Healthcare (Devon)

Debate between Philip Dunne and Neil Parish

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)]

I am grateful to you for taking the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Main, and for encouraging me to leave some time for my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) to respond, which I will endeavour to do. I congratulate him not only on securing this debate, which has been very well supported by his colleagues from across the county, but if I may—this is the first opportunity for me to do so publicly—on the recognition that he received of his time in Government from the previous Prime Minister.

I start by highlighting some of the excellent work carried out every day by all those who work in the NHS, not only in my right hon. Friend’s constituency but in mine and those of all the others who have spoken today. I will attempt to address some of the specific points that have been raised, particularly by my right hon. Friend, but I shall first provide the House with a little context and background regarding health services in Devon.

Devon is a leader in many areas of the health service—perhaps to the surprise of some hon. Members who have spoken—relative to other parts of the country. Not least, the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust was the first trust in England to join up hospital and community care with social care. A plea to do that was made by my right hon. Friend and it is already happening in South Devon. The trust operates as a single organisation, working with partners to improve the way it delivers safe, high-quality health and social care. The trust is showcasing exactly the kind of joined-up, patient-centred care that we want the NHS to provide to meet the needs of the ageing population.

I also pay tribute to the staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, who last month celebrated their fifth anniversary since the last incident of hospital- acquired MRSA. That remarkable accomplishment comes as the result of continuous improvements at the trust over the last 10 years. The trust is now considered a national leader in infection control, being the only general hospital in the whole of England to have avoided any MRSA infections in the last five years.

However, I absolutely recognise that the region is facing difficulties. NHS staff across the region are working hard to provide good care to patients, but services are not keeping pace with the changing needs of local people. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make sure that local people have access to consistently high-quality care that is affordable and sustainable.

As my right hon. Friend said, in June 2015, NHS England announced that north, east and west Devon would be one of the three areas in the country to take part in a success regime. That is designed to improve health and care services for patients in local health and care systems that are struggling with financial or quality problems. Following intense diagnostic work, the north, east and west Devon success regime published, in February this year, the “Case for Change” report, which was referred to earlier. The report sets out the underlying challenges facing the area and the opportunities to improve access to services and ensure clinical and financial stability. The work concluded that if nothing was done, Northern, Eastern and Western Devon would have a system deficit of £398 million by 2020/21, as has been referenced by a couple of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper).

As well as the financial challenge, the work identified significant health inequalities and some clinical services that will be unsustainable in their current form. There are good reasons for that. As we have heard from hon. Members, people in north, east and west Devon are living longer successfully, particularly in areas of the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon and in Torbay.

People are living with increasingly complex care needs and require more support from health and social care services. More than one in five people in north, east and west Devon are over the age of 65, and that figure will be almost one in four by 2021. Some 40% of local people use almost 80% of health and social care services. There are 280,000 local people, including 13,000 children, living with one or more long-term conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, cancer and mental illness.

Although Devon is regarded from the outside as generally affluent, we are all aware—hon. Members have explained this—that there are areas of significant deprivation. There are big differences in health outcomes between some areas, particularly in Plymouth. There are also spending disparities between different parts of the county.

More than 10% less for each person is spent on healthcare in west Devon compared with north and east Devon, even when age and deprivation is taken into account, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) emphasised. Somebody living in Ilfracombe Central is statistically likely to die almost 15 years earlier than a person living a two-hour drive away in Newton Poppleford.

Inequalities need to be reduced, and the spread of health and social care across north, east and west Devon needs to be made more equal. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon agrees that his constituents should have access to the same high-quality healthcare services as those in the rest of Devon, let alone the rest of the country. He referred to the success regime consultation as being at fault. I gently remind him that it was only published on 7 October. I am sure that comments made today about the lack of available paper copies of the consultation will be taken into account by the organisers, and that we can respond to that.

[Neil Parish]

I want to press the Minister on the success regime’s consultation. Is it right for a hospital to have its beds taken away as part of that consultation? Surely a consultation should be for people to have a say on a public decision.

[Mr Dunne]

I heard my hon. Friend mention the lack of reference to Okehampton and Honiton. I gently draw attention to the fact that the option to retain community beds in both those hospitals was considered as part of the 15 options in the document. The option was rejected as one of the four recommended for consultation, but that does not prevent him, his constituents or local representatives in those areas from putting those alternative options forward.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon asked whether there was a “none of the above” option. I think he may have been referring to page 42 of the consultation document, on which the organisers say that they

“welcome all views and will carefully consider all responses and analyse these against the decision making criteria. That will include options which are not currently in the consultation document”.

They are open for proposals to be made by others, but those need to be looked at in the context of the criteria.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Neil Parish

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of the effect of the maritime support delivery framework on employment at UK naval bases.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

The maritime support delivery framework contracts are an excellent example of the contribution that the Ministry of Defence makes to sustaining the long-term economic health of the nation's three main naval bases. The contracts total £3.2 billion of spending by the Royal Navy over five years with BAE Systems and Babcock, and will sustain about 7,500 jobs, up to 4,000 of them at Devonport and more than 2,000 at Portsmouth, and about 1,500 at Clyde.

[Mr Dunne]

Yes, I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that these contracts are an integral part of the Department’s innovative 10-year forward equipment plan. Not only are they in the plan, but they represent far better value for money for the taxpayer than the previous support arrangements by securing more than £350 million of savings. As my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary said last month, the last Government left a terrible legacy of waste and mismanagement in the form of a £38 billion black hole in defence, which this Government have eliminated through our long-term plan for defence and improving the efficacy of defence procurement.

[Neil Parish]

Will the Minister join me in praising the work done by civilian contractors throughout the country, and, in particular, that done by Babcock at Devonport naval base in helping to repair and manage the Royal Navy’s warships and submarines, which play a key part in protecting our vital national interests?

[Mr Dunne]

My hon. Friend is right to welcome the stability that these contracts provide for the communities that support the Royal Navy’s three main operating bases. That includes an investment of nearly £2 billion in support activity at the largest base—the one at Plymouth Devonport, to which he referred and which is near his constituency—until 2020.