New Hospital Programme Review

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), will be holding briefings tomorrow for Members from across the House and is happy to receive further questions. The hon. Member seems to be saying on the one hand to go faster, and on the other that he wants to challenge underlying assumptions in the scheme. He cannot have it both ways. As I said to some of his hon. Friends, if he is disappointed with this Government as we clean up the mess they left behind, goodness knows the self-loathing he felt when they were in government.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I feel doubly blessed this afternoon because the West Suffolk hospital in my constituency is to be rebuilt and the James Paget hospital where I have worked for 30 years is to be rebuilt. Does the Secretary of State agree that our primary care estate is in a terrible situation and that we must also invest in general practice facilities?

[Wes Streeting]

With that track record, my hon. Friend might want to tell us this week’s lottery numbers while he is here. In all seriousness, he makes a good point. Although today’s statement is about the new hospital programme, the challenges across the health and social care estate are enormous. That is why the Chancellor committed at Budget to the capital investment that will deliver not only this programme but a significant investment in the general practice estate. We have an enormous array of capital challenges in health and social care. I ask Members on both sides of the House to bear in mind that while I have to struggle to weigh up the competing priorities across the health and social care budget, the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury have to do so not only for health and social care, but for education, transport, defence, justice, the police estate—right across the board, we have inherited a country left in an enormous hole. We are taking the necessary decisions to get our country out of that hole and beat a path to a better future.

Health and Social Care: Winter Update

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

Throughout the winter, NHS providers have continued to flex bed capacity to meet demand. The important thing is that our approach to investment and reform delivers the system-wide improvements that help us to break out of the annual cycle of winter crises. There has been criticism of the Government’s focus on elective recovery—for example, people have asked if that is at the expense of urgent and emergency care—but I will not allow a status quo to settle in which the NHS is in effect reduced to a blue-light, emergency service. The Government will improve urgent and emergency care, elective recovery, primary care, community services and social care, because that is what we need to meet the health and care needs of people in this century, and that is what we will deliver.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Winter pressures have caused the cancellation of thousands of operations, including many of my own lists. Does the Secretary of State agree that the opening of the dedicated Clare Marx surgical centre in Colchester, serving patients in Essex and Suffolk, is an extremely welcome development?

[Wes Streeting]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and for the expertise and experience that he brings to the House. We absolutely need to ensure that we are innovating in our service provision, and are shifting the centre of gravity out of hospitals and towards care and treatment closer to home—indeed, in people’s homes. As we have set out in recent weeks, since the investment announced in the Budget and particularly in the elective reform plan, this Government will continue to innovate, in order to provide services that deliver not only great value for the taxpayer but, even more importantly, great outcomes for patients.

Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The previous Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

There are very worrying reports of cash-strapped universities reducing the numbers of clinical academics; indeed, some are being made redundant at a time when there is increased demand for doctors. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is an extremely concerning development?

[Wes Streeting]

Clinical academics have an important role to play in the national health service and in innovation in medicine. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is focused on university finances, and I think universities should ensure that they prioritise efficiently and effectively, making best use of the resources available to them. I would gently say that universities have not struggled as much as other parts of the public sector over the past 14 years.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

The right hon. Member is right to make that distinction. As a stop-smoking tool, vaping has a part to play. For smokers, vaping is a better alternative—a route away from smoking. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What we are interested in tackling is the scourge of youth vaping and the extent to which young people have been cynically addicted. It is important to say that we do not yet know the full extent of the harms caused by vaping, but we do know two things: first, it is better to vape than to smoke—that is why we are striking the balance in this legislation—and secondly, vapes are harmful. Ask any teacher in the country; they will talk about the signs of nicotine addiction that they see in their pupils, and about having to monitor school toilets to stop children congregating to vape. It is urgent and necessary to act today to protect this generation of kids from a new addiction, and that is exactly what we will do.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

As an ear, nose and throat surgeon, I can attest to the absolutely desperate trouble that cigarettes have caused over many generations. Implementing this measure is one of the best things that this Parliament could possibly do, and I expect that the measure will be widely supported all over the House. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for introducing it.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, not least because of the expertise that he brings to the House as a clinician. We are well served by his expertise in debates on the health of the nation.

Opposite me sit many opponents of the Bill and of the Government’s prevention agenda. I acknowledge that their opposition is based on genuine, sincere beliefs about the limits of government and the size of the state, but I appeal to them by saying that the Bill is in the national interest and, ironically, in their ideological interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State explain what plans he has—if any—to limit the scope of practice of anaesthetic associates and physician associates, about whom there has been such publicity lately?

[Wes Streeting]

Indeed there has. Medical associate roles can and do play a valuable role in freeing up other clinicians’ time to do the things that only they can do, but there are legitimate concerns within the professions about scope of practice, doctor substitution and transparency for patients. We need to grip that and address it. We will have a further announcement to make about that shortly.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

How refreshing to have constructive opposition in the Chamber. It was clear throughout the election campaign that my party and the Liberal Democrats have much in common, both in the commitments we made, which in some cases were identical, and in our shared areas of emphasis: the link between health and wealth, the importance of prevention and the importance of social care.

As the Prime Minister reiterated again this morning, we are absolutely determined to address both the short-term crisis and the long-term needs of the century in our social care system. We want to work on a cross-party basis wherever possible, so I would be delighted to meet the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

Hundreds of thousands of operations, including dozens of my own lists, were cancelled because of the strikes in the NHS over the past two years. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Conservatives’ refusal to negotiate with the doctors contributed to the terrible state of the health service, and that ending the strikes is the first step towards fixing the NHS?

[Wes Streeting]

It sticks in the craw to hear the carping and criticism from the Conservatives, and their obvious bitter resentment that we were able to do in three weeks what they failed to do in over a year. All the while they complain about the costs of solving the strikes, they say nothing about the costs they racked up—the direct financial costs of covering the strikes, as well as the untold costs of misery to patients whose operations, procedures and appointments were cancelled, even as the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and her Ministers had not even bothered to meet the junior doctors since March this year. The Conservatives have no grounds to complain.

Government Policy on Health

Debate between Peter Prinsley and Wes Streeting

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for her serious contribution. She is right to say that transparency matters. That is why meetings in my Department, and their attendees, will be published in the right and proper way on a quarterly basis.

It is also right to draw a distinction between those areas of business and meetings in the Department that are about generating ideas and policy discussion, and those that are about taking Government decisions. It is right that people from outside government come into the Department for Health and Social Care, or any Department, to lend their expertise and share their views, and it is right that Ministers make decisions absent of those outsiders. That is the distinction I would draw. The hon. Member raises a specific point about the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser. This is a Prime Minister who does take ethics seriously and will not behave in the way that his Conservative predecessors did. As for individuals, that is a decision for the Prime Minister, but I will ensure that the hon. Member gets a more fulsome reply.

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I have been a surgeon for 28 years. In the first 14 years, we had a Labour Government and we saw the waiting lists more or less disappear, such that by 2010, a patient coming to see me in the clinic would be offered an operation. In the second 14 years, we have seen record waiting lists. I welcome the advice of Mr Alan Milburn, one of the most successful Secretaries of State and one of the architects of the fall in the waiting lists, and I support the Secretary of State in this.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I am delighted to see him here, bringing his experience to the House, sharing it with the nation, standing up for his constituents and being part of the team that will do what the last Labour Government did, which was to ensure that our NHS is back on its feet and fit for the future.