Health and Social Care (Kettering)

Peter Bone Excerpts
Wednesday 23rd October 2019

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Philip Hollobone Portrait Mr Hollobone
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I am delighted to take that intervention from my hon. Friend, who is a superb representative for his constituents in Northampton and is very much in touch with the importance of local healthcare issues to our constituents. He is absolutely right.

I am delighted to welcome the Government’s commitment to include Kettering General Hospital on the list of hospitals that will be considered for health infrastructure plan 2—or HIP2—funding from 2025. That is important for Kettering, because the hospital has been there for 122 years, 70% of the buildings on the main hospital site are more than 30 years old and there is a maintenance backlog of £42 million. We need the reconstruction of many wards at the hospital. I welcome the Government’s commitment to investment in the hospital site from 2025 onwards, which could transform the whole of Kettering General Hospital. The point about the urgent care hub is that we need the money now to address the pressure on the A&E department.

The second part of the debate is about the need for us to use the opportunity of local government reorganisation in Northamptonshire to create in the county a combined health and social care pilot that will put responsibility for healthcare and social care under one organisation. Northamptonshire County Council has faced tremendous financial difficulties. The Government appointed an inspector, who concluded that it was not possible to turn around the organisation. The Government’s solution is to create two unitary councils in the county: a “north” council and a “west” council that will take over all the responsibilities of the eight different councils in the county from May 2021. We can use that once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a new organisation on a pilot basis to combine health and social care in Northamptonshire.

That is important for Kettering General Hospital because it has 531 beds; at any one time 110 of those beds—21%—are occupied by patients who should not be in hospital at all, but in a social care or other setting. In Government jargon, they are defined as super-stranded patients who have been in hospital for more than 21 days. If the hospital discharges 87 patients a day from the A&E department to the hospital, and 110 of the beds are occupied by patients who should be in a different setting, it creates huge problems for the A&E department, so finding a solution to the social care issue is also important for the A&E department.

Peter Bone Portrait Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on having led a seven-and-a-half-year campaign to get the expansion at Kettering General Hospital. It has been my great pleasure and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) to support him, but he has led this magnificent campaign and I hope that today he will succeed in his objective. Does he agree with me that the reorganisation he has talked about could possibly—hopefully—lead to an urgent care centre at the Isebrook Hospital in my constituency, which would reduce the number of people who go to Kettering A&E by 40%?

Philip Hollobone Portrait Mr Hollobone
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I would be delighted to support my hon. Friend’s campaign. He is a very effective champion for his constituents. He, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, has been an integral part of a joint effort to campaign for the urgent care hub at Kettering. I would be delighted to reciprocate, because health investment in our local constituencies is very important for our local residents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough will join me in welcoming any proposals that the Government introduce to create a health and social care pilot in the county. We simply have to make sure that elderly, frail residents in hospital, who need not be there and should be in a social care setting, are given the social care that they need in the right place at the right time. With social care now the responsibility of Northamptonshire County Council, I am afraid it simply is not working.

Evidence shows that the longer an elderly person stays in hospital, the more they lose critical muscle mass and strength, which affects their ability to return to their home or social care setting without appropriate support. Patients with long lengths of stay in hospital become revolving door patients. They get better and could go to a community setting of care, but they become unwell again because they wait so long for an appropriate out-of-hospital placement, so we need to get that sorted out. Financially, it does not make sense, either. If a patient stays in hospital, it costs £2,500 a week. If they are put into a social care setting, the cost to the taxpayer is £700 a week. Not only is the setting more appropriate, but it is financially beneficial for our health and social care providers.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, together with the appropriate Minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, wrote to all Northamptonshire MPs on 24 July, encouraging Northamptonshire County Council and the local NHS providers to knock their heads together to thrash out an appropriate plan. The Secretary of State wrote:

“I agree that the unitarisation process offers an excellent opportunity to re-imagine the delivery of health and social care services across Northamptonshire. I believe that local leaders should be bold in their ambitions for integration”.

He stated that he and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Minister

“are happy to back a bolder plan for integrated services in Northamptonshire, learning from other areas that are further ahead in the integration journey”,

such as Greater Manchester. Since that letter of 24 July, my colleagues and I, as parliamentary representatives from Northamptonshire, have seen little evidence of any concrete proposals from the county council and the local NHS. It is time for the Government to knock heads together locally, because the Government will want a pilot to pioneer their reform of health and social care. We have a wonderful opportunity in Northamptonshire to be the first in a shire setting to get it right.

Local organisations are doing their best in the present circumstances—I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council. To give one example, Karen Clarke, a housing options adviser at Kettering Borough Council, has been working extremely hard to make sure that patients can come out of hospital and find appropriate accommodation if they have difficulties in doing so. She recently wrote:

“I think the majority of the public assume everyone goes in to hospital, receives their treatment and is discharged home, but what if that patient doesn’t have a home? Or what if their home is no longer accessible? What if someone needs more than just independent living? Where does the patient go then?”

Karen has seen more than 250 patients in the past two years. She has managed to return home, or to secure permanent accommodation for, approximately 7% of those referrals, and 25% have gone into some level of temporary accommodation. That pioneering initiative is at Kettering’s health and housing partnership, where Kettering Borough Council, the local mental health trust and Kettering General Hospital work together. It has been pioneered by John Conway, the inspirational head of housing at Kettering Borough Council. It is a superb initiative.

However, such local initiatives are not enough. We need one organisation, preferably NHS-led, to sort out health and social care provision in Northamptonshire. The Government have a golden opportunity to pioneer a pilot in the county, so I hope they will press ahead. There are two issues: we need £46 million for an urgent care hub at Kettering General Hospital, and we need the Government to seize the initiative, knock heads together locally, and make sure we can have a pilot for health and social care in Northamptonshire.