Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) on his excellent maiden speech.

Let me begin by paying tribute to His Majesty on his first Gracious Speech. As he reflected in that speech, we were all reminded of the selflessness of his mother, Her late Majesty, which he continues to exemplify. It was fantastic to hear the wonderful speeches of the proposer and the seconder of the motion on the Loyal Address, my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir Robert Goodwill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie). They are both fellow Yorkshire folk and both great friends. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby has regaled friends and colleagues alike for many years with his jokes. It was wonderful to hear his entire repertoire in just one sitting. He told us that his first parliamentary contest was, just like mine, in Redcar, where I lived as a child and went to school. It was also where my mum served as an NHS community midwife, so I saw at first hand the incredible work of the NHS from a very early age. Fast forward to the present day, I have the privilege of representing the town, and the hospital where my mum undertook her nursing training. That was some years before I was even born, but still I regularly meet constituents who worked alongside mum in the 1960s.

I welcome the Government’s focus on building an NHS fit for the future. As I visit dentists, doctors and Darlington Memorial Hospital and I speak to constituents at my surgeries, it is clear that despite this Government’s strong record of investment, with record funding, record doctors and record nurses, much more needs to be done. Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys is our local mental health trust. It has some immense challenges to deliver the mental health care that my constituents need. My surgery regularly features people with heartbreaking stories, where the support they need has not been there. That is why I welcome more funding to deliver mental health support.

I regularly see families in my surgery affected by the tragedy of suicide. Those terrible stories of pain and suffering are incredibly difficult to hear. That is why the Government have my full backing in their suicide prevention strategy. However, I think they should bring forward long discussed mental health legislation, just as I believe that we need progress on banning conversion practices. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) in her comments on the terminology used. Abuse is abuse, not therapy.

I also welcome the £8 billion commitment for NHS and adult social care. As a solicitor before being elected to this place, I found that the biggest single concern of those planning for later life was how their care would be covered. Our elderly should have confidence in the care and support they need in later life. I welcome the steps being taken to deliver that.

On hospices, I am privileged to follow in the steps of Jack Dromey as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for hospice and end of life care. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a hospice trustee. The Government rightly supported our hospices incredibly well during covid. However, with patchwork commissioning from our ICBs, and despite clear direction in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to commission palliative care, many hospices are vulnerable to closure or reduction in services, putting increased pressure on our NHS. It need not be like that, with ringfenced funding in ICB budgets for palliative care.

Darlington is still not getting sufficient dentistry. Ministers say that is down to the ICBs; the ICBs say it is down to the dentists; and the dentists cannot make the contracts work. Even when additional funding is found, as it has been recently following the closure of one practice, we still cannot get the dentists we need. Is it time to insist that every dentist trained here spends a number of years providing NHS services before they move to exclusively private work? I welcome the expansion in dental skills and urge Ministers to go further to accelerate growth in numbers.

Tackling the challenges of tobacco, illegal tobacco sales, disposable vape sales, the child grooming that flows with that and the organised crime that lies behind that, is of deep concern to parents in my constituency. I welcome the measures to clamp down on tobacco use and disposable vapes, and I would welcome the licensing of sales of legal tobacco as a further way of cracking down on that.

[Jim Shannon]

Respiratory health is very important. Across the United Kingdom, one of many issues is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The hon. Gentleman is well aware of that, for he has spoken before about it. We have the worst figures in all of Europe except for Denmark. Some 33% of COPD patients are readmitted within 28 days of discharge, even though readmission has been found to be strongly related to post-discharge mentality. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for that 33%, the NICE system in place for COPD needs to be reviewed, and a better service needs to be delivered?

[Peter Gibson]

I concur with the hon. Gentleman’s calls for further work on that. It is deeply concerning to see children using disposable vapes and suffering severe traumas that result in hospitalisation. More must be done to clamp down on the illegal sale of those products.

I am pleased that the Government are focused on building an NHS fit for the future. Finally, can we please see more dentists in Darlington?