NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

In common with many other Members, I have received hundreds of emails from concerned constituents about the sustainability and transformation plans and what they mean for the NHS nationally, regionally and locally. To provide some local context, my constituency covers an area that sits largely in the middle of two health trusts: the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. There are four clinical commissioning groups: North Kirklees, Wakefield, Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield. We are in the borough of Kirklees Council, which serves a population in excess of 430,000.

The Mid Yorkshire trust is in the advanced stages of reconfiguration—or downgrade, as many people, including myself, see it. Dewsbury hospital will this week lose its consultant-led maternity unit, and there will be changes and reductions in services for acute surgery, gynaecology and paediatrics. Next spring, the A&E department will be reduced to an urgent care centre with no provision for acute services.

On the other side of my constituency sits the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. The Greater Huddersfield and Calderdale CCGs have just completed a so-called consultation on their “reconfiguration of services”—or, once again, downgrades. If the proposals are accepted, the infirmary will have its A&E department downgraded and the whole of Kirklees, which includes all of my constituents, will be left without full A&E provision. That is over 430,000 people who will have to travel outside the borough to access vital emergency healthcare for themselves and their loved ones.

Kirklees is a vast geographical area that spans many towns and rural and semi-rural areas. Many people there rely solely on public transport as a means of travel, and parts of the borough are in the top 10% of the country’s most deprived areas, which brings about huge health issues and inequalities. The cuts to services are not improving life chances or enhancing healthcare provision; they are purely part of a cost-cutting exercise that could result in lives being put at risk. It has been reported just this afternoon that a senior representative from a local CCG has commented that it is almost as if NHS England is putting money before quality.

We now learn that the Government have set up STPs to look at health services on a larger footprint. Some might say that is akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. How can these STPs work, given that we are so far down the line already? The reconfigurations and downgrades that have been developed are being implemented completely in isolation from each other, with no regard for the wider population or the geographical boundaries that they cover. How can the STPs work—unless, that is, they have been put in place simply to implement further cuts to our already overstretched NHS services?

Sadly, we on the Opposition Benches have to acknowledge that our NHS is in crisis. We are genuinely fearful for the future of health provision in our country, and that fear is shared by many health experts. The British Medical Association has said that

“one of the key aims of STPs is to achieve financial balance by 2020”,

and that it has concerns

“that this will be the priority for STPs rather than developing the best models for patients.”

The King’s Fund has said:

“Our assessment of draft plans shows that, in the absence of eye-watering efficiency improvements, there will be a financial gap running into hundreds of millions of pounds by 2020/21 in most of the footprints”,

and that even with cost efficiency measures that are already being implemented,

“it will still not be possible to achieve the financial balance expected by national regulators.”

Its assessment of seeing one STP struggle to achieve its goals was that it was like

“attempting to undertake synchronised swimming against a rip tide”.

How many more years will we have to endure this, and how many lives will be lost before the Government admit that their “efficiency plans” are simply not working and that the only way fully to address people’s needs is to stop the cuts and to pledge more money to fund our NHS adequately?

A constituent contacted me this week desperately worried about a loved one who was suffering many health problems in hospital. I said to her the words that many of us have used many times over the years, “At least he’s in the right place; he’s in hospital, getting the best care”. Although I know at first hand how hard those on the front line of our health service are working and how much our incredible staff do in our hospitals, how much confidence can we have in those words nowadays? At a time of diminishing budgets and major cuts to services, can we really have confidence that our health services are adequate to provide the best care for our loved ones?

As Nye Bevan, whom I have quoted a number of times and will continue to quote, said:

“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it.”

Let it be known that I, along with my hon. Friends, will continue to fight tooth and nail to ensure that this Government do not succeed in destroying the health service that we hold so dear.