Oral Answers to Questions

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

20. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to NHS dentistry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

The Government are working to improve access. We have made initial reforms to the contract and created more unit of dental activity bands to better reflect the fair cost of work and to incentivise NHS work. We have introduced a new minimum UDA value to help sustain practices where they are low, and we are allowing dentists to deliver 110% of their UDAs for the first time to deliver more activity. Those are just the first steps; we are planning wider reforms.

[Peter Aldous]

On 20 October, the House passed a motion highlighting the continuing crisis in NHS dentistry and calling on the Government to report to the House in three months’ time on their progress in addressing this crisis. That time has now elapsed. I am grateful to the Minister for that update, but can he confirm that the Government will be producing a comprehensive strategy for the future of NHS dentistry, and can he inform the House when it will be published?

[Neil O’Brien]

It was very useful to meet my hon. Friend the other day, who is a great expert on this issue. As he knows, we are working at pace on our plans for dentistry. As well as improving the incentives to do NHS work, we are working on the workforce to make it easier for dentists to come to the UK. We laid draft secondary legislation in October to help the General Dental Council with that. We are working on our plans for a centre for dental development in Ipswich and elsewhere in the east of England, as he knows. Although we have not yet set a date to set out the next phase of our plans, my hon. Friend knows from our meeting that this is a high priority area for us and that we are working on it at pace.

[Gill Furniss]

I was contacted recently by my constituent Helen, who said:

“I don’t know what to do. I have phoned 25 dental practices today and been told the same thing each time: all we can do is put you on a 3 year waiting list.”

What does the Minister say to Helen and the thousands who, like her, cannot access an NHS dentist? When will he get a grip on this crisis?

[Neil O’Brien]

We are the first to say that the current situation is not satisfactory. That is why we invested an extra £50 million in the last quarter of last year, and it is why we are working at pace. Let us be clear: dentistry has not been right since Labour’s 2006 contract, and until we fix the fundamentals of that and the problems set up by the Opposition, we will not tackle the underlying problem.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to increase the number of NHS beds available in the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

11. If he will make an assessment of the adequacy of GP appointment availability in (a) Chesterfield constituency, (b) Derbyshire and (c) England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

In November, there were 13.9% more appointments in general practice across England as a whole than in the same month before the pandemic. In Derby and Derbyshire, there were 16.6% more appointments. Our GPs are doing more than ever, and, compared with 2015-16, we are investing a fifth more in real terms. But we know that demand is unprecedented, and we are working to further support our hard-working GPs.

[Mr Perkins]

I thank the Minister for that answer. We know that there are GP appointment difficulties everywhere, but we also know that it is much more difficult in more deprived communities. Social Market Foundation research shows that GPs in more deprived communities have twice as many patients on their books than those in more affluent areas. This means that, in addition to the greater health inequalities in those communities, people are finding it very difficult to get appointments, including at the Royal Primary Care practice in Staveley. Why should patients in more deprived communities be expected to tolerate far greater difficulties in getting GP appointments than those in more affluent areas?

[Neil O’Brien]

In Derby and Derbyshire, for example, there are 495 more doctors and other patient-facing staff than in 2019. Step 1 is to have more clinicians, which we are doing through that investment. The hon. Member raises a point about Carr-Hill and the funding formula underlying general practice. There is actually heavy weighting for deprivation, and the point he raises is partly driven by the fact that older people tend not to live in the most deprived areas, and younger people tend to live in high IMD—index of multiple deprivation—areas. That is the reason for the statistic he used. Funding is rightly driven by health need, which is also heavily driven by age. We are looking at this issue, but the interpretation he is putting on it—that there is not a large weighting for deprivation—is not quite right.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

In south Derbyshire there are now 133 more full-time equivalent clinical staff in general practice than in 2015. That includes nurses, physios and clinical pharmacists. What more is my hon. Friend doing to encourage more people to book an appointment with the most appropriate healthcare professional, rather than simply defaulting to booking a GP appointment?

[Neil O’Brien]

That is an excellent question. As well as having an extra 495 staff across Derby and Derbyshire, it is crucial that we use them effectively by having good triage. That is why we are getting NHS England to financially support GPs to move over to better appointment systems. That is not just better phone systems, but better triage.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Eastleigh, Hedge End and the villages have many vibrant pharmacies, but it is disappointing that Lloyds has closed two branches in my constituency. I welcome the additional £100 million that this Government are investing in community pharmacies, but can my right hon. Friend confirm how that funding will cut NHS waiting times and, more importantly, reverse the trend of closures?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

My hon. Friend is right. Although pharmacies are private businesses, we invest £2.5 billion in the clinical services they provide. We put in another £100 million in September so that they can provide more services. The number of community pharmacists is up by 18% since 2017, and we have introduced the pharmacy access scheme to ensure that we support pharmacies in areas where there are fewer of them. Clearly, the solution is for pharmacies to do more clinical work, take the burden off GPs and provide accessible services. That is exactly what we will keep growing.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

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[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a GP and the immediate family of a GP and doctors. GPs are working incredibly hard in tough times. It is true that supply has gone up, but so too has demand. Change needs to happen in primary care, but one of the bedrocks is the GP partnership model. Does this Government agree?

[Neil O’Brien]

Unlike the Opposition, we do not regard GPs’ finances as murky and we do not want to go back to Labour’s policy of 1934 by trying to finish off the business that even Nye Bevan thought was too left-wing. We do not believe in nationalising GPs; we believe in the current model. [Interruption.] We do not believe that people with a problem should immediately go to hospital, driving up costs and undoing the good work of cross-party consensus in the last 30 years. A plan that was supposed to cause a splash has belly-flopped.

[Mr Speaker]

Mr O’Brien, when I move on, I expect you to move on with me. I have all these Back Benchers to get in. I do not need the rhetoric; I want to get Members in—I want to hear them, not you.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

T2. The UK has the sixth largest and richest economy in the world, yet data from the Food Foundation shows that in September 2022, 9.7 million people on these islands lived in food insecurity. That kind of malnutrition does not have a good impact on the health service. When will Ministers pick up the phone or nip along the corridor to the Department for Work and Pensions and tell it to drop its punitive sanctions regime, which pushes so many people into poverty and so many problems on to the NHS?

[Neil O’Brien]

We are concerned about the exact same issues. The £900 cost of living payment for 8 million households is how we are trying to address this. It is also why we are bringing in the largest ever increase in the national living wage for 2 million workers.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is well aware of the challenges facing Essex mental health care and the independent inquiry there into so many patients who have died. Can he tell the House and my constituents what steps he is taking to make this a statutory inquiry?

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[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

“The Future of Pharmacy” report was published yesterday and highlighted again the funding pressures on the sector, including for the brilliant Belfairs Pharmacy in Leigh-on-Sea, which asks whether the Minister will urgently consider writing off the £370 million of covid loans given to pharmacies during covid-19.

[Neil O’Brien]

We are working to increase the amount of funding going into pharmacies so that they can do more clinical services. I will look closely at the issue that my hon. Friend raises.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

T7. Last week, the Government decided to mothball the covid-19 testing facility in Leamington, which will leave up to 670 people without a job. The lab reputedly cost more than £1 billion—perhaps the Minister could confirm—and when the investment was made, I was promised that it would be used for other purposes, such as pathological testing and other diagnostics. Why is that not happening?

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[Neil O’Brien]

Absolutely; we are looking at that issue. We have already brought in a new minimum UDA value, and we would like to deliver more. We will look at measures to encourage people to work in areas with the greatest shortages.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

T8.   On World Cancer Day 2022, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), announced a 10-year cancer plan to make us a world leader. Today, cancer services are buckling under immense pressure. Can the Minister confirm that the strategy will be fully resourced and will she commit to working with cancer charities to ensure that it is delivered?