Alexandra Hospital, Redditch

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my Worcestershire colleague for his intervention. I think we are all on the same page. We all want to see better services across the whole of our county of Worcestershire.

Where I am going with this debate and the point I want to make is that the long-promised plan for the Alex to become a centre of excellence for planned surgery has not materialised, despite my pressing for it constantly and despite a £29.6 million funding pot. That funding is in the process of being delivered across the trust, and it was intended to help implement the new clinical model.

That is why I believe it is time to look again at where and how services are provided, and particularly to consider the return of a range of maternity and paediatric services to the Alex. We need to explore options for the local population to use services in Birmingham, which are more accessible than those in Worcester. We also need to continue investment in our communities and build a medical school in Worcester to create our own local NHS workforce, which would help to address the shortage of staff at the root.

The context has changed because the Prime Minister recently announced the Government’s intention to provide the NHS with an additional £20.5 billion by 2023-24—the largest, longest funding settlement in the history of the NHS. We hear that the four CCGs that cover our two counties could merge into one in the future. This is why I believe it is time to be honest with people and for bosses to say that plan A is not working.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is an excellent champion for her constituents on this and many other issues. On the funding point, does she agree with me that those of us in Worcestershire are arguing not for special treatment, but for fair treatment? Particularly when it comes to funding, because we all know we are relatively underfunded at CCG level and elsewhere, we just want our fair share, not special treatment. We would just like a fair share of the cash, please. We know it is coming, and we would like our share of it.

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend echoes my point. I absolutely agree. We know the NHS is world class and we know that more funding is coming on stream; we are just arguing for it to be distributed for our constituents’ benefit.

We need to act soon. Redditch is home to 85,000 people; the population has grown from 78,000 in 2001, and almost 90,000 people are expected to live locally by 2030. In neighbouring South Worcestershire, tens of thousands of new homes are planned and the population is going to grow rapidly. Redditch is a new town, and it has always attracted young families to move there and build a better life, away from the back streets of Birmingham and from all over the country. We are proud of our local environment and of much else, but I want to be able to promote the holistic experience of living in Redditch, and to say that this is a great place for people to come to and live, work, set up a business and raise their family. For that, we need to have all the facilities that young families expect, including excellent healthcare services. This is part of our campaign to unlock Redditch. It needs to be the best place in the midlands, and we deserve nothing less.

We were told that the reason for centralising maternity services away from Redditch is that the size of the population is not large enough to sustain a full maternity service safely, but that does not make sense to me and my constituents. I accept that safety has to be paramount and I know that the Meadow birth centre in Worcester does a brilliant job, but the truth is that we have a high proportion of young families, which is increasing the demand for maternity and children’s services. What the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said is the same for us: it can take over an hour to reach Worcester from some areas of the town, particularly in traffic. There is no direct bus or train link from Redditch, so my constituents who need to use public transport must travel to the hospital via Birmingham or Bromsgrove.

When we look around the other areas of the west midlands conurbation, we can see that there are maternity units with populations much smaller than Redditch’s: for example, in Oswestry, which has a population of 16,000; Bridgnorth, with 12,000; Burton-on-Trent, with 75,000; Hereford, with 63,000; and even Ludlow, with 11,000. I am calling on the CCG and the trust to publish those comparator statistics and justify why those towns should have their own maternity unit, but Redditch should not. Most people would understand that a higher risk birth would require more specialist services and that might not be possible in Redditch, but the vast majority of births can be catered for safely in a midwife-led maternity unit.

The centralisation has piled pressure on to Worcester. It cannot withstand that pressure and we have all voiced concerns in this Chamber. I talked about the ambulance handover delays at the Worcestershire Royal just before Christmas—they are amongst the worst in the country, with ambulances waiting for over an hour. I am very grateful that the Secretary of State visited Worcestershire Acute. He saw for himself—