GP Funding: South-west England

Noah Law Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate and for his contribution on this matter of long-overdue concern.

Cornwall faces some of the most severe health inequalities in the country. In January, more patients waited more than 30 minutes in ambulances outside hospital in Cornwall than anywhere else. That is not just a statistic; it is a clear sign that our health system is under serious pressure locally.

We know the reasons: our higher levels of deprivation, an older population, poor transport links that make it harder to recruit and retain the NHS and social care staff we urgently need, and the enormous impact of our visitor economy, which is finally going to be taken into account in local government funding, thanks to the fair funding review. Those deep-rooted structural challenges mean that many people across Cornwall struggle to access timely care.

For that reason, I welcome the forthcoming announcement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the Labour Government will top up the system with £2.2 billion to improve general practice in the poorest areas with the highest health need. That is the right decision and the right priority for communities like mine in St Austell, Newquay and the clay country. The impact is already being felt. In mid-Cornwall, Newquay health centre and Brannel surgery are already set to receive vital upgrades. That is part of the biggest investment in GP facilities for five years, even before today’s announcement.

[Steve Yemm]

Last month, the Government announced the primary care utilisation and modernisation fund, which will deliver more than £100 million for upgrades to more than 1,000 GP surgeries. A number of GP surgeries in my constituency will benefit, including the Sherwood Medical Partnership surgery in Forest Town, Mansfield. Does my hon. Friend agree that that funding will make a huge difference? It will enable practices to boost productivity by seeing more patients and will improve patient care overall.

[Noah Law]

Yes, I agree. I am greatly relieved for my hon. Friend and his constituents that vital funding is already coming through and that the urgency has been recognised. In Newquay, for example, people have not even been able to sign up with a new GP. That is shocking, given that it is now Cornwall’s biggest town and one of the fastest growing. The assertion should not be levelled that we are not doing enough to invest in infrastructure and services alongside house building, because we are coming forward with the needed investment.

Nationally, we are looking at 8.3 million more GP appointments a year, but it is not just about the numbers. It is about restoring trust in the NHS—trust that the infrastructure and services that we need will come together with growth, which will make care local, accessible and timely. We are fixing the front door of the NHS in our GP surgeries and, thanks to our Health Secretary’s leadership, we are fixing the corridors, the consultation rooms and the care that happens before patients reach A&E, as the hon. Member for Newton Abbot mentioned. That should be the goal.

Cornwall must not be overlooked. We must be prioritised in the 10-year plan for health. How will the Government ensure that rural and coastal communities such as those in Cornwall are prioritised for once and receive their fair share of new investment, particularly considering our peninsula penalty—just as we are now starting to see happening through local government? Will the Minister commit to delivering not just more appointments, but a long-term workforce plan that reflects the needs of our ageing population and the barriers to staff recruitment in rural areas? Cornwall’s health inequalities have been ignored for too long, but with this new Labour Government we finally have a partner in Westminster that is listening and acting.

NHS Funding: South-west

Noah Law Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling]

That is very insightful. After being around medics for many years, I know the concern about the increase in managers. Equally, I know that integrated care boards, which I will come on to now, have real challenges with the savings that they are making. There is talk of merging ICBs, including, in the far south-west, a merger in Cornwall and Devon. Both ICBs are relatively challenged, and I fear that it could be a marriage of two bankrupts. Perhaps it would be better to look at a bigger footprint, including Somerset.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

I welcome and echo the hon. Member’s comment about an inappropriate marriage in respect of the Devon and Cornwall ICBs. They have quite different issues. I commend the work of Cornwall’s ICB, of course, but we have to recognise the specificities of the peninsula penalty and the unique challenges facing both our areas.

[Steve Darling]

That is also very insightful. There are lots of good staff throughout the NHS, including in ICBs. It is about unlocking their potential, which I hope the Minister can do.

I was suggesting a bigger footprint, which could include Somerset and maybe even Dorset, as well as Devon and Cornwall, to give greater corporate capacity. I hope the Minister will reflect on that. Perhaps she will give some guidance on when we will hear about the ICB merger. A larger ICB could reflect the footprint of a mayoral authority; I fear that we could be poorer country cousins if we have only two county mayors in the west of England.

The real challenge with our ICB is that we are looking at a quarter of a billion pounds in cuts to services for Devon. The Exeter trust faces £69 million in cuts. The way to save money is mostly by not filling posts, so that is a real challenge. In Torbay, the figure is £42 million. We have an integrated care organisation, as a result of the merger of NHS acute and social care services, and people often say that is the direction in which we should be going. It saves 60 beds in the hospital by ensuring that we get people out of hospital sooner and into their own homes, where they want to be. However, I worry that the organisation is threatened by the quarter of a billion pounds-worth of cuts to services in Devon coming down the line; I fear for its future. I know that the Government actually want to move in the direction of services working together—it is so important.

The last area I want to touch on is Getting It Right First Time. I have heard from a number of professional sources that they feel that is a metropolitan approach that does not always work well in areas with significant rurality, such as Devon, mostly because it does not take into account some of the deprivation we have, our coastal communities, rural communities and the need for travel, or the fact that our population is older than those in metropolitan areas. We have older folk who are perhaps more digitally excluded. The approach does not always work.

We have seen that in respect of a procedure called PPCI—I will not share what that stands for, but it is an intervention used when someone is having a heart attack. They have a balloon inserted through their groin that goes up to the artery, and a stent is inserted to prevent a blockage in the system. A proposed merger in the offer will see people from south Devon drive past Torbay hospital and go 24 miles up the road to Exeter. That was originally the out-of-hours service, but it is now the emergency service, so when someone is thrown in the back of an ambulance, assessed and told, “You need this intervention,” they will go up to Exeter.

As my son says to me, “Time is tissue.” A consultant told me that if we push forward with this approach, it could result in greater debilitation and deaths. As a result of campaigning, the can has been kicked down the road on two occasions, and the ICB is due to return to the issue again at the end of July. I thank the medics who stood up and shared their concerns about the issue, as well as the thousands of people who signed our petitions on it. This situation shows how, because of the challenges in more rural areas, Getting It Right First Time does not always lead to the right solutions.

I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on wave 2 mitigation, on the challenges in relation to ICBs and, finally, on coronary care issues in south Devon and how we can ensure that we are providing an appropriate service for our communities.

Cancer Strategy for England

Noah Law Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call Noah Law.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Betts, but I will not make a speech.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Jim Shannon probably will want to make a speech.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There is hardly a day when I do not make a speech, Mr Betts.

I thank the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing the debate and for sharing his personal story. Demonstrating an issue is best done with a personal story, if possible, so I thank him for that—it was incredible. I am minded of his story, and I think of my dad as well. My dad is dead and gone now, but when he was living in this world he had cancer on three occasions. It was many years ago, and the expertise for cancer care and healing were not as good then, but he survived because of the surgeon’s skill and the nurses care, and because he was a Christian and he believed very clearly in God’s help and the prayers of God’s people.

I start by saying how pleased we are to see £22 billion set aside for the NHS. That is constructive and positive and we should welcome it. Within that £22 billion there will be money for radiotherapy, and hopefully for training and bringing staff forward—it is important to have that as well. The hon. Member for Wokingham referred to the Royal Berkshire hospital, and in Northern Ireland we have similar problems.

I am going to tell a story that has been heard often. I am sure that most of us in this House were struck by the candid and very emotional video released by the Princess of Wales to inform the nation that she was going through the valley of cancer. The video was in response to a concerted campaign of disinformation against the princess of my heart, and probably all our hearts. She was disgracefully confronted with that every day. She was forced into a declaration of her intensely private journey with cancer, highlighting the effect on her husband, children and family. That very public declaration and the updates that she has so wonderfully provided have started a wide conversation about the dreaded C-word. We are deeply indebted to the Princess of Wales for that.

We also had the announcement about the King’s health. I was surprised and I immediately prayed for him, as I do every day. But the announcement about the Princess of Wales, a young woman in her prime, goes back to what the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) said: many people do not see cancer as a disease of younger people. The Princess of Wales, who was apparently so healthy and vibrant, has caused many of our young people to remember that cancer is not a disease that is a respecter of person, age, religion or background. All are brought to their knees by this disease that is ravaging the nation.

In Northern Ireland the target is that at least 98% of patients diagnosed with cancer should begin their first definitive treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. At least 95% of patients should begin their first definitive treatment for cancer within 62 days. The problem is that those timescales here on the UK mainland and for us back home in Northern Ireland are not always met—indeed, they are rarely met. That means that that first definitive treatment, which is so important, does not happen at the time it should, and the figures are not getting any better. With the £22 billion that has been set aside for the NHS, I am hopeful that, through the Barnett consequential for Northern Ireland, we will get additional money that we can use specifically for cancer treatment.

I want to make a point about research and development and make a plea for Queen’s University Belfast and the partnerships it has with companies. It brings students from all over the world to find treatments and cures for cancer. I know that happens in many other parts of the United Kingdom, which is good. Research and development is so important, so perhaps the Minister will give us some ideas about research and development when he sums up. I am pleased see him and welcome him to his place.

The question should not be about lowering the target, but about how we deliver and meet the target of curing cancer. Having spoken to cancer specialists, I know that the need for more staff in radiology and in labs to provide a quicker turnaround, as well as the need to ensure that there are trained specialist cancer nurses and staff in place, is a long-term issue that needs to be dealt with not with words but with action. We need to spend the budget in a much better way throughout the UK—perhaps the Minister will indicate how that will happen. I believe the answer lies in the recruitment of staff in all facets of the cancer machine—labs, radiology, pharmacy and care. Every area needs specialist training. We need to keep staff in place with better working conditions, rather than the wonderful staff that we have simply burning out due to the pressure.

[Noah Law]

The father of my constituent, Eli Martyr, has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Despite a difficult time, his father is being looked after amazingly well by NHS staff. If the Government commit to a national cancer strategy, will they ensure that the second biggest cancer killer, bowel cancer, is given sufficient attention? Can we address the staff and kit shortages and ensure that we improve the bowel cancer screening programme to improve the chances of survival?

[Jim Shannon]

I am of an age—I am not sure many others are in this Chamber—where I get a test for bowel cancer every year. A kit is sent out to do the job. Thankfully, every time I have done a bowel cancer test it has come back negative. To be fair, the NHS has a good system for that. When someone reaches 60, they are sent a test. They do the test and the NHS comes back very quickly. If something is wrong, they will hear right away. Although we sometimes criticise the NHS—rightly so—we should always recognise the good things that the NHS does. The hon. Gentleman was right to bring that up; I thank him for that.

The questions regarding cancer care in England are the same as for Northern Ireland: “How can we get the best outcome with what we currently have?” and “How can we plan to do better in the future?” Neither are easy questions, but the fact that some 9,000 new cancer diagnoses are made every year in Northern Ireland—these are drastic figures—in a population of 1.85 million, equating to one in two people developing cancer in their lives, means this issue must be a priority for us all.

I know that in his response the Minister will give us some positives in relation to where we are—I expect that, knowing the nature of the Minister—but it would also be helpful if we could have some idea about how we can better address this issue together, across this whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.