NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Matt Warman Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) who made a laudable and moderate speech. I dare to suggest that when people have serious frontline experience of our health service, as many in my own family do, they are less hyperbolic than those we heard from the shadow Front Bench. We should be clear that hyperbole harms our health service.

I do not for a moment think that we should pretend that there is no politics in the health service, but we should be clear that there are many things that unite us on this. I say that in large part because the situation in my own constituency of Boston and Skegness, where we have a serious and ongoing problem recruiting paediatric consultants and paediatric staff, has led to a number of public meetings, which have been both fascinating and somewhat disconcerting. I say that largely because the rhetoric of privatisation, of outsourcing, is something that I have confronted at first hand.

People genuinely believe that there is a long-term suggestion that an American model is coming to the UK. The effect of that is not simply to scare people, but when the vulnerable older person in Skegness, who often does not have access to a car and often does not have the deep-seated knowledge that the hon. Member for Stockton South has of the NHS, thinks, “You know, I shouldn’t go to my GP. The NHS is under huge strain. I shouldn’t cause a fuss. I shouldn’t make that appointment.” Later down the line, when he or she find themselves in a less healthy position, it is the fault of those of us who have used the NHS has a hyperbolic football. All of us in this place should be responsible when we talk about the health service. As we always say, and as those on the Front Bench have said, it is about patients, not politics.

I have been in those public meetings saying to my constituents that I believe that the trust in my own constituency is passionately committed to providing healthcare services for desperately ill children as close to home as possible. When I say that that trust is struggling to recruit, it is because it is struggling to recruit; it is because it is being honest. It is not because of some conspiracy theory at the top of the previous Government or of this Government, but because there are deep-seated problems that this Government are tackling with, for instance, the expansion of medical schools and the expansion of nurse training places. We should not, I gently suggest, be ideological about this stuff, and we should be responsible.

The shadow Secretary of State said that this is not about ideology, but about what works. The hon. Member for Stockton South also said that where private sector involvement enhances what can be provided by the public sector, we should be brave about saying that what makes patients healthier is in the taxpayers’ interests, it is in their interests and it is in our interests. So, while it is sometimes hard, in this adversarial Chamber, to calm down and look at the interests of our constituents, and although parliamentary theatre may be fascinating for Prime Minister’s questions and may be fascinating to us, I would like to hear an acknowledgment that the present Government are investing more than ever in the health service, are seeking to tackle the challenges of an ageing population and are seeking fundamentally to put patients first.