Christmas Adjournment

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). I offer my condolences to him on the loss of his brother and pay tribute to all those who comforted him and his family at the end of life. The hon. Gentleman obviously touched on the health service, which is where I want to focus my remarks. I will touch on rail services if I have time.

I had the privilege of being elected to this place three years and one week ago. I had something of a baptism of fire as a brand-new MP: I was appointed the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson and we found ourselves in a global pandemic. Although I spoke a lot about health in my first two years here, that time was understandably dominated by covid and all the surrounding issues.

I wish to spend a little time today touching on the wider challenges facing primary care and ambulance services, not just in my constituency, but, more broadly, in Greater London and across the south-east. I do so not least because with the Government’s levelling up generally focusing on the midlands and the north, London and the south-east, the capital and the commuter belt, have seen and continue to see such huge population growth and have been really underinvested in, particularly in terms of GPs, dentists and ambulance services. I will mention a few places today and I humbly request the Leader of the House to ask Ministers at the Department of Health and Social Care to visit some of them, so that they can see at the coal face across the south-east some of the challenges that residents, patients and health workers are facing. On that note, I would like to thank health and care workers across my constituency and across the country for the amazing job they do, day in, day out, in the most difficult circumstances.

Earlier this year, I was alerted to a shocking case in my constituency, that of a full-time carer in Hampton who looks after her daughter with special needs. As she could not find access to an NHS dentist in the entire area, having rung each one faithfully, she had to use her disability benefits, her food and her heating money to pay for her daughter to go private. She even begged one dentist to allow her daughter to take her place on the NHS list. I pay tribute to Healthwatch Richmond, which works in my constituency and with Healthwatch England to secure extra money for dentistry. Frankly, however, that has been a drop in the ocean. We know that the national average is that nine out of 10 NHS dentists are not accepting new patients and that this rises to a shocking 98% out towards the south-west of the country. That means that people are suffering in pain or, as I have described, are forced to fork out for private care, in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Just down the train line from my constituency, no dental practices are taking on new NHS patients in areas such as Wokingham—not a single one of the 12 practices across that town is doing so. I ask the Leader of the House to ask DHSC Ministers to go to Wokingham to see for themselves how this underfunding is bringing the local dentistry and health services to their knees. We know that without core preventive care, be it in oral health or in other areas, things just end up in crisis care, often at accident and emergency, and we do not want that being replicated in constituencies across the country. I hope that the Minister will heed Liberal Democrat calls for the dental contract to be fundamentally reformed—we are not just talking about the tinkering around the edges announced in November—and for a real focus on long-term workforce planning.

The strains on essential primary care services such as dentistry and access to GPs are well reported. Unfortunately, but understandably, they often lead to frustration for patients. There are those who are understandably desperate for an appointment, given the challenges of their situation. The fact that NHS services are under strain is not the fault of those working in the NHS—I would lay that squarely at the Government’s feet. That means that hard-working primary care staff are often on the receiving end of some of the strain that constituents are feeling, especially those who are administering the system, who are often wrongly and pejoratively referred to as “faceless bureaucrats”. I am sorry to say that that is why tomorrow morning I will be having a meeting with partners at a local GP surgery in Hampton Hill, because they wrote to me to raise the issue of the level of abuse their staff receive on a regular basis. That medical centre in my constituency is not alone. Reports reached me recently about a GP surgery just down the road in Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey, where staff were left in tears and needing to call the police about abuse because people were unable to get an appointment. Again, I ask the Leader of the House whether Ministers at the DHSC would visit that surgery in Walton-on-Thames and the one in Hampton Hill to offer an apology to those staff, who are under such immense pressure in our health system. Again, I hope that calls will be heeded to train more GPs by offering more training places to those students who want to go into the medical profession and to look to reform pension rules for more experienced staff.

As we are on the brink of an ambulance workers’ strike tomorrow over pay and conditions, I was alarmed to read the words of one NHS ambulance chief in The Times this morning. He said:

“The best we can hope for is that everyone stays indoors, no one falls over, no one gets ill and no one has a car crash.”

Indeed, a Health and Social Care Minister on 5 Live this morning told people to avoid risky activities, including running, if it is icy.

Having had to take both my young daughter and my elderly father to A&E in recent months, I have seen for myself the level of strain and pressure under which A&E is operating. Obviously, this then translates into the pressures on the London ambulance services that are operating at capacity day in, day out, and that applies to ambulance services across the country.

I was sent a story from Winchester of a 96-year-old woman who slipped and fell and was left in pain on the floor. Thankfully, a neighbour heard and called an ambulance, but that took seven hours to arrive. Even when they arrived at the hospital, it was still another six-hour wait to see a doctor. Again, I hope that Health Ministers will visit that ambulance station and speak to those heroic paramedics to understand the resources that both their ambulance station and the South Central Ambulance Service need in order to improve the waiting times and the care for patients in that area.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) introduced a Bill earlier this year calling for localised waiting times for ambulance services. The Liberal Democrats have also called for rural ambulance stations to be reopened and for urgent funding to recruit paramedics.

In the couple of minutes I have left, I wish to touch on the issue of the South Western Railway service, which has affected my constituency, south-west London, Surrey and a number of other areas down to the south-west of England over the past few days. The Minister may or may not be aware that 40 stations across the South Western Railway network have absolutely no services; they have all been cancelled between now and the new year. That is despite the fact that there are no rail strikes on a number of those days during that period. It is ruining the Christmas break for people who want to visit loved ones, for people who desperately need to get to work and for those who need to attend medical appointments.

I have heard from a police officer in my constituency who is struggling to get to work for his shift and from a cancer nurse, who is not striking today, but who is struggling to get to hospital. Her hospital is having to fork out to pay for overnight stays for staff so that they can be there to treat patients.

The impact on the wider community and the hospitality industry is immense. My local rugby club, Harlequins, was due to have its big match, which it has every year, at the big Twickenham stadium the day after Boxing day. Eighty thousand spectators were expected, but the event has had to be cancelled. Quins lost more than £15 million during covid, and it fears losing, potentially, hundreds of thousands more as a result of having to move the match to March. It employs, both directly and indirectly, hundreds of people in the local area. The matches and the event days benefit local businesses in Twickenham. I implore rail Ministers to work closely with South Western Railway and with RMT to get this overtime ban and the strikes stopped, so that our constituents can get to work and our businesses, which are already struggling, do not go under.

Yesterday, there were reports, again, of schoolchildren in Surrey unable to get to school, because Thames Ditton, Claygate and other stations were closed. In my constituency, Whitton, St Margaret’s and Strawberry Hill are all affected. However, I am very pleased that, as a result of my urgent meeting with South Western Railway yesterday, it was announced, just as I entered this Chamber, that it is now starting to run a few off-peak services, but that is not nearly enough. Our constituents deserve better.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will do a bit of imploring myself. I have 14 names and about an hour and a half left of the debate before we come on to the wind-ups. That gives six minutes or so to each speaker. Please do not wildly go over that, otherwise the person who is last will hardly get any time at all and that is not in the spirit of Christmas.