Public Health

Mike Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab) [V]]

I am immensely proud of the people of Hartlepool for the way in which they have faced up to this crisis and the spirit of determination that they have shown in overcoming the barriers of the pandemic. I especially thank all the volunteers in Hartlepool for the work that they have done. They have done so much and kept our communities together, and I would like to record my gratitude for the work that they have done.

On lockdown, there are many unresolved issues, particularly on work. There is a distinct lack of clarity regarding the rules about who should or should not work, and who should stay at home. On the recent example of schools, why did the Secretaries of State for Education and for Health and Social Care persist on Monday with their line that schools should go back, only for the Prime Minister on Tuesday to say that schools should be shut? The implications for health and safety and for work are enormous, and the lack of clarity does not help my constituents in matters like that.

On health provision, I would like more from the Government on inputs into health commitments in my constituency, particularly on mental health. The ramping up of vaccine provision is essential, and is important for my constituents’ wellbeing. Like everyone else in the country, the people of Hartlepool just want to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is always being mentioned. They want the roll-out of the vaccine to be ratcheted up so that the nightmare can end for them and order can be re-established sooner, rather than later. They understand the need for the lockdown, and the majority support it, but they also want clear leadership and direction from the Government—no more dithering and delay. Given the current R rate in Hartlepool, it would be irresponsible not to support the position adopted by the Government or to disobey the rules, but I say to the Minister, please, please do not test our patience. The people of Hartlepool have survived two lockdowns. They will survive a third lockdown. They have the stamina and community spirit to do it, but I urge the Minister not to let them down: get those vaccines out there and get our people and businesses supported here in Hartlepool and the north-east.

Deaths in Mental Health Care

Mike Hill Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 255823, relating to deaths in Mental Health care.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I, too, received that advice not long ago, and sought advice on behalf of the petitioner in regard to anything that I have to say. I will navigate through my speech, bearing in mind that legal statement. I apologise in advance if I stray into such territory, simply because to do justice to this petition I have for the most part chosen to reflect the words of the petitioner. That is only right and just. More than 100,000 people have signed the petition. It is a very personal case, and it is personal for other families whose relatives have died in such horrendous circumstances.

The petition attracted 105,580 UK signatories in support, despite the fact that it was curtailed by the Government closure of Westminster Hall last November due to covid. I will read the text of the petition to put it on the record and inform hon. Members fully. I have spoken to the petitioner, Melanie Leahy, on a number of occasions, and I pay tribute to her for starting the petition. She wrote:

“I request a full public inquiry into death of my son, Matthew Leahy. (20 yrs.)

Matthew was taken to ‘a place of safety’, and died 7 days later. 24 others died by the same means, dating back to the year 2000. An indicator that little was done to address the growing problems. Something went terribly wrong with the NHS Mental Health Services provided to my son.

There really is no way that public concern can be allayed, short of an Inquiry. All investigations to date, including police and inquest proceedings, have been based on a Trust Serious Incident Investigation. A four and half year Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman Report has now concluded that this investigation was not adequate and lacks credibility.

There has been an inadequacy of investigation. A human rights violation. New evidence has been uncovered and I request a statutory inquiry, that compels witnesses to give evidence on oath.

Matthew is not alone. Many others have died”—

in the same institution—

“whilst ‘In The Care Of The State’.”

The petition ends with a link to a press report dated November 2018 detailing how a two-year police investigation sparked by Matthew’s death six years earlier, into the corporate manslaughter of 24 further patients, was dropped, leaving families without “accountability or recourse”, for their loved ones’ deaths.

In opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee I want to begin with some background. On 15 November 2012, Melanie, Matthew’s mother, received the call that no parent wants to receive: “Matthew has been found hanging and it’s not looking good,” was the quote. It came to light that Matthew had already been dead for more than an hour when that call was made. Melanie described it to me as the first lie of many more that she would uncover after his death. I will share the background of Matthew’s short life, how he ended up in the care of the Essex mental health system, what went wrong, the journey that his mother has been on since his death to get to any form of truth or accountability, and her continued fight for truth, justice, accountability and change for others. I have received a letter from the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) in support of the case. He has had a case of someone dying in similar circumstances in the same place.

The account is quite long, but that is understandable as Melanie’s fight has taken eight years to date, and has encompassed many trials in getting to this point. I have a statement from Melanie that she would like to have been able to read herself. Obviously that is not allowed in this place, so I will read it for her:

“I write these words not just to represent my son, but to represent the multitude of lives that have been affected by the inadequate care offered by mental health services across our nation.”

Mr Stringer, almost within the last 10 minutes I received a statement from families, who asked for it to be read out. I do not have time to do that, but I ask the Minister to accept it if I forward it to her .

The Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (Ms Nadine Dorries) indicated assent.

[The Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

indicated assent.

[Mike Hill]

The statement reads:

“I am mum to Matthew James Leahy, born December 1991. He was a beautiful soul. He understood compassion and he cared for others. He was generous, he was kind, he was smart. He was funny and in his younger years he wanted to be a comedian. He was quite shy in large groups, and was a loyal friend. He was never one to encourage a fight but he would stand up for himself and the ones he loved. And I’m proud to say my son was honest, not a liar, not like some I’ve come across on this journey.

He loved the outdoors, loved anything water sports related and was a fantastic skier. Having left Grammar school, where he excelled in mathematics and computer science, he set up his own computer business, travelling between clients on his motorbike and was doing really well. He had a natural talent for swimming. He actually saved two ladies from drowning and when 18 he became a qualified life guard.

Aged 19 Matthew was having trouble sleeping and complaining of pains in his stomach and having stomach cramps. He was also hallucinating. When Matthew became poorly we turned to so called professionals for help, to help us to understand what was happening with our son. He was sectioned for care and treatment. This sectioning and the failings in care at that time, although noted briefly in the inquest verdicts, have never been investigated.

After Matthew’s death medical records showed that the first psychiatrist involved in his care picked up a B12 and folate deficiency and possible coeliac disease, combined with a thyroid issue. However, these discoveries were never addressed, as a new psychiatrist took over Matthew’s care and put him straight on to anti-psychotic medication. Any further physical checks were minimal.

On 7 November 2012, Matthew was placed under section 3 of the Mental Health Act and admitted to the Linden Centre in Chelmsford, Essex. By 15 November, some seven days in the ‘care of the state’, my son was dead. The last days of his life in a place he called ‘Hell’. And I now believe it truly was a hell on earth.

Alone, malnourished, over-medicated, scared, bleeding, bruised, reportedly raped, injected multiple times, ignored, and frightened. No records of any staff in those last seven days of his life offering him any comfort. I had been advised not to visit and to give him time to settle on the ward. I will live with the guilt for the rest of my life that I listened to so-called professionals and I was not there when my son needed me the most.

An inquest into my son’s death was held in January 2015. An open narrative verdict was reached, which concluded that my son, ‘Matthew James Leahy was subject to a series of multiple failings and missed opportunities over a prolonged period of time by those entrusted with his care. The jury found that relevant policies and procedures were not adhered to, impacting on Matthew’s overall care and wellbeing leading up to his death.’

How the inquest concluded I will never know. Staff were not interviewed by police after Matthew’s death. An internal investigation was carried out, which the Parliamentary and Health Service ombudsman has deemed flawed and not fit for purpose. This flawed investigation formed the basis of every investigation actioned after Matthew’s death.

The ligature was destroyed, the defibrillator was destroyed. Door logs were not downloaded. CCTV was hidden for over seven-plus years, and parts of it either not retained or deleted. So, so many more issues exist.

I have not been able to determine or control any of this—investigations, reviews, reports etc—all processes that have happened around me, with me being entitled to some information and some explanation, but little voice, little influence and little power.

I did think that the system would be open and honest, would explain what went wrong, hold to account those responsible for any failings and afford justice for failing my most precious son. However, I have discovered a deeply troubling mismatch between what I expected and what I found. In any other walk of life, if there had been failings, heads would roll. This has never happened, despite criminal offences being proved.

If the tragedy of losing Matthew hasn’t been bad enough, to not know the full circumstance that led to his death ‘whilst in the care of the state’ is unforgiveable. I still do not have full disclosure and have never seen internal statements. ‘Duty of Candour’ went out of the window the moment Matthew died.

It came to light after Matthew died that paperwork had been falsified, backdated and slipped into his files. It took me four-plus years to finally persuade Essex Police to register this falsification of mental health documents as a crime. I thought, ‘At last, they are listening to me.’ Then the bomb dropped. ‘We won’t be prosecuting, as it’s not in the public interest.’

The Trust has failed to take steps to protect patients in their care. The question remains why no individual has been held to account and why some staff involved in failing my son and other patients have actually been promoted to high-ranking positions within the NHS.

The Coroner called for a Public Inquiry after the inquest in 2015. There have also been multiple calls from various MPs in the last five years. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman went on national television after ‘The Missed Opportunities Report’ was published to say that if he had the power to, he would call a Public Inquiry.

In October last year, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee held an evidence session on the Ombudsman’s Report into the failed care of Matthew and of Ben Morris. (Ben died in the Linden Centre in 2008 aged 20 years).

During the session, the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention explained, ‘that Public Inquiries do not happen for individual cases. In this case, a Public Inquiry is not an appropriate response because we are talking about two cases’.

I have now been joined in this fight calling for a Statutory Public Inquiry into Essex Mental Health Services by multiple bereaved and failed families. (55 families and growing). How multiple deaths can have gone on unchallenged for so many years and so many people in official positions, not involved with this scandal, have entrapped themselves by collaboration the moment they came across it has baffled me. How the system did not prevent these deaths or at the very least detect the failings/changes needed earlier I’m sure is a question in many failed families’ minds, not just mine.

Where is the Government’s anger? Its thirst for Truth and Justice? Its commitment to getting answers and ensuring it never happens again?

Many families are losing loved ones while under the care of state mental health system. Whether that be due to mental illness, additional vulnerabilities such as autistic and/or learning disabled individuals, those misdiagnosed, or dementia...it does not discriminate.”

The Government are now officially, in Melanie’s words,

“on notice of…Gross and systemic Neglect (resulting in multiple avoidable deaths)…Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable—most of them young, historical and sadly, ongoing.

The right people in Government need to understand the full extent of the Essex Trust’s Failures and I have every faith that once the Government commits to a Full Statutory Public Inquiry into Essex Mental Health, the fundamental truth of what and still is going wrong will be revealed.

Through that knowledge I hope justice and accountability are afforded and that necessary change is made for others who, like I and many others did, look to services when they need safe, compassionate care for their loved ones.”

I have to echo that point in respect of some horrendous cases in the Tees Valley, my own patch.

I will conclude with the following words:

“I offered the Government Matthew’s sad death to be a catalyst of learning and change months ago. Please call a Public Inquiry into Essex Mental Health Services without further delay. Make the changes in Essex and send the learning across the country. I hope then that I can start to grieve the loss of my son and Matthew will be able to then rest in peace.”

I know I have kept my speech narrow, but I felt it appropriate to reflect the true voice of the petitioners. Thank you, Mr Stringer, for allowing me to do that.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

There are a number of people on the list who wish to speak. I will start with a time limit of four minutes, and call James Cartlidge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Hill]

I thank the Petitions Committee and its staff for their hard work in the background for all Members in the Chamber, who in representing the interests of their constituents have conducted themselves in dignity and with passion. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and the Minister for their contributions. I cannot say whether Melanie will be happy with that, but she clearly called for a statutory inquiry.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 255823, relating to deaths in mental health care.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I absolutely can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I had a meeting on this with the NHS only this week. The good news is that the backlog from the initial lockdown has been reduced: the number of very long waiters for cancer treatment—those waiting more than 104 days—has been reduced by 63%. We are working to keep that coming down. The best way that we can make cancer treatment available to everyone, and the best thing in terms of cancer treatment, is to keep the rate of coronavirus down. On the point about fairness, representing a Lancashire seat as she does, I think it is really important that the proposals that we are making for Greater Manchester, the subject of the statement this evening, are equivalent to those that were made for Lancashire. It is only fair that, between different geographies, we have the same levels of support, especially in neighbouring geographies such as Hyndburn and Manchester.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I, too, am working hard with Tees Valley colleagues to keep the area out of tier 3, but my constituents in Hartlepool are confused and seething with anger. They are concerned about moving to tier 3 with all the health and economic impacts that that will bring. We are not in tier 3 yet, but if we get there what exit strategy does the Secretary of State have for ending lockdown?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his assessment: Hartlepool is in tier 2 at the moment and I hope that we can keep it there, but we will keep it under review. The best exit strategy for anywhere that wants to go into a lower tier is for everybody to follow the rules, respect social distancing and try to get the case rate coming down, but, of course, for the whole nation—indeed for the whole world—the best exit strategy is a combination of mass testing and a vaccine, and we are working incredibly hard to deliver both as quickly as feasibly possible. We need a long-term solution to covid as well as the short-term action that we are having to take.

Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Mike Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns). She makes a valid point that this is a public health crisis.

Over a week ago, my constituency of Hartlepool was placed under lockdown. It is currently in tier 2 of the new measures. Yes, it was requested by the local authority that such action be taken, but not in the guise in which it formed itself in the current measures. Lockdown was imposed on Hartlepool via a Government press release. Yesterday morning at 9 am, there was a hastily arranged conference call, hosted by a Minister, with all north-east leaders, yet Hartlepool, together with other authorities in the Tees valley, was left off the phone call. On behalf of my council, I would like the Minister to answer why they were not included in a phone call on the new measures in the north-east of England. If that was a mistake, has it been rectified or when will it be rectified? Consultation with my local authority has so far been woeful.

Turning to the public health issues, now that the whole of the Tees valley is under tier 2 we can hopefully work together and set party politics aside for the public good. Collectively, our local authorities face important challenges and they deserve to have appropriate resources allocated to them. In my council, it is estimated that £4.5 million is needed to provide extra support during lockdown. We desperately need to see a strategy developed by the Government for ending lockdown. Test and trace needs to be devolved, so that local environmental health teams, who know the patch and have the knowledge, can provide a more effective service. We need much more to assist us to get through tier 2. It is a public health crisis. I urge the Government to improve their communications and to answer the question I put earlier.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

If you are on the call list between No. 40 and No. 70 and you no longer want to participate in the debate, please make sure that the message comes through to the Chair.

Public Health

Mike Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

If the hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) is correct in his earlier intervention on the Minister and low hospital admissions are the key to avoiding local lockdowns, then most certainly Hartlepool would not have gone into lockdown last Saturday. His brass-neck intervention on the Minister does not help the people of Teesside one iota; it just adds to the confusion.

The challenges that this crisis have created for my constituency are unprecedented. I want to place on record my gratitude to the local council and its staff, NHS and care workers, and all key workers for doing extraordinary work in these very difficult times.

The newly imposed measures, with less than a week gone, are already having a negative impact on local businesses. Pubs and restaurants, already damaged by the 10 o’clock closing rule, are being knocked out by the body blow of restrictions on meeting anyone outside of the household bubble in public spaces.

The rules lack clarity and are causing tremendous confusion. A lack of a clear strategy to get us out of lockdown is worrying. I have to say that my constituency neighbour my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) and I were disgusted by the lack of advanced notification from the Government of their intentions. I hope that Members are treated better in future. More importantly, the fact that my council was notified via a press release is unacceptable.

Jobs are at risk, our local economy is floundering and public health is suffering. Our council asked for safeguarding measures; the Government gave it lockdown. Our council needs £4.5 million to get us through this crisis; it got a share of £7 million, split between nine local authorities. Frankly, that is nothing short of a disgrace.

Covid-19

Mike Hill Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I have to admit that I have had to rewrite my speech in the light of the events that have occurred today in my area, Cleveland, with respect to covid-19.

I thank and pay tribute to all the NHS workers, care workers and key workers who keep the people of my constituency, Hartlepool, safe, well, protected and fed. I also pay tribute to all the local volunteers who have been relentless in their efforts to keep our communities going, to keep them together and to keep our citizens supported. I am very pleased—so pleased—that one of the national vaccine trials is taking place at our very own University Hospital of Hartlepool, which deserves much more Government investment to protect operational services. It is playing its part in this national crisis and I am proud of the people who work there.

I have changed my speech because of the Secretary of State’s announcement from the Dispatch Box of local restrictions for the Cleveland and Tees Valley area. On the letter written by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), who is not present to hear this speech, and his fellow Conservative MPs in the area—they are known as the Cleveland Conservative collective of MPs—to all local authorities in the Tees Valley area to say that they feel the authorities should not proceed with voluntary local restrictions, it would have been much better for them to have spoken to all Tees Valley MPs, rather than construct what is little more than a local, party political and divisive missive at a time when we should all be working together for the greater good in the Tees Valley. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not present to hear me say that.

Local restrictions are the last thing we want—they hurt business and keep families and loved ones apart—but where the R rate is so high, protective measures and local restrictions are put in place to protect people and stop the spread of virus, as we have seen in other areas. I have often disagreed with my local council—for example, it has a bizarre plan to stop traffic going up and down a local high street known as the York Road but it cannot explain why; it just says that it is because of covid-19 reasons. I will disagree with bizarre local plans like that and be vocal about them, but I have spoken to the council today about local restrictions and I have listened to our local public health authorities, and I understand why they feel that more resources and more support is needed to get Hartlepool through this crisis.

Until now, Hartlepool has been given only ad hoc provision, yet we persistently sat at the bottom of the fatalities league in the north-east—something we should rightfully be proud of. Even so, we had been in the red zone—the watch zone—for more than two weeks before routine testing materialised. I am no apologist for my council, which is a Conservative-backed collective, but in order to get a grip of this virus, and with a distinct lack of direction and leadership from the other side, on balance taking local control appears to be the way forward. People in Hartlepool—or anywhere else, for that matter—should not be made to drive miles just to get a test. It is absolutely ridiculous and my constituents rightly feel outraged by it. We need Government leadership and positive direction from the Government; unless we get that, the local option is the better option.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Mike Hill Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 General Committees

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On the issue of the effects on mental health, a number of concerned constituents have now come to see me about visits to care homes and to relatives in supported living accommodation. Does my hon. Friend agree that there appears to be a one-size-fits-all approach to visiting, and that that needs to be looked at in the light of the experience in places such as Blackburn with Darwen, and Bradford?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his heartfelt and articulate intervention. He expressed the feelings of many families who feel ripped apart, unable to see those they love the most. A one-size-fits-all approach is not fitting at a time like this. We have to take into consideration the deep pain that families are going through.

We have been promised a “world-beating” test and trace system for months. Yet here we are, six months on, and our entire testing system is in a dire state. Members may be tired of hearing us talk about the state of the test and trace system, but we must be honest about the position we are in. Without a successful, adequate test and trace system, we risk losing lives and further affecting people’s mental health and businesses.

It has never been acceptable that there should be reports of people being asked to drive more than 50 miles to be tested. However, at this stage it is unbelievable. If people are being told to return to work or to go to school, but are prohibited from stopping in the street to chat with their neighbours, the least that should be expected of Government is to guarantee access to tests to those who need them. The Government knew that encouraging people to return to workplaces and opening schools would undoubtedly lead to a rise in demand for testing. Yet they have been nowhere near equipped to deal with it.

At this point, I would like to ask whether new concerns have been raised since schools and universities have gone back. How are restrictions ever to be lifted if people cannot get access to testing? I would like to know from the Minister what actions the Government are taking to rectify that, and I would like assurances that areas in local lockdown are not facing prolonged restrictions owing to problems with the Government’s own test and trace system.

Adequate testing provision also relies on communication of what people need to do to self-isolate properly and for the correct amount of time. Nationally, there has been changing guidance on the incubation period of the virus, and the Government ignored World Health Organisation guidance in the early weeks. That led to mixed messaging and confusion about self-isolation guidance.

Locally, it would be helpful to have answers to the following questions. On “relevant persons” being responsible for the dispersal of gatherings, have any of the local authorities within the scope of the SI raised concerns about licensed premises and the inability to carry out checks due to not having enough resources to do so safely? How many fixed penalty notices have been issued for not adhering to the regulations, and how many offences were carried out under the regulations?

The decision to lift restrictions in certain wards, but to keep them in neighbouring ones, seems counter- productive. If infection rates are dangerously high on one end of the road, surely there is a risk of further spread of the virus. If they are not dangerously high, why does one end of the road have restrictions while the other does not? Can the Minister please explain the reasoning behind that? Again, have Ministers made these decisions in full partnership with the local communities that they affect, or have they overruled local leaders who raised concerns?

As I have already mentioned but feel it is necessary to reiterate, imposing restrictions without engagement with local authorities is absolutely the wrong way to go and will lead to confusion, frustration and an inevitable resurgence of cases. Only by working together can we curb the spread of the virus. I hope the Government listen to our concerns, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, my hon. Friend is spot on. We recognise the need for a multi-year capital settlement in the NHS to support exactly that sort of planning and to modernise, and the Treasury has confirmed that we will publish that settlement at the next capital review.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

9. What discussions he has had with the Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees clinical commissioning group on the future of services at the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no discussions with the CCG on the future of services at the University Hospital of Hartlepool.

[Mike Hill]

Hartlepool’s hospital is vital to our community, but its future very much depends on consultancy-led services. What reassurances can the Minister give me that consultancy-led services will be returned to that hospital?

[Edward Argar]

I am conscious that both the energetic Mayor Ben Houchen and the hon. Member have campaigned on working to reinstate accident and emergency and maternity services at Hartlepool’s hospital. Although there are currently no plans that I am aware of to change the model of services, and reconfiguration matters are for the CCG, I am happy to meet him and the Mayor to discuss the hospital if that is useful.

The National Health Service

Mike Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). Let me begin by praising all the healthcare workers employed by the NHS and in social care for the work that they do—including my own daughter-in-law, who recently qualified as a nurse. In the face of austerity, in difficult and arduous circumstances, with diminishing resources and never-ending cuts, they have worked tirelessly to provide the best healthcare outcomes for the people of my constituency.

As a Labour MP, I am proud to say that the best traditions of our NHS, established by a Labour Government, are alive and kicking in Hartlepool: alive because the people of the town, together with healthcare workers, campaigners and the trade unions, have kept public health and NHS provision high on the agenda, fighting to keep our local hospital, demanding improvements in GP services and protesting against attempts to water down NHS and public health provision throughout the town, and kicking because they have been swimming against the tide for far too long, with wave after wave of cuts hitting them squarely in the face and threatening to drag them under. The people of Hartlepool will have none of that.

We lost our A&E in 2010, and we have stood our ground ever since. The plan was to build housing on hospital grounds; the people said no. The plan was to run our maternity unit down; the people said no. The people stood strong and said: “Our children should have the right to be born and registered as such in their own town.” They are fiercely protective of their NHS and rightly so.

What can the people expect from the Queen’s Speech? Is it the return of A&E to Hartlepool hospital? Not a cat in hell’s chance. Will it give more money to invest and improve our hospital? No way, and no way, too, for any hospital trust across the Tees valley, where in excess of £10 million is required to cover high-risk repairs, £5 million of which is needed in my own trust of North Tees and Hartlepool.

The truth is that the pledges on NHS funding in the Queen’s Speech will have little impact on hard-pressed NHS acute services in Hartlepool, nor will they plug the gap in mental health funding, and in regard to social care the Queen’s Speech simply dodges the bullet by kicking the can down the road and fails to tackle the growing crisis in adult social care head-on. And despite a continued 2% precept being placed by the Government on council tax to cover adult social care, this is offset by a reduction of funding to our local council of almost £21 million, or 45%, since 2013-14.

The wanton, in-your-face, upfront daylight robbery of public services funding has to stop, and stop now, if we are to tackle serious health inequalities and growing social care needs in places such as Hartlepool, and the Queen’s Speech simply does not do that.

NHS Workforce: England

Mike Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the hon. Members for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith), for Lincoln (Karen Lee) and for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on their eloquent speeches.

The crisis in the NHS workforce is deeply concerning. Its effects are felt nationally, locally and personally. Like others here, I want to pay tribute to the people working at every level of my national health service within the south lakes: the hospital in Kendal, Westmoreland General Hospital, and the district generals that we travel to in Barrow and in Lancaster. Of course, there are the GPs, dentists, paramedics and those providing mental health services. They do an outstanding job, but it is particularly challenging in rural areas, where we have specific problems with workforce planning and supply, which are at the heart of the problems that we are challenged by.

There are several key elements to workforce planning, including accessible and high quality training, as well as affordable training, as has just been mentioned so eloquently. Effective recruitment is another. Alongside both of those is the issue of staff retention. The Secretary of State must surely be held to account for each of those. The huge shortages in the NHS workforce are felt heavily in numerous areas of healthcare provision in the local communities in Cumbria, and I briefly want to touch on a few of them.

The provision of ambulances and ambulance crews has been hit particularly hard. It is vital that we recruit and deploy more paramedics and ambulance technicians. Rural communities such as mine suffer because of the sheer distances that ambulances have to travel to reach patients. According to the review of NHS access standards, it is the responsibility of ambulance trusts to respond to category 1 calls within seven minutes on average. That is a tall order when there are half the number of ambulances per head in the north-west of England as there are in London, despite the fact that my constituency alone is bigger than the whole of Greater London. It leaves communities living in fear for their safety and takes a serious toll on the physical and mental health of our outstanding ambulance crews. Our local paramedics and ambulance technicians are being pushed beyond their capacity. As a result, I have had an influx of local people contacting me about having to wait hours for an ambulance to arrive to give them the treatment that they so desperately need. That is why local health campaigners have been calling on the Government to deliver two new fully crewed ambulances to south Lakeland to stem the crisis and ensure the safety of the community. It is not right that people in Grasmere, Dent or Hawkshead might be an hour away from the nearest available ambulance.

We met the Minister to raise the issue a few weeks ago. He was incredibly helpful and I thank him for his time and his response. I very much welcome the commitment to procure additional emergency ambulances. I understand that as a result of our campaigns an additional £8 million has been allocated to the North West Ambulance Service. That could be good news for south Cumbria, but only if the ambulance service allocates it in the way that we have asked. Ministers should be held to account for whether the ambulances materialise.

Mental health is another element of workforce planning that I want to raise—particularly provision for children. Four years ago the Government promised a bespoke one-to-one eating disorder service for young people in Cumbria. For young people in south Cumbria that promise remains nothing more than words. The specialists have not been recruited and the service still does not exist. I should love it if the Minister would tell me exactly when we can expect our young people to have access to the service. When will the promises be kept?

I welcome the Government’s commitment to preventive healthcare, set out in the NHS long-term plan. However, again, promises are not being fulfilled. In our area, cuts to the public health budget mean that the NHS in Cumbria currently spends only £75,000 a year on tier 1 mental health preventive care for children. That works out at just 75p per child per year. Proper investment in public health would ensure enough money for a mental health professional for every school and college, if we could recruit them, keeping young people mentally healthy and making sure that problems did not become so severe further down the line. It would also ease the burden on our massively oversubscribed local child and adolescent mental health services, and relieve the pressure on our brilliant but overworked teachers.

In our area, there is a problem with people moving out of NHS provision to work privately, particularly in the delivery of dental services. More than half of adults in Cumbria have not had access to an NHS dentist in the past two years, while one in three children locally does not even have a place with an NHS dentist. Much as with ambulances, the impact of the lack of a workforce of sufficient size is felt particularly acutely in rural areas. Insufficient NHS dentistry provision has resulted in families having to make ludicrously long journeys to reach the nearest surgery with an available NHS place. Often, people are unable to make those long journeys, or to afford to make them.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about dentistry. There are frightening figures about my constituency showing a lack of take-up of NHS dental treatment among children in particular. That is a real worry. I wonder whether it is reflected in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and whether he agrees that we need at least to tackle NHS provision for dental treatment for young people. It is important.

[Tim Farron]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. I am certain it is felt across the country. If it is made too difficult to get to the nearest NHS dental surgery—if that is 60 or even 100 miles away, as has been the case on occasion for constituents of mine—people go without treatment, and so do their children.

Last November I managed to secure the agreement of the commissioners to increase the value of the contracts to NHS dentists in Kendal so they could see and treat more patients. “Brilliant,” we thought, “that is really good news.” When NHS England contacted our local NHS dentists they found that not one of them was able to take up their offer. I was told that the practices were already working to capacity within the staffing resources they had available, and were reporting difficulties in recruiting additional staff. Those staff exist, by the way. They are working in the private sector. The treadmill of a contract that is unfair to patients and dentists, and not fit for purpose, keeps them out of the NHS. As the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) says, that hits young people particularly.

The reasons for those difficulties include a contract that pays a set amount for a particular type of treatment, regardless of the number of teeth that a dentist treats. A dentist will get paid, on average, £75 for an entire course of treatment including six fillings, three extractions and a root canal. That is not enough to cover overheads. That is a serious disincentive to people entering NHS dentistry. It hits all areas, but particularly deprived areas, and has a massive impact on the size of the workforce. According to the Department’s website, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is responsible for

“oversight of NHS delivery and performance”

but if he is unable or unwilling to intervene to correct such absurd commissioning we have to ask what real power he has to perform the role. That is the kind of systemic problem that adds up to the workforce crisis we have all talked about and which proper accountability would go some way to solving.

The website states that the other part of the Secretary of State’s role is

“oversight of social care policy”.

Social care policy is key to NHS workforce planning and supply in England. We all recognise that social care provision is in crisis, and that the crisis gets worse the longer we do not address it. As it grows, so does the pressure on the NHS, which is left dealing with the serious health problems of those who did not receive the routine care they needed. The Government cannot go on delaying simply because of the personal embarrassment of having failed so far. To be fair, they are not the only ones responsible. Neither are they the only ones who can come up with a solution. We need to reach across divides and look for a cross-party solution.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), the shadow Secretary of State, to invite them to join me so that between us we can constructively use this deadlocked Parliament to reimagine and then redesign a social care system that could provide us with the care we might want for our parents, ourselves or, indeed, in the future, our children. I hope that we can work together to create a new deal for social care and a chance to turn this logjammed Parliament into one of the most productive in history.

The lack in the workforce has a profound impact in each of the areas I have talked about. Common themes and problems emerge: there is a lack of planning, as well as short-sightedness and a failure to invest in preventive care or to understand that providing healthcare is harder in rural areas, as are recruitment and retention. The Government must plan to overcome those specific challenges as part of their overall strategy. The Government, in not taking responsibility for the workforce crisis, are creating huge problems for generations to come. We need accountability, both for the current workforce crisis and to ensure that we invest in long-term solutions beyond the next Prime Minister, the next Government and even the next generation.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith) for securing the debate. Like everyone who knows the NHS workforce, I want to pay tribute to all the people I served, including in acute services, when I was a Unison official in public sector health. Some of the stories we heard today from colleagues who used to work as nurses or as other healthcare staff took me back to those times. I have talked to many a worker, particularly in mental health, and often they are overstretched. The work is arduous and they cannot go off shift, for the safety of the patients. More importantly, at times the environment is dangerous for staff, and I know many people, particularly in acute mental health, who have been subjected to violence in the workplace purely as a consequence of understaffing and lack of resources, yet they bravely battle on to look after the patients in their care.

There is a word that one would never expect to be associated with NHS services in a commonplace way, yet it is frequently associated with the demise or semi-demise, or shutdown or partial shutdown, of NHS units. That word is “unsafe”. It has been used time and again, especially by acute trusts, to justify the stoppage of particular patient-facing functions, including accident and emergency departments. In 2016 it was reported that in 60 towns, including Hartlepool, A&E units had closed, disappeared or been downgraded. A year later, in 2017, one in six was reported to be at risk, and a further 33 units, in 23 areas in the UK, were affected.

Even today, in the Tory heartlands of Richmond and Northallerton in North Yorkshire, the same is happening at the Friarage Hospital. It is not just A&E provision that is affected but the birthing unit at University Hospital of Hartlepool, and breast screening at nearby James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough. They have been mothballed or put into slow decline, with one common denominator: the services were deemed unsafe due to a lack of consultants.

The recruitment and retention of consultants is vital, of course, but so too is the recruitment and retention of nurses and other staff. I mentioned the birthing unit in Hartlepool because last year the maternity centre, at which there were once hundreds of births, reached an all-time low—just three babies were delivered at the unit, with a further five home births in the town. That so alarmed the local authority that maternity provision in the town came under specific scrutiny, with a view to promoting and boosting the use of the birthing unit and improving maternity services in the locality. In fact, the chair of the council’s audit and scrutiny committee—Conservative Councillor Brenda Loynes—is on record as saying that it was

“important to encourage more people to use the Hartlepool unit to keep the service in the town.”

Yet the will of the people, and the pride that comes from having the right to be born and registered in their own town, is continually being thwarted. Only this week a constituent told me that his partner, who was four days over her due date, had recently opted to have her baby at the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton because there was not a consultant on hand at Hartlepool, even though they are part of the same NHS foundation trust. At her midwife appointment, his partner stated that it was a shame that there was not a consultant on hand in Hartlepool, as her preferred choice was to give birth there. The reply was, “Nobody can have their babies at the birthing centre, as they haven’t got the staff to cover it—not just consultants but midwifery staff.” To the people of my town, who thought that they had seen the back of cuts to hospital services, that will be a slap in the face.

There are 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS in England alone, according to the Royal College of Nursing and the other unions—GMB, Unite and Unison. We stand on the brink of a crisis in our NHS. As my brother Andrew has experienced several times, surgery and appointments are cancelled, and wards and units are closed, more often than not because of staff shortages.

Let me be clear: that is not the fault of the hard-working NHS staff, who cannot and do not drop everything at the end of their shift, in the face of short staffing and in the interests of patient safety. It is not the fault of the midwives in Hartlepool, who want to provide a service out of the local hospital. It is the fault of the Government, who have failed to get a grip of the issue and ensure that there are enough health and care staff with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time to care for patients. Their strategy for the NHS has to include taking responsibility for ensuring adequate workforce planning and funding. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care must have a clear and explicit responsibly for the growth and development of the healthcare workforce across England. Shame on the Government for not doing so and for running the NHS further into the ground.