Access to Primary Healthcare

Mike Martin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I have been a good girl, thank you, Secretary of State.

Furthermore, can the Secretary of State explain how cancelling dozens of new hospitals will reduce pressure on general practice? Can he explain how cutting the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners will help the NHS? The End Fuel Poverty Coalition predicts that Labour’s winter fuel payment cut will result in an additional 262,000 pensioners needing NHS treatment because they are cold, resulting in a great deal of suffering and millions of pounds of additional cost to the NHS. Does he agree with that assessment? I have asked repeatedly, in both oral and written questions, if the Government will conduct a proper impact assessment of the policy on the NHS and on the wellbeing of vulnerable older people. Will he commit to producing and publishing such as report?

Further on the issue of prevention, the right hon. Gentleman will know that folic acid supplementation can prevent neural tube disorders, such as spina bifida and anencephaly. The previous Government brought forward regulations on the matter. What conversations has the Secretary of State had with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about ensuring that that work is continued?

Our approach to dentistry was also underlined by prevention. We introduced the Health and Care Act 2022, which gave the Secretary of State the power to introduce water fluoridation schemes. Those powers have since been used to extend existing schemes, particularly in the north-east of England. Does the Secretary of State intend to continue that work and exercise the powers the previous Government gave him? He knows that I am passionate about dentistry. I have raised the issue many times in the House, including by securing an Adjournment debate on dentistry in Lincolnshire. It troubles me greatly that children are coming to hospital for multiple dental extractions due to rotten teeth. It is worth noting that the issue is not a shortage of dentists overall or, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) says, a shortage of money, but a shortage of dentists doing NHS work rather than private work specifically.

The previous Government were encouraging dentists to take up NHS work with a range of measures, including golden hellos for dentists in underserved areas, dental vans going out to rural communities, and tie-ins for new dental graduates. We were also in the process of broader contract reform after a small change in the units of dental activity rate when we went into the election. Let us look at Labour-run Wales in comparison. Wales is delivering only 58% of pre-pandemic dental activity. It is burdened with the highest proportion of NHS dental practices not accepting adult patients and the longest waiting lists in the UK. One in four Welsh residents is currently on a waiting list. The new Secretary of State for Wales has said that the Government “will take inspiration from” Labour-run Wales on dentistry. Given their woeful record in office, I sincerely hope that that is not the case.

Before the election, when I listened to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care say that Labour had a plan to reform and modernise the NHS, I believed him, but in Monday’s debate on the Lord Darzi report, we uncovered that his plan was not really a plan at all, but a list of desired outcomes and a proposal to make a plan if he got into office. It is unclear how long this plan will take to develop. The Minister for Secondary Care said that it is a listening exercise like we have never seen before, but how much will that cost, and had Labour not been listening already?

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Why did the previous Government shift funding from secondary care to primary care, despite saying that they would do the exact opposite?

[Dr Johnson]

Essentially, because there is more clinical acute need in primary care hospitals. Given the choice, with one amount of money, between saving a life and preventing a problem for later, it is inevitable that money gets shifted towards acute care. That is where the pressure is, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to work harder to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place.