree of underpinning research that has been done. It may not necessarily cover every point that she has focused on, but I hope she will recognise the amount of work that has been done.