A&E Services

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

If the hon. Gentleman is seeking an apology, would he like to apologise for the fact that A&Es in England have missed their waiting time targets for the past 100 weeks? I do not see any trace of an apology or any scintilla of embarrassment on his face.

It is true that certain societal changes, including the ageing society, pose new challenges and offer new pressures for the NHS, but the service is also under increasing financial pressure as a direct result of Government policy. First, the declining access to social care and the squeeze on primary care have forced people to turn to A&E in increasing numbers and have also meant an increasing number of admissions that could have been avoided if people had received better care outside hospital. Secondly, the Government wasted £3 billion, at least, on a damaging top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for, and which was hidden from the electorate. That reorganisation sucked resources from front-line patient care. We know that senior members of the Cabinet believe that the reorganisation was a catastrophic mistake. We know that, in the words of British Medical Association chair Mark Porter,

“the damage done to the NHS has been profound and intense”,

and we know that the reorganisation has not made the NHS more productive or more efficient.

Thirdly, the effect of that wastage has been compounded by the short-sighted cuts to nurse training places at the beginning of the previous Parliament. That means that there are not enough staff working in hospitals—that was a key criticism by the Keogh review. In addition to compromising patient safety and clinical outcomes, this Government’s decision has left trusts over-reliant on expensive agency staff.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

When I worked in hospitals and was responsible for arranging community-based discharge, two major problems created a delay in discharge—I hate the expression “bed-blocking” as it is such an insult to elderly people. One was access to community care facilities—home care support—and the other was ensuring that we had community equipment, such as hospital beds, hoists or bathing equipment. If we do not have all the pieces in place, which often come not from NHS funding but from local authority funding, it will not happen. That is exacerbating the problem in A&E.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a prescient point. The Government talk the talk but do not want the walk, and she has detailed precisely why that is the case.