Alexandra Hospital, Redditch

Peter Luff Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Karen Lumley]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which I will return to. I want to be here after the next election, however; I do not want to be replaced by an MP dedicated to looking after the Alexandra hospital.

I pay tribute to Neal Stote, the chairman of the “save the Alex” campaign, Ian Dipple, the editor of the Redditch Standard, and the leaders of my local councils, Bill Hartnett, Roger Hollingworth and Chris Saint, who have all worked tirelessly together with me to save the Alex. The Minister will remember his visit from members of the “save the Alex” campaign before Christmas, when he listened to the justification for retaining services at our hospital. A petition to save the hospital has received more than 50,000 signatures and there was a major rally in Redditch town centre, all of which goes to show that the residents of Redditch are united in trying to secure services at our hospital.

I want to look now at the current and historical financial position of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. In 2002, the trust posted large deficits, which rose to more than £14 million in 2003-04. The trust came back into surplus, however, and since then it has posted alternate deficits and surpluses, including in each of the past three years. The trust had a cumulative legacy debt of £18.4 million from 2000 to 2007. The Government provided a £12 million emergency loan in December 2012 to deal with the problem, but it is obvious that the situation cannot continue. For too long, the easiest course of action has been to kick the can further down the road without addressing the root causes. The current situation is a ticking time bomb. A £1.9 million deficit has to be met by April of this year. Many operations are being cancelled because of the terrible norovirus in our wards, and times will be tough for the trust.

Part of the problem is that we have an expensive private finance initiative hospital that was built in the wrong place fully to service all of the residents of Worcestershire. The Worcestershire royal hospital opened in March 2002 under a PFI deal that costs the trust £13.6 million a year at the best estimate. Indeed, Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, described the PFI deal as a disaster in 2006. The deal will, however, run until 2032, by which time it will have cost the taxpayer more than £700 million. The Alexandra hospital is not a PFI hospital; it is owned by the NHS.

I understand that the trust needs to save money, and that certain services in our country must be centralised to provide centres of excellence. I also understand the difficulties of recruiting specialist consultants, and I realise that as a result of an ageing population and changing lifestyles, patients have more complex needs. We must recognise, however, that the trust employs more than 5,600 staff across the county and has approximately 940 beds with 140,000 A and E attendances —of which I was one—and about 500,000 out-patient appointments. The people of Redditch deserve a sustainable future for their health service. They are realistic, but they need to know what is going to happen. One of the reasons for the difficulty I have just mentioned of recruiting specialist consultants, which is a major problem facing the trust, is that the hospital cannot provide the job security that specialist consultants need because it is constantly under threat.

As I have said, this is the third time we have been in this situation, and if we do not find a solution, I have no doubt that in a few years we will be here again. Repeatedly experiencing such circumstances is damaging to the public, staff and patients, and we need a lasting solution. I welcome our Government’s introduction of clinical commissioning groups. I recognise that without them we would be in a very different place and I certainly would not be standing here asking the Minister to look at the future of my hospital. I have been working closely with the local commissioning group for Redditch and Bromsgrove, and would like to place on record its hard work on the future of the Alex, especially its support on the joint services review; it has continually stood up for Redditch in circumstances that have often been difficult.

Last week, I listened to the Prime Minister talking about the terrible situation at Stafford hospital, and especially the roles of Members of Parliament. He said:

“Like others in the community, we love our local hospitals and we always want to stand up for them, but we have to be careful to look at the results in our local hospitals and work out whether we should not sometimes give voice to some of the concerns rather than go along with a culture that says everything is all right all of the time—sometimes it is not.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 286.]

I took that to heart, as I know many of my colleagues did. I know that the NHS must change and we cannot always have everything we want where we want it. I hope I am being realistic about what we can provide for the people of Redditch.

That brings me to some good news about innovative thinking that is going on in our town. Redditch is situated in the north of our county and the majority of my constituents look to Birmingham rather than Worcester. The Minister cannot be expected to know about transport links in our county, but the links between Redditch and Worcester are fairly dreadful. If someone has to go to Worcester by train, they get on a train to Birmingham, get off at the university stop—where the university hospital of Birmingham is—and double back to Worcester. Buses are also a nightmare and often involve two or three changes. I was delighted to meet Dame Julie Moore, the chief executive of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, before Christmas to talk about the trust providing some services at the Alex. I look forward to meeting her again next week, and to meeting Penny Venables, the chief executive of the Worcestershire trust.

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the manner in which she is conducting it. I wish her well in the campaign she is conducting on behalf of her constituents, whom she serves remarkably well. Does she understand that as we look at the options for the future of the hospital services in Worcestershire, particularly for the Alex, we must be certain that no decisions that are taken in relation to the Alex have the unintentional consequence of reducing the critical mass of the health economy in the wider county and, therefore, damaging the service provided to my constituents and to those of my hon. Friends the Members for Worcester (Mr Walker) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin)? Any loss of service provision might have serious consequences for the rest of the county. We must take the matter forward together with a single voice, because we all share the conviction that we can achieve a win-win situation for all our constituents.

[Karen Lumley]

Those who know the Worcestershire MPs know that we generally hunt as a pack; we are renowned within different Departments for doing so. I share my hon. Friend’s concerns, but obviously at the end of the day I am the MP for Redditch, my hospital is the one under threat and I must do what is best for my constituents.

There are several questions I want to ask the Minister today. First, who owns the Alexandra hospital? Secondly, if the local commissioning group wants to commission services with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, will his Department help to make that happen? Thirdly, does he agree that this uncertainty has gone on long enough, and will he encourage the Worcestershire acute trust to co-operate with the UHB trust in Birmingham? Fourthly, will he reassure staff and my constituents that he and his Department are working as hard as they can to ensure the best outcome for them?

I have probably said enough now, but I will finish by saying that we are grateful to the Minister for his attention to our hospital in Redditch. We look forward to welcoming him in April to see for himself what a fantastic hospital we have—a hospital that we must not forget belongs to the residents of Redditch. We are realistic about what has to happen, but I want to put on the record today that there are two options on the table, and it is only fair to my constituents that both be looked at in a fair and open way. That is all we are asking for, and I hope that he and his Department will ensure that it happens.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me to respond to the debate. It is a great pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) for her advocacy on behalf of her constituents and local patients, and indeed for paying tribute herself to the hard-working staff at her local hospital. As she rightly points out, the future of the Redditch hospital has been discussed for far too long and I hope that, during the next few months, we can come to a conclusion that will not only be of benefit to local patients but bring higher-quality care to people in Redditch and the whole of Worcestershire. Any redesign of services must be led by local commissioners and—crucially—must also consider the best interests of local patients; those redesigning services must listen to the voices of local patients.

My hon. Friend rightly outlined in her speech the fact that no hospital or trust operates within a vacuum in the NHS, and she is also right to say that private finance initiative deals in the local area have been problematic and have left a very damaging legacy; that has happened not only in her part of the world but throughout the NHS. We must learn lessons from that in the future. It is distressing and regrettable that bad PFI deals sometimes have an impact on neighbouring hospitals, and it is a position that we, as a Government, have inherited. We will continue to do what we can, by working with trusts with difficult PFI deals, to try to mitigate those difficulties.

My hon. Friend rightly highlighted the fact that decisions about her local trust have an impact on the wider health economy in Worcestershire, and that that broader impact needs to be taken into account by those making decisions about the Alex hospital. When my hon. Friend and I met my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi)—my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) was unable to attend that meeting—the point was made clearly that many hospitals in the wider health economy of Worcestershire have natural links with Birmingham. That must be taken into account when services are redesigned for the benefit of patients.

Increasingly, clinical evidence is stacking up that some specialist clinical services need to be run from specialist centres, because those centres produce much better outcomes for patients, so the link to the major population centre for the surrounding counties should be taken into account. As I say, we need specialist centres of excellence for the benefit of patients.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch made the point that the Alex hospital has a historical legacy of difficulties, with big, intermittent deficits at the local trust. There have been commendable attempts to deal with those difficulties, but there has been a difficult situation for a number of years. Clearly, we want to see long-term stability for Redditch, for the local trust more broadly and for the local health care economy. Key to achieving those things is having high-quality medical personnel working in the hospital, and the ability to retain and recruit high-quality consultants.

[Peter Luff]

To be clear, for the majority of Worcestershire residents Birmingham and its services are a very long way away and very inaccessible.

[Dr Poulter]

With regard to “bread and butter” day-to-day medical services, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that. My point was that for some services—for example, trauma or stroke—having specialist centres brings better results for patients, and there is good clinical evidence to back that up. However, day-to-day, higher-quality “bread and butter” services for patients—such as heart care or children’s services—are often best provided locally, and he is absolutely right to make that point.