NHS 10-Year Plan

Debate between Paulette Hamilton and Roger Gale
Thursday 3rd July 2025

(1 day, 22 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Roger Gale Portrait Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
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I call the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.

Paulette Hamilton Portrait Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
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As the acting Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, I am delighted that the 10-year plan was finally launched today. I thank the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for presenting it to the House.

The plan represents a major opportunity for constructive reform of the health and social care system, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State will come to the Committee on 14 July to be scrutinised on it. Many organisations have waited patiently for the 10-year plan to be published. Will the Secretary of State explain how the plan will help restore the promise of a first-class service in the NHS?

NHS: Long-term Strategy

Debate between Paulette Hamilton and Roger Gale
Wednesday 11th January 2023

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Paulette Hamilton Portrait Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
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I was a nurse for 25 years and I returned to the frontline during the pandemic. I know at first hand that after 13 years of Tory mismanagement, our NHS is in crisis. Many health workers who have dedicated their lives to caring for others day in, day out are still living with the after effects of having worked flat out during and before the pandemic, all while trying to do the work of three or four people due to staff shortages. It is soul destroying for people to go on duty knowing that there will be inadequate staffing levels for nine or 12-hour shifts. Tory cuts have reduced A&E departments to shells of what they were under the last Labour Government—they are now so busy that staff feel that they can seem, at times, like a zoo.

Social care needs fundamental reform that truly brings together health and social care. People in Erdington, Kingstanding, Castle Vale and across the UK are finding it almost impossible to get a GP appointment, an ambulance or an operation when they need one, but the implications of stress on the health of staff can be tragic. The ongoing failure of the Government to address staffing levels can be a matter of life or death for patients. It breaks my heart to say that I just could not face the prospect of working in nursing right now.

In November, 140,000 people had to wait more than four hours to be admitted to A&E, and unfortunately my husband was one of them. If we add all that time together, collectively, the British public waited almost 65 years for emergency treatment, but the real question is: how much longer will they have to wait for a competent Government—

Roger Gale Portrait Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
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Order. I know this is difficult, but we have to keep to the time. We will now not get everybody in.