NHS Pay

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hosie.

I thank my good friend the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this debate just days after the Government’s shameful decision to give our NHS heroes a paltry 1% pay rise. My hon. Friend has a long track record of championing workers’ rights during her time as a regional convenor for Unison North West, where she fought for better pay and conditions for all public sector workers.

I also pay tribute to Unison North West, which has done so much for tens of thousands of members across our region, many of whom are NHS staff. Its One Team2k campaign has highlighted the need for every worker in the NHS to be given a £2,000 pay rise and to bring the minimum pay to £10.23 per hour, taking the NHS pay float above the real living wage.

It should come as no surprise that during this debate we have heard repeated criticism of the Government’s decision to award NHS staff a 1% pay rise. After the most challenging year for the NHS since its inception, when staff have been stretched to breaking point to keep our country safe and deliver first-class care, despite a chronically underfunded health service, this is no way to reward them.

The Government should hang their heads in shame. To put all of this in context, a 1% pay rise amounts to just £223 million a year, or 2.23% of the £10 billion set aside for new nuclear warheads, and just 0.22% of the £37 billion for the failed Test and Trace programme. If we combine that with the £30 million that the Health Secretary squandered on covid contracts for his former neighbour, we will see that the decision not to give money to those who deserve it most is quite clearly an ideological one.

One of the many lessons the Government should take away from this pandemic is that their death by a thousand cuts approach to the NHS prior to this crisis left it exposed and struggling to cope. We are far from being out of the woods, and now should be the time for not only investing to deal with the current pandemic, but planning for the future. That means retaining existing NHS staff.

Given how they have been treated by this Government, is it any wonder that research by Unison has found that 52% of NHS workers are considering leaving their position within the next year, with one in 10 considering that option very seriously? That is a staggering statistic, and it is not simply because those staff feel overstretched after an incredibly difficult period; it is because 70% feel worse off than a year ago. That is simply unacceptable. They include staff at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport and Mr David McAllister, who runs the Unison health branch at the hospital. The Government’s policy right across the public sector should be fair pay for fair work.

It is also unacceptable that staff are being expected to do more for less. There are countless stories of healthcare assistants being employed at band 2 while being trained to do band 3 work. The situation is made even worse by the fact that band 2 staff earn less than £10 an hour, which in many parts of this country, particularly London, is a poverty wage. That is often stretched further still, as almost half of the people served by Unison revealed that they were the main breadwinner in their family. I hope that the Minister will listen and that the shameful 1% figure will be revised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the second wave of covid-19 on cancer (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment delayed during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

First, I am sure the whole House will want to join me in sending our best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) and his family for his treatment. We look forward to seeing him back in this place in due course.

The NHS has been clear since the beginning of the pandemic that the continuation of urgent cancer treatment must be a priority. Latest data showed urgent cancer referrals continuing to increase, with nearly 88% of all patients seeing a specialist within two weeks of referral and nearly 96% of patients receiving treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. However, I must caveat that by saying that the context for this data was before the recent rise in coronavirus cases. The NHS is open. It is hugely important that any person worried about any symptom comes forward and knows that care is there.

[Navendu Mishra [V]]

I would like to associate myself with the comments regarding the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) and I wish him a speedy recovery.

I also want to thank the hard-working colleagues in the NHS who are doing everything they can to ensure that cancer care and treatment can continue. However, unfortunately, due to the unprecedented demand on ICU capacity caused by the pandemic, an increasing number of urgent priority 2 cancer surgeries have been cancelled. Can the Minister assure me that everything is being done to work with the Treasury to increase capacity available to the NHS by continuing to commission the independent sector to ensure that urgent care and treatment can continue so that cancer does not become the forgotten “c” in this crisis?

[Jo Churchill]

I can unreservedly say yes to that. The NHS is under huge pressure and there have been some instances where, for totally understandable and unavoidable reasons such as staff ICU capacity or the safety of patients themselves, treatment has been rescheduled. Any such decisions are always made as a last resort. However, we have changed the way we operate, making sure that we have covid-secure cancer hubs, consolidated surgery and centralised triage to prioritise those patients whose need is most urgent. We have utilised the independent sector, and will continue to do so, to increase capacity. These measures, and, as the hon. Member said, the tremendous efforts of our NHS cancer workforce and their teams, are helping to ensure that those who need treatment can continue without delay.

Covid-19

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I draw Members’ attention to my membership of trade unions and to donations from Unite the union, as outlined in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I welcome this debate on covid-19. Stockport and Greater Manchester have been hard hit by this pandemic. I pay tribute to the leader of Stockport Council, Elise Wilson, and to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, for all they have done. Stockport Council has much to be proud of in its response to date. The transfer of many council functions to home working has gone well, which is a credit to all the staff involved. Stockport was one of the most effective authorities in Greater Manchester in distributing covid grants to local businesses. Our council workers do a very important job in difficult circumstances, and I speak on behalf of my constituents when I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

I believe that Members on both sides of this House will agree that the hospitality sector has been particularly hard hit in recent times. My trade union Unite has published a hospitality and tourism rescue plan this week. The hospitality and tourism sector is the third-largest employer in the UK and Northern Ireland, creating one in six of all jobs and employing 6 million people, 3.2 million directly. The hospitality industry has lagged behind many other sectors in terms of good working practices, with average pay of just £8.84 per hour and more workers employed on zero-hours contracts than in any other sector. I urge all Members to look up Unite’s hospitality and tourism rescue plan, as it is an important document. The recommendations include extending the sector-specific job retention scheme for six months, adequate sick pay and routine testing for hospitality workers, and a call for the Government to work with Unite’s proposed hospitality commission to retrain workers who lose their jobs.

The Test and Trace system has been a national disgrace. The Labour party’s analysis shows that the Government’s contact tracing is going backwards across England, with just over half of contacts—57.7%— reached last week. In my region of the north-west, more than 26,000 people were not contacted. I urge the Government to give local communities additional resources to carry out door-to-door testing and contact tracing and to check in on people to ensure that they are able to self-isolate in areas such as mine that face additional restrictions.

In the absence of any form of effective test and trace, frontline staff, including all key workers at hospitals, schools and local authorities, must be provided with access to personal protective equipment. I used to work as an industrial organiser for Unison North West and often went into hospitals and care homes to recruit union members. Sadly, care home residents and staff have suffered badly due to the mismanagement by the Department of Health and Social Care. Weekly testing of care home residents and staff is critical to saving lives, yet there have been repeated delays to the rolling out of testing, and care homes have waited days for their results. There are also serious concerns about vacancies in the care sector during the months ahead.

The Government must provide an immediate plan to better support care workers in all settings, including the 9 million unpaid carers across our country. That includes covid-19 test centres, which is why I have recently highlighted concerns that my constituents have raised about the lack of PPE at Tiviot Dale church test centre in my constituency. I have received a letter from a secondary school teacher, who informed me that the only protective measures in place were disposable face masks for staff and visitors, and that the manager had informed them that they did not need them. This is deeply concerning, given that a large number of staff were from an ethnic minority, who, as we know from the first wave of the pandemic, suffered disproportionately. Our test centres should be the first step towards controlling this disease, not hotbeds for its spread. I have written directly to the Health and Social Care Secretary on this issue, but I have yet to receive a response. It is simply not good enough, with Stockport and Greater Manchester facing sharp spikes in infection rates and cases rapidly spiralling out of control.

We are reaching a crisis point with the virus, and we badly need the Test and Trace system fixed and adequate support for all workers and businesses.

Local Contact Tracing

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

We are at a crossroads in this crisis and the Government, rather than knowing which way to turn, are instead caught in the headlights. This Government have had seven months to get their test and trace system in place, but, tragically for the almost 50,000 people who have lost their lives already since this pandemic started, it has failed. There can be no excuse when our European partners have had an effective system in place since May.

This is a deeply worrying period for my Stockport constituents, given that Greater Manchester and the north-west are witnessing some of the highest infection rates in the country, and we are now in the Government’s tier 2 category. Indeed, in the borough of Stockport alone, there are now more than 4,000 cases of coronavirus, and it is being reported that the Government will today convene a gold command meeting where Greater Manchester may be moved into tier 3—the highest category.

Despite this, the Government are offering little beyond lockdown measures to stop the spread of this deadly disease. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has been calling for proper funding for test and trace for months, and only today the leaders of all 10 councils in Greater Manchester and the Mayor, Andy Burnham, released a statement in response to the new restrictions. In it, they call for testing

“to enable targeting of known or emerging points of transmission.”

They also raise valid concerns about this Government’s attempt to bounce Greater Manchester into the higher risk tier 3 category.

[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

To pick up the hon. Member’s point about specific venues and contact tracing, in my constituency, pubs and restaurants have been successfully using track and trace now for several months. Venues such as Candid Beer, the Bird in Hand and the Market Vaults are already using contact tracing very well. Does he not agree with me that contact tracing is actually playing a vital role in helping keep our hospitality industry open for business?

[Navendu Mishra]

I understand the points the hon. Lady is making, but I think contact tracing in Greater Manchester and places with very high rates of infection has not worked as well as it should have. I am pleased to hear that in her constituency it is working well, but I think the Government need to come forward with a proper package to support jobs in the hospitality sector if they are going to force regions like the Liverpool city region or Greater Manchester into tier 3.

The Government are dangling the carrot of local control of test and trace. However, this should be on offer for all areas, and is more likely to be effective in areas that are in tier 1 and tier 2. If this Government pursue their current strategy, they will leave large parts of the north of England trapped in tier 3 for much of the winter. Given that cases are forecast to rise sharply as this Government lose control and refuse to provide the substantial economic support that tier 3 areas will need, I fully support the call by a number of local authority leaders in Greater Manchester for a national circuit break. This would also create the conditions for a reset of the test and trace service into a more locally controlled option, which will hopefully drive cases down to a lower level and be more likely to succeed.

The only way to defeat the virus is for national and local government to work hand in hand, upskill the local test and trace system, delegate sufficient powers and provide the financial support that is so desperately required after 10 years of austerity and having stumped up millions during the first phase of this pandemic. But instead of addressing the failures of a privatised and centralised contact tracing model, this Government choose to keep pouring hundreds of millions of pounds into the likes of Serco to lead the effort on tracking and tracing. This is despite the recent poll by Survation revealing that 74% of the public wanted to see local public health teams, rather than profit-making companies, leading on this. Our European partners have had systems in place since May, yet almost six months later this Government are rushing to hand the nearest contract to big business with no track record of delivery or success.

It is clear is that we cannot have more of the same from this Government such as the shambles of being informed by a Health Minister that a new testing centre was being opened for my constituents on a University of Greenwich campus 240 miles away in Kent. I have already made it clear to the House that I am willing to accept that the letter was an error, but it further exposes the Government’s complete mishandling of this crisis. In the absence of any effective form of test and trace, frontline staff, including all workers in hospitals, schools and local authorities, must be provided with access to adequate personal protective equipment.

Coronavirus

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will absolutely look at my hon. Friend’s request on King’s Lynn. Thankfully, after an outbreak a couple of weeks ago, the number of positive test results in Norfolk has come right down. I commend the work of Norfolk County Council, my hon. Friend and colleagues from across Norfolk, who have done so much to ensure that the public messages get through. On the “moonshot”, we do not have and have not had any plans for 10 million tests a day, but we do have a goal to get to the millions of tests a day when we can. That is dependent on new technology, so that is what we need to drive forward. It is vital for this country, for the resolution of exactly the problems we are talking about today, and then for expanding testing availability more widely that we really embrace those new technologies.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Yesterday, I was contacted by an NHS nurse who had spent the weekend unsuccessfully trying to get a test for her symptomatic seven-year-old. On Friday, I visited the new Brinnington test centre in my constituency. It was very quiet, yet it seems to have been unable to offer a test to a nurse, who, it seems, will now need to take time off work. Is that what world-beating looks like? What is going on?

[Matt Hancock]

Again, I am happy to try to solve the individual issue for the nurse, not least because the figures that I read out for Stockport do not include the NHS capacity, which is there for NHS staff in order to resolve exactly the sort of issue that the hon. Gentleman talks about.

Coronavirus Update

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I would love to visit Ashfield Hospital in person and to be able to thank every single person who is there and has worked so hard during this pandemic, from the chief executive to the porters and the nurses: all those who have played their part as part of the team. The hospital in Ashfield does not regard itself as separate from the rest of the community. It is deeply embedded in the community and works across primary care, the community trust and with the mental health trust, too. It is part of a system. That is the future of the NHS: people working together, rather than in the silos of the past.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, my written parliamentary question dated 5 June regarding PPE for urgent dental care centres in my constituency of Stockport, Greater Manchester remains unanswered, but I will try my luck with another question if that’s okay. It seems likely that we will have to live with covid-19 for a long time. Data from care homes shows that the rate of infection is higher when staff do not receive occupational sick pay. When will the Secretary of State ensure that social care staff receive a proper pay rise—at least the living wage set by the Living Wage Foundation—to reflect the unbelievable work they have done during the pandemic, and when will the Government legislate for occupational sick pay for all social care workers?

[Matt Hancock]

Can I, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, note to the House that we have been incredibly busy in the Department of Health and Social Care? We will get back to the hon. Member’s written question as soon as we possibly can, but we have been inundated with questions and it has been all hands to the pump to try to respond to the virus, so I hope he will understand why sometimes our responses have been a bit slower than they would in normal times. I will get right across that. I take it very seriously—it is very important—but we do, if I may, pray in aid mitigating circumstances. We will get back on top of it.

On the hon. Member’s substantive point, the increases in the living wage are very important for social care staff, and as I said in response to an earlier question, I am very proud that we introduced it.

Covid-19 Response

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I think the whole country celebrated when there was the announcement last week that antibody testing that fits the bill and does the job had been approved by our Porton Down labs. We are in the closing stages of commercial negotiations to ensure that those tests are widely available, and I will let my hon. Friend know just as soon as I can when that roll-out will be, but I do not want to prejudice the commercial negotiations, which I am sure he will understand.

On the second point, I strongly agree with my hon. Friend that this crisis has demonstrated just how important social care reform is, just how important social care is and how we must maintain the benefits and improvements in delivery and working practice that happened because of the crisis and happened through the heat of the crisis. We must maintain and strengthen that close working relationship. The financial changes that we put through have proved very effective at bringing the two systems closer together, but there is much, much more to do.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

A recent survey by Unison North West found that eight out of 10 care workers would not receive full pay if they were ill, self-isolating or shielding because of covid-19, receiving at most £95 per week statutory sick pay, with workers putting their lives on the line to look after us. Will the Government provide increased funding and direction to ensure that all care workers receive full pay when absent due to covid-19?

In addition, given the current failings of our fractured—

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Secretary of State.

Covid-19

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My message to everybody in the NHS is that they should do what they need to do to keep people safe in front of them. We are reducing a whole load of the bureaucracy that gets in the way —for instance, with measures from the Care Quality Commission—to ensure that people just do what is right in front of them. As the hon. Lady says, GPs cannot work from home. Some GP appointments do need to be face to face, but increasingly they can be over the phone or over Skype, and so they should be.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Several Members have raised concerns about care staff. As we all know, many of them are on zero-hour contracts and work for multiple providers. That means that they struggle to prove that they are eligible for statutory sick pay, forcing them to choose between protecting their clients and paying their bills. What action will the Secretary of State take to help healthcare staff who are not eligible for statutory sick pay and cannot prove their eligibility?

[Matt Hancock]

This is an issue that I discussed with the hon. Member for Leicester South, the shadow Health Secretary, earlier today. The package of measures in the Budget addresses it as much as is possible, and we are prepared to go further if that is what is needed.