Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. As I make progress through my speech I will come back to the breath-taking complacency about mental health we heard from the Minister a moment ago.

Given the scale of the crisis and given that the Prime Minister has made fixing waiting lists one his five priorities, hon. Members might have expected something in the King’s Speech to deal with it. Instead, we got nothing on the NHS as it heads into its most challenging winter yet and we got nothing on social care, just kicking the can down the road and delaying reforms until after the election. There was nothing on dentistry, despite even Conservative Back Benchers crying out for a rescue plan, and nothing on mental health, despite the Conservative party committing to reform, not just in its last manifesto but in its last two manifestos.

It was the longest King’s Speech in almost a decade, with the fewest Bills. Does that not just sum up the modern Conservative party? Plenty of slogans, but no solutions. What we got was a Bill that will not come into effect until after the general election and a sack-the-nurses Bill. On the tobacco and vapes Bill, the question is not whether Labour will support it, but whether the Conservative party will support it. Government Members will remember that I first proposed that smoking ban back in January. I say they will remember, because they made their feelings known in newspapers at the time. They called it “nanny state” and

“an attack on ordinary people and their culture”.

They accused me of “health fascism”. Well, they can now make their considered and nuanced views known to the new Secretary of State—I am sure she is looking forward to receiving them. It just demonstrates that where Labour leads, the Government follow.

The Prime Minister may be too weak to whip his Back Benchers to vote that crucial measure through, but on the Opposition Benches we will put country first and party second. Labour MPs will go through the voting Lobby and make sure that the legislation is passed, so that young people today are even less likely to smoke than they are to vote Conservative.

I am afraid to disappoint the Government, but we will not be supporting the other Bill in the King’s Speech that relates to health. Most people look at the crisis in the NHS and think it needs more doctors and nurses. The Conservative party looks at the health service and concludes that we need to sack more doctors and nurses. The Government are saying that public servants should be sacked for failing to provide minimum standards on strike days, but the Government have not met the four-hour A&E standard since 2015; they have not met the standard for treatment within 18 weeks since 2016; and they were doing so badly on meeting cancer waiting time standards that they have simply got rid of the standards altogether. If the Conservatives are proposing to sack doctors and nurses for failing to provide minimum service levels, can we now sack Ministers for failing to meet minimum standards on non-strike days?

The new Health and Social Care Secretary has an opportunity to break with the past year. Strikes are crippling the NHS and they are putting patients in harm’s way. Her predecessor may have thought that they were a useful excuse for his failure, but they were, and are, a misery for patients and staff alike. The Government must stop the scapegoating of NHS staff, go into these negotiations with good faith, work at finding a solution, and, finally, bring these strikes to an end. There will be no progress on turning around our national health service until the Government make some progress.

When summing up I hope the Minister will explain why action was not taken on the Mental Health Act 2007, because, I am afraid, the Minister’s opening remarks were entirely unsatisfactory. The Bill has gone through Committee. It has cross-party support. It is ready to go, so where is it? The treatment of people with learning disabilities and autism under the current Act shames our society. The disproportionate impact on black people, who are four times more likely to be sectioned than white people, is appalling. Prisons and police cells are no place for people with mental ill-health. Surely that is not controversial in 2023. It is, as the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said, “a burning injustice”. I cannot understand why the Government have broken their promise to address that matter finally.

It is long past time that mental health was treated with the same seriousness as physical health. Labour will not only reform the Mental Health Act in our first King’s Speech, but recruit thousands more mental health professionals, provide hubs in every community, and set up mental health support in every school, so that young people can get the help they need when they need it. [Interruption.] The Minister says that they have done that. What planet is she living on? This is the problem with these Ministers. Even when the faces change, the lines remain the same. The Minister has not changed, but she is still reading from the same failed script. This is the problem with the Conservative party. Its message to the country is simple: “You have never had it so good. Everything is going really well. The reason we are churning all the Ministers in our Cabinet is that they are doing such a good job. It is job done and time to give someone else a chance.” I am afraid that that is why these Conservatives are so out of touch and will struggle at the next general election if their message to the country is that it has never had it so good.

Furthermore, unlike this Government, who crashed the economy in the most reckless way, we will pay for our policies, making sure that they are fully costed and fully funded—in this case, by ending tax breaks for private schools and private equity fund managers. Politics is about choices: Labour chooses the wellbeing of the many, not the interests of the few, and we will fight the election on those lines any time. I say call the election tomorrow, because we are ready.

When it comes to dentistry, I should also say farewell to two former Ministers, the hon. Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Harborough (Neil O’Brien). As the hon. Member for Harborough departs Government, I hope that he does not take with him his pledge to bring forward a recovery plan for NHS dental services. It has been seven months since he announced that such a plan would be forthcoming, yet it is now nowhere to be seen. Indeed, last week, integrated care systems were given permission to raid their dentistry budget underspends and to remove the ringfence. That follows a pilot in Cornwall, trialling making NHS dentistry available only to children and the most vulnerable. It is the managed decline of NHS dentistry before our eyes. If people want to know what the future of the NHS would look like with five more years of the Conservative Government, they need only look at the ghost of Christmas past in NHS dentistry. The Conservatives blame the previous Labour Government, but they have been in power for 13 years. In 2010, we stood on a manifesto committed to reforming the NHS dental contract. They have had 13 years to do it, and they have failed again and again, leaving us in the situation that we are in today, with Dickensian stories of desperate people performing DIY dentistry and tooth decay being the most common cause of children aged six to 10 being admitted to hospital. It did not need to be this way.

I say to the new Secretary of State and her team that she may not have a plan, but Labour does, and she is more than welcome to nick it. We will deliver 700,000 more urgent appointments a year, recruit dentists to the areas most in need, introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools to prevent children’s teeth from rotting, and reform the NHS dental contract so that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can get one—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Is that it?

[Wes Streeting]

The Minister says, “Is that it?”. It is 700,000 more NHS dentistry appointments than her Government are providing. It is ridiculous. The extent to which Ministers continue to parrot these ridiculous lines is embarrassing. If they want to intervene, make my day. I am perfectly prepared to confront any Member with their own Government’s record. Of course, they do not want to defend the Government’s record; they have a hard enough time doing that on the doorstep.

Turning back to His Majesty’s Gracious Speech, there may not have been any Bills for the health service last week, but we did see the white flag being waved on the Prime Minister’s pledge to cut waiting lists. Hospitals received a letter telling them to cut the number of operations and appointments they are aiming to offer this year. At the same time, an extra funding pot was announced, so we are literally paying more and getting less. No wonder the NHS is in such a state. No wonder waiting lists have trebled since 2010. No wonder hundreds of thousands more patients are waiting for treatment today than when the Prime Minister first made his pledge.

Strep A Treatments: Supply

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

May I wish you, Mr Speaker, and all staff of the House a merry Christmas? I also thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) for securing this urgent question. I put on record my deepest condolences to the families of the children who have tragically passed away with strep A. The news that cases are surging has been deeply worrying for parents of children showing symptoms, and it comes at a time when the NHS is facing unprecedented pressure.

We first heard about shortages of antibiotics to treat strep A almost two weeks ago, but when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition raised the issue with the Prime Minister, he said:

“There are no current shortages of drugs available”.—[Official Report, 7 December 2022; Vol. 724, c. 333.]

At the same time, parents were going from pharmacy to pharmacy to find the antibiotics their children had been prescribed, and they simply were not available. Why did the Prime Minister not know that there was a problem, when it was plain to see for parents of young people across the country? Had the Government been aware of the problem sooner, surely they could have acted to secure supplies earlier? The Minister said that there has been no shortage, just a supply chain issue. For a parent turning up to a pharmacy and finding that it does not have the antibiotics, it does not make much difference whether this is called a shortage or a supply chain issue, as the antibiotics are not there. The Government must get a grip on this situation and be honest with the public about the reality on the ground.

In addition to the export ban, will the Minister tell the House exactly what the Government are doing to shore up supply of drugs needed to treat strep A? During the past couple of weeks, as desperate parents have been looking for antibiotics, prices have disgracefully shot up. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will come down like a ton of bricks on any company found to be exploiting this situation by jacking up prices for medication?

This is about access to not just medicine, but GPs and A&E. Parents concerned about symptoms are advised to seek prompt medical advice, yet about one in seven patients cannot get a GP appointment when they need one, a record 2 million patients are made to wait a month before they see a GP and A&E departments are overwhelmed. So will the Minister assure parents of children with symptoms of strep A that they will be able to see a GP when they need to? Finally, given that there are strikes planned in the NHS this week, may I ask the Minister whether the Secretary of State plans to update the House tomorrow and explain the Government’s disgraceful inaction on that issue too?

[Maria Caulfield]

Let me reassure Members that, as I said in my opening remarks, there is no shortage of antibiotics to deal with strep A. There have been pressures on supplies; there have been five to six times the amount of prescriptions that are normally issued at this time of year. Let me give the House an idea of the sorts of figures we are talking about. This season, we have seen 74 deaths across all age groups in England, with 16 of them, unfortunately, having been deaths of children under 18—the vast majority have been among the over-65s. In the 2017-18 peak, we had 355 deaths of all ages, with 27 of those being deaths of children under 18. That just gives us an idea of the scale of the difference compared with the peak of 2017-18. We have put significant measures in place to expedite that supply. Manufacturers are ramping up production lines. Deliveries to pharmacies have been happening every day, but often when the supplies arrive there they go very quickly. That is why we have issued the SSPs already, so that pharmacies can allow the different medication to be dispensed, and the alternative antibiotics are there as well. May I also put on record my thanks to GPs and A&E staff, who have seen record numbers of people, particularly children, with concerns about strep A? We did lower the threshold to prescribe antibiotics and they have gone above and beyond in seeing as many children as they can, as quickly as possible.

Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on ambulance services and the declaration of a national heatwave emergency.

[The Minister of State, Department for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Our ambulance service performs heroics every single day, and I put on the record my thanks to every single one of its staff for their dedication and hard work. We have a duty to support this vital service and give it the resources it needs.

The latest figures from the NHS in England show that ambulance service response time performance has improved month on month, and that ambulance hours lost are also improving month on month. However, we fully acknowledge the rising pressures facing the service, and there are three significant factors influencing the situation. First, bed occupancy is currently around 93%, which we would normally see during winter. Secondly, there are high rates of hospital covid admissions—whether “with covid” or “because of covid”—and that puts pressure on A&Es’ ability to admit patients. Thirdly, void beds are running at roughly 1,200, partly due to a 16% increase in the length of stays. Delayed discharges are another significant influence, but they remain flat. We also have record numbers of calls to the ambulance service—100,000 more compared with May last year. There is therefore significant pressure on the system.

We also have to be mindful of the weather in the coming days. We do have a heatwave plan for England, which was published earlier this year—I am sure the hon. Gentleman has read it—and we also have the hot weather plans that NHS trusts have put in place. In addition, we are providing sector-specific guidance setting out the best way to protect people who may be at risk. We are also supporting the service more widely to make sure it has the resilience it needs. We have allocated £150 million of extra funding for the ambulance service this year, and we are boosting the workforce too. The number of national 999 call handlers had risen to nearly 2,300 at the start of June, which is a considerable increase on the previous September, and we are on track to train 3,000 paramedic graduates a year nationally every year until 2024. On top of this, we have invested £50 million in NHS 111 to help give extra capacity to the service.

I will be meeting all 11 ambulance trusts over the coming days to make sure that they have the capacity and the resilience they need not just to deal with the pressures now, including with the warm weather, but to prepare for the forthcoming winter pressures that we know are inevitable. This is an important issue that I take extremely seriously, and I will keep the House updated as the situation develops.

[Wes Streeting]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, but what a disgrace that the Secretary of State is not here. Our NHS is going through the biggest crisis in its history, every ambulance service is on the highest level of alert, patients are forced to wait hours in pain and discomfort, and he is yet to say a word about any of it. The Home Secretary was not at the Home Affairs Committee this morning, and the Health and Social Care Secretary is not here this afternoon. This is not even a Government in office, let alone in power.

One person who is still in office, however, is the Minister. Her boss resigned saying he could not put loyalty above integrity any longer. Well, the Minister obviously made a different choice. Can she say whether any further meetings of Cobra are scheduled beyond the meeting held on Monday? As we saw during the pandemic, public health emergencies require clear communication from Government. Can she tell the House what the consequences of a national heatwave emergency would be for schools, public transport services and other public services, and what guidance will be provided to the general public? What assessment has she made of the suitability of care homes to protect residents from the extreme heat, and what contingencies are in place should further measures be necessary?

Every ambulance service is now on the highest level of alert, so what is the Secretary of State doing about it? The Minister talks about targeted help for ambulance services—she is going to be hitting the phones this week; presumably the Secretary of State is too busy—but, as I think she acknowledged, this is a crisis across the health service. Last month, a crew in the west midlands waited 26 hours outside A&E because clinical staff were not available to hand over to. What are the Government doing to provide additional support to A&Es during this heatwave? These pressures are not new. Average waiting times for stroke and heart attack victims are one hour. Patients in the north-east were told to phone a friend or call a cab rather than rely on emergency services. Is it not the case that, although extreme weather is of course putting further pressure on our emergency services, it is 12 years of Conservative underfunding that has left them unable to cope?

In conclusion, if people such as the Home Secretary and the Health Secretary cannot be bothered to turn up to do their jobs and are not interested in the business of running this country because they are too busy making endorsements for fantasy candidates with far-fetched promises, perhaps it is time they step aside so that Labour can give Britain the fresh start it needs.

[Maria Caulfield]

Can I say how disappointed I am at the shadow Secretary of State’s response? If he is not happy that a female Minister with over 20 years’ experience in the NHS is able to answer a question on NHS waiting times, I find that very disappointing.

As I said in the debate a few weeks ago, I do not want to bring politics into health because I think it is too important, but if the shadow Secretary of State wants to play politics, I will give him politics. If we look at Wales, where Labour runs the NHS service, we see that the ambulance service and A&E departments are facing exactly the same pressures. Only 51% of red calls in Wales are being seen in eight minutes; the target is 65%. If he looks at the call time for strokes, he will see that only 17% of those people are being seen in time. Those numbers are falling month on month, whereas in England our responses are improving month on month. On the four-hour wait in A&E in Wales, 34.9% of people have been seen within four hours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wes Streeting]

indicated dissent.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he stood at the Dispatch Box just now and said that Labour would do better. It is not doing better in Labour-run Wales; it actually has either similar response times or worse response times.

I have set out a plan. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not read the heatwave plan for England, which was published earlier this year, because he would have the answers there. We are making sure that all NHS trusts are prepared. I am happy to work with each and every Member across this House to make sure that the ambulance service, our A&Es and hospital trusts have the support that they need, but if all he wants to do is play politics, I think that is extremely sad.

Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I am not frit, but I am conscious that another debate follows this one. I did not want to play politics, but if Opposition Members want to, I will give them politics.

The Labour party is against everything and for nothing. We have not had one suggestion from Labour or the Lib Dems. They are full of complaints without a single solution. We know that the shadow Secretary of State was busy over the weekend deleting his past misdemeanours, but he cannot delete Labour’s misdemeanours with the NHS. As Davina McCall would say, let’s have a look at their best bits. There are the PFI contracts that they mysteriously introduced—£1.4 billion a year is still going to private investors because of the deals made under a Labour Government. Full Fact confirmed that £57 billion will be spent in total on those PFI deals.

Moving on to the 2004 GP contract negotiations, evening and weekend cover was taken away, handed to primary care trusts and given to private companies. Changes to the law in 2007, voted for by Labour Members, allowed bigger businesses to buy up GP practices, resulting in the evidence we saw on “Panorama” last week. The top hit is the 2006 Labour dental contract—

[Wes Streeting]

Oh, here we go.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman may say, “Here we go,” but Opposition Members acknowledged this afternoon that the Labour contract was causing the problems. We are getting on with dealing with that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) asked what progress is being made. We put the negotiations to the BDA on 24 March and made a final offer—[Interruption.] They don’t want to listen, Madam Deputy Speaker; they don’t care. We put the final offer to the BDA on 20 May, and we are waiting to hear back. We are reforming the dental contract, which perversely disincentivises dentists to take on NHS work.

To correct the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), he did not host that dental summit; it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who invited me. The summit came up with a solution, and I am meeting her team so that we can work on that and take it forward.

In addition to the dental contract, we are reforming how we take on dentists from overseas. We consulted the GDC, which recently ran a consultation, and we will be laying legislation to give it powers to allow dentists to come here more easily—[Interruption.]

North East Ambulance Service

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on the North East Ambulance Service and if he will launch an investigation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Can I start by saying how horrified I was to read the concerns raised about the North East Ambulance Service in reports over the weekend? My thoughts are first and foremost with the families affected by the tragic events described. I cannot imagine the distress they are going through. It is hard enough to lose a loved one suddenly, but to have fears that mistakes were made that could have made a difference, and more than that, that the facts of what happened were not revealed in every case, goes further. They have my unreserved sympathy and support.

In healthcare, a willingness to learn from mistakes can be the difference between life and death, and it is because of this that, as a Government, we place such a high value on a culture of openness and a commitment to learning across the NHS. That is why the allegations raised by The Sunday Times this weekend are so concerning. As was made abundantly clear by the Secretary of State’s predecessor almost a decade ago, non-disclosure agreements have no place in the NHS and reputation management is never more important than patient safety.

The Government are wholly supportive of the right of staff working in the NHS to raise their concerns. Speaking up is vital for ensuring that patient safety, and quality of services, improve, and it should be a routine part of the business of the NHS. That is why, over the last decade, substantial measures have been introduced to the NHS to reduce patient harm and improve the response to harmed patients, including legal protections for whistleblowers, the statutory duty of candour, the establishment of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body and the introduction of medical examiners. It is also why, in response to a recommendation of the Sir Robert Francis “Freedom to speak up” review in 2015, the Government established an independent national guardian to help to drive positive cultural change across the NHS so that speaking up becomes business as usual. However, when it comes to patient safety, we cannot afford to be complacent. It remains a top priority for the Government and we continue to place enormous emphasis on making our NHS as safe as possible.

I note the concerns raised in this weekend’s reports. They have been subject to a thorough review at trust level, including through an external investigation, and the trust’s coronial reporting is subject to ongoing independent external audit and quarterly review by an executive director. I also note that the Care Quality Commission has been closely involved. However, given the seriousness of the claims reported over the weekend, we will of course be investigating more thoroughly and will not hesitate to take any action necessary and appropriate to protect patients.

The Government are also committed to supporting the ambulance service to manage the pressures it is facing. We have made significant investments in the ambulance workforce, with the number of NHS ambulance and support staff increasing by 38% since 2010. Health Education England has mandated a target to train 3,000 paramedic graduates nationally per annum from 2021, further increasing the domestic paramedic workforce to meet future demands on the service, while 999 call handlers have been boosted to over 2,400, so we are very serious about improving resources for the service.

I fully appreciate the concerns of right hon. and hon. Members across this House, and we will be pleased to meet any who have constituents affected by the reports this weekend so we can look at the issue more fully.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say that it is three minutes—and that means three minutes, not three minutes and 40 seconds —and I am sure whoever writes these speeches can actually time them through? I say to those on both Front Benches that we have to think about Back Benchers, who need to get their hospitals mentioned and their ambulance trusts as well.

I call the shadow Secretary of State, who I am sure will stick to the allocated time.

[Wes Streeting]

I pay tribute to the courage of the whistleblowers, as well as The Sunday Times journalists David Collins, Hannah Al-Othman and Shaun Lintern, without whom none of this would have come to light. But with respect to the Minister, it should not have taken an urgent question to bring her to the House today. On what she said about the Department further investigating, what form will this investigation take, who will be involved and what assurance can she give the families that there will be both answers and accountability, which is what they deserve?

Peter Coates died after an ambulance did not reach him in time. An ambulance two minutes away could not be dispatched because the station door was faulty, and staff did not know about the manual override. The ambulance that was dispatched decided to stop at a service station, even though it had sufficient fuel. Information about these errors was then withheld by the service, statements were changed and staff were asked to withhold the mistakes from the coroner. Peter Coates’ family learned the full truth only when contacted by reporters last week. His is just one of what is thought to be 90 cases involving gross negligence, cover-ups and tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money offered in exchange for staff silence.

The Minister mentioned the CQC. Why did it fail to spot this, rating the service “good” in 2018? Why did it fail to spot the situation even after being tipped off in 2020? Why is taxpayers’ money still being offered to buy the silence of staff when non-disclosure agreements were supposedly banned in 2014? What role did under-resourcing and understaffing play in this scandal?

Record ambulance waits exist in every part of the country, with heart attack and stroke victims waiting longer than an hour for an ambulance. As for the North East Ambulance Service, it is advising the public to phone a friend or call a cab rather than wait, while presiding over gross negligence, cover-ups and taxpayer-funded gagging orders on staff. That is the record on its watch. It is a national disgrace. What are the Government doing about it?

[Maria Caulfield]

We take the patient safety element of this extremely seriously. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s questions on who we will be meeting, I am happy to meet all the families affected to hear their concerns and the actions that they want taken. We met with the CQC this morning on this specific example, but we will be meeting with the ambulance trust. I also want to meet the coroner, and we want to hear from the whistleblowers. I am very happy to meet any member of staff who wants to raise concerns so that we can get to the bottom of exactly what has happened.

This Government introduced the duty of candour. Mistakes will always happen, no matter how much money is put into the health service or how many staff it has, but when a mistake does happen the hospital trust or ambulance trust should be open and up front about it, start a proper investigation, and learn the lessons so that it never happens again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

As I have said to other hon. Members, mistakes are always going to happen; that is human nature. The difference is that we are trying to introduce a culture of openness and learning in the NHS so that staff feel confident in coming forward, and so that when a mistake does happen, lessons are learned to prevent it from happening again.

Let us look at the record of this Government. It is this Government who are introducing a commissioner to oversee patient safety across the NHS. It is this Government who have introduced a statutory duty of candour so that when mistakes happen, patients and their families are notified and the process of learning starts. It is this Government who have introduced an early notification system specific to maternity—

[Wes Streeting]

It is not working.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that cancer has been an absolute priority throughout this pandemic, and treatment and services have continued. I thank all those working in cancer care for making sure that has happened. Ninety-five per cent. of people started treatment within a month of diagnosis throughout the pandemic, and there have been more than 4 million urgent referrals and 960,000 people receiving cancer treatment during that time.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Geoff Cosgrave was admitted to hospital in mid-November with kidney cancer that had spread through his lymph nodes and lungs. Last week, his wife Glynis contacted me in desperation because he was unable to access treatment to clear the blockage in his lungs as the thoracic ward at the nearby hospital had closed because of staffing shortages. After frantic and desperate chasing by his family and NHS staff, he was finally admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary last week, but unfortunately his condition had deteriorated so he could not receive treatment. Geoff died on Friday and I am sure the whole House will want to send their deepest condolences to Geoff’s family. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Glynis wants me to place on record her family’s enormous thanks to the NHS staff who cared for Geoff, and to ask the Minister what the Government are doing to address the serious understaffing in the NHS, and the covid pressures that are having an impact on cancer care, so that no family has to suffer what the Cosgrave family are experiencing right now.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I put on record—I am sure this is shared by the whole House—our sympathy for Geoff and his family. There is no doubt that despite cancer being a priority throughout the pandemic, there have been pressures on the system. I again thank the staff, as Geoff’s family have, for carrying on throughout. I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the NHS is focusing on recovering cancer services to pre-pandemic levels; an additional £2 billion of funding was made available to the NHS and there were 44,000 more staff from October 2020. We are absolutely committed to getting back on track for pre-pandemic levels. Cancer has always been a priority. That is no comfort to Geoff and his family, but hopefully they can be assured that we are doing all we can.