Health and Social Care

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this section of the debate on the Queen’s Speech.

It is three years, almost to the day, since I made my maiden speech, in the very same section of the debate on the Queen’s Speech—health and social care—and a lot has changed in those three years, especially on the Government Benches, in terms of policy. Listening to the Opposition speeches, however, and indeed to some from the Government Benches, it seemed to me that a lot had not changed. I think back to 1997, when the Conservative party experienced an appalling and traumatic defeat. How did it react? For a short while, we thought that the voters had got it wrong, that we could keep thrashing away at the same old themes and that very soon the voters would repent of their folly and everything would be all right, we would be carried back, shoulder high, into power. Of course, it did not happen; it took us 13 years and three election defeats to realise that singing the same old tune, time and time again, did not deliver the promised nirvana.

When I listen to Opposition Members, I feel as if I am listening to the Conservative party of 1997, only now it is the Labour party of 2013: unwilling to change, going back to what makes it feel comfortable, bashing the tobacco companies—perhaps quite rightly, but there needs to be a much stronger evidence base than disliking global capital, for heaven’s sake! Time and again, I listen to Labour Members and think, “Theirs is not a party that is ready for power”, because I am not hearing a new analysis or new arguments; I am just hearing the same old grudges, although I might except the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who is one of Labour’s more thoughtful Members—that is quite rare on the Labour Benches.

I was delighted to have the Leader of the Opposition in Cleveleys for the local election campaign. On this occasion, he kindly wrote to tell me in advance—the first time he had done that, despite having made several visits—so I thank him for that small courtesy, if for nothing else. He gathered in the shopping centre in the centre of Cleveleys, with his little pallet, which he stepped on to. Labour bussed in all the councillors it could from Blackpool, because there are hardly any Labour activists in Cleveleys, and he just stood around, and my spy, who was there, tells me that no one paid him the slightest attention—he was looked upon as rather a curiosity, while people walked by eager to get on with their shopping and get their bargains. What happened? The political compass needle in Cleveleys barely shifted compared with 2009. If Labour cannot win back Lancashire—a county it controlled from 1981 to 2009—it is not in a position to gain power, in my view. That is why it is doubly important that Conservative Members do not get overly seduced by what UKIP is doing, but focus on what matters and what we were elected to do.

In my maiden speech three years ago, I stressed the importance of the dignity of patients in our health care system, and I have stressed it ever since. We are now starting to see progress on that, not least thanks to the activism of the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the role she now plays, but more importantly thanks to the rhetoric around what we recognise as being important. On my way here today from Euston, I was standing on an underground train behind a young trainee nurse. In her arms was a thick folder bearing one title: “dignity”. That message is starting to get through to NHS staff, in particular.

Although we can all recite cases from constituents of cases of care that they felt were below standards, we must balance that with the recognition that nurses are the glue that holds the NHS together and that we talk them down at our peril. For every nurse who might not have ensured that somebody was adequately fed or had their fingernails clipped or their conversation in the morning, there is another for whom nursing is a vocation. We have to recognise that. Nursing is a vocation. Occasionally, it is a very difficult vocation. The system can be testing, trying and infuriating for many, but nurses are there because they want to care for their patients. Perhaps the secret to health policy lies in allowing our health care professionals to express that vocation, not to smother it beneath a system that does not allow that feeling of good will and desire to do good for our fellow patients to express itself.

The other thematic issue I want to come to is perhaps a little more controversial. We are all politicians, are we not, whether we like it or not? I am sure I would rather not be a politician, but I am a Member of Parliament and it comes with the territory. The moment anything is scheduled to close in our constituencies, there is an immense temptation to man the proverbial barricades. We issue a press release and set up a photo op outside the threatened location, but do we always pause to think what is in the best interests of our constituents, or do we think, “What will get me more votes?”

I am fortunate, as I have an excellent hospital in Blackpool, the Victoria. It has one of the premier stroke rehabilitation units in the north-west. When it opened, it started taking in-patients from as far away as the south lakes. I am not quite sure, but the area it covers might even stretch as far as Barrow—I know it goes as far as Kendal. That was quite controversial at the time, because it meant that a patient having a stroke would have to drive past about four hospitals to get to Blackpool. Some people thought, “Why can’t we go to our local hospital? It’s got wonderful facilities.” However, since the stroke unit at Blackpool opened, survival rates have increased for all patients in all groups, because of the excellence of its specialist care. That is a challenge for every Member of this House, no matter what our political parties. The easy answer—the easy campaign, the scare story, or what I call “campaigning in the conditional”—is not always in our long-term interests.

I ask myself how I would have reacted if the stroke unit had been in Lancaster rather than Blackpool. Would I have manned a barricade, gone on a march or set up a petition? I do not know; I hope I would not. I hope I would have trusted in the idea of outcomes. Although I recognise what the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) said about localism needing to mean something, I also recognise that clinicians, too, have a role. Where outcomes are unacceptably poor, something has to be done. However, we need to do a much better job of communicating to our electorate why the clinical evidence that suggests that a particular thing has to change is powerful evidence, because evidence is power and we need to convince those who are most concerned.