NHS and Social Care Funding

Debate between Natascha Engel and Margaret Greenwood

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I can see Wales from my constituency, to continue the theme. I received an email this morning from a very distressed senior NHS manager, who says:

“I truly despair that there will not be an NHS this time next year”—[Interruption.]

You need to listen on the Government Benches, and understand what your Secretary of State is doing to the health service. I will give a precis of what my constituent is talking about.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. The hon. Lady will resume her seat. First, when she says “you”, she is addressing the Chair. Secondly, she is making an intervention. There are 33 Members who wish to speak in this very important debate. If she can keep her intervention very brief, I will let her continue.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should not have used the word “you.”

My constituent has written to me saying:

“The NHS is in crisis, the government knows this, CCGs have failed, foundation trusts are failing. GPs are on their knees. So they’re”—

the Government—

“handing it back to local areas and saying, ‘you fix it, and by the way there’s no money.’ It’s a whole system reorganisation”,

and there is no money.

National Health Service Funding

Debate between Natascha Engel and Margaret Greenwood

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The funding crisis in the NHS is no accident. It is a political choice made by the Tories for which patients and NHS staff are paying the price in longer waiting times, delayed operations, and increasingly stressful working conditions. It is a crisis driven by the Government’s demand that the NHS make £22 billion-worth of efficiency savings—or cuts. This is impossible without huge damage to our national health service.

An analysis by The Guardian of 24 of the 44 STPs stated:

“Thousands of hospital beds are set to disappear, pregnant women will face long trips to give birth and a string of A&E units will be downgraded or even closed altogether as part of controversial NHS plans to reorganise healthcare in England…Dozens of England’s 163 acute hospitals look likely to have services, including cancer, trauma and stroke care, removed as a result of the plans”.

In the 2015-16 financial year, the NHS reported a record net deficit of £2.45 billion—nearly three times higher than in 2014—and so we see the crisis in services accelerating. Last week, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Dr Chris Hopson, said:

“The NHS simply cannot do all that it is currently doing and is being asked to do in future on these funding levels.”

STPs are supposed to facilitate the integration of health and social care, for which they require the support of council leaders, yet the leader of Wirral Council has said in the past 24 hours that he has not been given the opportunity to feed into the development of the local plan. The STP for Cheshire and Merseyside is of great concern to my constituents because it requires nearly £1 billion to be taken out of local health services. If this goes ahead, the impact on the NHS will be devastating; it is impossible that it would be otherwise.

There was recently a proposal to close Arrowe Park hospital, Clatterbridge hospital and Countess of Chester hospital and build a new hospital in Ellesmere Port, and there has been no denial that such a conversation has taken place. The annual report of the foundation trust that runs Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge says:

“The Trust will explore with Countess of Chester Hospital the potential for the development of a single acute general hospital covering Wirral and west Cheshire within the next 10-15 years …Another option is to move all planned surgery and procedures to Clatterbridge, while Arrowe Park will become a ‘hot site’ dealing mainly with emergencies.”

It is not clear what a “hot site” is if it is not a hospital. Surely the point about an A&E is that it needs to be in a place where there is a very wide range of expertise on how to deal with any emergency. I have very real concerns about the future of Arrowe Park hospital, which is a major hospital highly valued by my constituents who use its services and who work there; indeed, it is a major employer in my constituency. The STP talks of “hospital reconfiguration”. It is no wonder that local people are up in arms about the plans.

The STP for Cheshire and Merseyside appears to set a great deal of store by the development of ACOs, or accountable care organisations. These are an idea brought from America, where of course there is no national health service. They integrate health and social care, and have a strong emphasis on cost reduction. The core issue is that people in England often pay for social care, but certainly do not expect to pay for healthcare, other than through direct taxation. There is real concern that the introduction of ACOs through STPs is part of a desire on the part of the Government to introduce a private insurance-based healthcare system in England instead of our national health service. I would be grateful if the Minister could give some clarification on that point.

It is my belief that the Government are cutting the supply of healthcare in the public sector to create demand for a private health insurance marketplace like the one in America, and there is nothing in the STP to reassure me that that is not the case. The document is riddled with the language of the market, talking of increased customer satisfaction, better user experience and “commercially sustainable” clinical support services. If the STPs go ahead across England, we can expect to see A&E closures, hospital closures, downgrading of services, patients waiting longer for treatment, and deterioration in the pay and conditions of staff as the drive to cut costs takes its toll. I urge the Government to use the autumn statement to address the underfunding of the NHS and to give it the funds it needs.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

May I just make an apology to Hansard? It is one thing reading a speech, but that was a record level of reading into the record. I appreciate that time is short and that the hon. Lady wanted to put those things on the record, but if she speaks a little bit slower and allows other Members to understand what she is saying, it will give them an opportunity to intervene and she will gain some extra time.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Natascha Engel and Margaret Greenwood

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

In November of last year the green investment bank announced it had raised £10 billion in green infrastructure investment in the last three years. At the time the Secretary of State said:

“As this milestone shows, the Green Investment Bank is going from strength to strength and is having a major impact supporting renewable energy projects across the whole of the UK.”

This, at the moment, is not a private company—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. Lots of Members wish to speak. If the hon. Lady would like me to put her name at the end of my list of those wishing to speak, I will do that, but otherwise interventions must be short, as must the responses.

[Margaret Greenwood]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. We have heard what we need.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Natascha Engel and Margaret Greenwood

Monday 18th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood]

Underground coal gasification is an issue of major concern in my constituency, because Cluff Natural Resources has been granted a licence for the Dee estuary, which runs along the side of the constituency. In the Secretary of State’s speech of 18 November she announced the Government’s welcome intention to close coal by 2025 and restrict its use by 2023, commenting that coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, damages air quality and is simply not sustainable in the longer term. As the Government are proposing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. This is a very long intervention. If the hon. Lady could come to her question and finish, that would be great.