NHS and Social Care Funding

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Henry Smith

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

First, may I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) for his incredibly moving speech?

People are dying—literally. We are no longer saying people will die unnecessarily; we are now in the present tense, and we are hearing horror stories from around the country of people dying on hospital trolleys and at home waiting for ambulances to arrive. These are lives that could have been saved had it not been for this crisis.

People are dying in hospitals undetected by overworked nurses and other members of our amazing medical staff. A constituent of mine went to visit her grandad in hospital and, very sadly, found him dead in his bed on the ward. The overworked nurses had missed the fact that he was at the end of his life and had passed away. He died alone while his relatives were at home, unaware of how seriously ill he was.

I am bemused to hear Member after Member on the Government Benches standing up to defend the Government, when the facts are absolutely clear. They seem to be in severe denial. How can this be normal? How can the Government sit back and say that the solution is to discard the waiting time target? It is not the people who turn up with sore throats who are clogging up the system; it is genuinely sick people who desperately need medical attention.

Another constituent of mine arrived at A&E just last week, only to be told that she would have to wait at least 10 hours to see a doctor. That is not good enough. We are one of the richest nations in the world. It transpired that she had sepsis, a potentially fatal illness, and it is only because an overworked and stressed triage nurse recognised her symptoms and immediately instigated treatment that she is alive today and is able to tell me her horrendous story. Her treatment was started in the hospital corridor, where she sat on a chair while on an intravenous drip, because there were no beds available, not only in that hospital but in any of the neighbouring hospitals in the trust.

The theme is the same from all my constituents who come to me with their horrendous experiences. The doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff are doing absolutely everything they can. They are on their knees. No one wants to blame them, because they can see that what is being asked of them is far beyond what anyone would ever be asked to do in any other profession, but they can all see that the system is at breaking point. Instead of berating the Red Cross for suggesting that our NHS is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, let us stop for a moment and think about why it had to use that term. Let us talk about what we can do.

We owe our incredible junior doctors so much, and they have been treated appallingly recently. A friend of mine recently attended an outpatient appointment at our local hospital and mentioned to the overworked junior doctor that I was an MP. He pleaded with her to tell me how bad things were, how overworked they were, how the NHS was crumbling around us, and how he and his colleagues could not perform to the best of their abilities due to the horrendous pressure they were under. He talked about working 12 to 14-hour shifts with a 10-minute break. He told her that he loved his job, saying that it was a vocation, never just a job. He said that he was proud of this country and its national health service, and that the only thing that kept him working here instead of fleeing abroad, as many of his friends had done, was that he cared so much for his NHS.

When is the Secretary of State going to stand up and take responsibility for what is going on? People are waiting hours for ambulances and waiting for hours in A&E. They are being treated on trolleys in seminar rooms and in corridors. Where does this end? We are already seeing the creeping privatisation of our NHS, with companies such as the dreadful Virgin Care putting profits before patients. Perhaps the end goal is for us to move to an American-style system where people are literally dying on the streets and where someone turns up at A&E and the first question is, “Have you got insurance, and can you prove it?”

My constituency is served by two hospitals: Dewsbury and district hospital and Huddersfield royal infirmary. Both are due to be downgraded, losing vital services and beds as their respective trusts struggle to meet the financial pressures that have been placed on them. One of the hospitals that is supposed to pick up the resulting demand from the downgrades, Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield, was last week warning people against attending its A&E, and this is before the downgrades have even taken place. I am in absolutely no doubt that if the downgrades go ahead, lives will be lost. I plead with the Ministers and the Secretary of State to stop those downgrades now and to bring forward the much-needed funds that could save the lives of my constituents. It was interesting to hear the Prime Minister refer to those hospitals today at Prime Minister’s questions. She said that there were two hospitals in the trust. Perhaps someone could pass on to her the fact that there are three.

I have quoted Nye Bevan, the founder of our great national health service, before, but I feel that this is more relevant today than ever. He said:

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

As those on the Conservative Benches appear to have lost faith and stopped fighting, it is our duty on the Labour Benches, now more than ever, to step up that fight. I would not like to speculate about when a Government Member last set foot in an NHS hospital outside of an official visit—[Interruption.]

[Henry Smith]

Between Christmas and new year.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps he should show some more empathy for the patients who are waiting on trolleys for up to 10 hours just to be seen. One thing I know for sure is that many thousands of my constituents rely on such services every day and the message from them is unequivocal: the NHS needs funds, and needs them now.

I was admonished by Mr Speaker today for berating the Prime Minister during PMQs, but let me be absolutely clear: I will continue to do that while this mismanagement of our national health service is ongoing. I will never, ever stop fighting for our NHS.