NHS Funding Bill

Richard Drax Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is clearly set out in the operational guidance to the NHS—that it must be. That will be auditable, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will look to ensure that that has happened. This is an issue where the levers from the Secretary of State’s office to the NHS frontline are extremely well connected.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

One way to ensure that patients can be best served is to make the software more compatible, and I know that my right hon. Friend is doing a huge amount to make that happen. Can he brief the House about where we are when it comes to making the system more compatible throughout the whole UK?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The issue is not just the quantity of money but how we spend it. Making sure that we get the best value for every pound put in is incredibly important. One way to do that is by using the best modern technology—ensuring that the different systems are required to talk to each other, for instance. We will be introducing a system with standards of interoperability mandating that the only systems that can be used are those that allow the information—appropriately and with appropriate privacy safeguards—to flow between different NHS organisations. People have had the experience so many times of informing one part of the NHS about what is going on and having to say everything all over again to another part of it. I want to end that.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Let me be clear from the start that the Conservative party is clearly the party of the national health service, and the British public have trusted us with it for another five years as from December. The crucial point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which I think is worth repeating, is that people can add noughts here, there and wherever they like, but new spending can only come from a firm, solid and growing economy. People can make all the promises they like about what they are going to do, but if the economy tanks, those promises are made out of pie crusts. I think that is why the British people have entrusted us with the health service.

I very much welcome the Bill, and hope that I can influence the Minister and his colleagues to think about where some of the new money can be spent. Let me canter through the North Dorset wishlist, if I may. For too long, health at the centre has ignored and underplayed the importance of rural community hospitals.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend may canter as long as he likes, so long as he does not canter on to my patch.

[Simon Hoare]

I would not be seen dead in my hon. Friend’s patch. I have enough issues with my own.

There are two community hospitals in my constituency: Westminster Memorial in Shaftesbury and the excellent Blandford Community Hospital. I am a friend of both, and both friends’ organisations do a huge amount of vital fundraising work. The Minister is well apprised of the important role such hospitals play, particularly in rural settings after discharge from A&E, just before people can go home. Community hospitals need support and fresh attention.

Likewise—I am pleased that the Department prioritised this earlier in the year—community pharmacists play a huge and important role. I am told by our CCG that it is almost a cardinal sin to even consider this, but I would love to see a representative of the community pharmacies on the boards of each CCG, by mandate, because they have a vital role to play in our NHS family. As the previous chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on multiple sclerosis, may I also urge a greater rapidity with regard to the prescribing of medical cannabis?

NHS dentistry needs a fillip. I am often contacted by constituents about this—indeed, I was contacted by a lady from Stalbridge the other week who has now been trying to get on an NHS dentist waiting list for two years. That is simply not good enough when dental health is coming under pressure.

Speaking with another APPG hat on, I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is alert to the need for a speedy renewal of the health grant for those suffering as a result of thalidomide. That takes place in 2022-23. We all know the story of thalidomide; I am not going to rehearse it. We owe the victims of that scandal our support, and I hope that the grant will be renewed, either from new money from the Treasury in the comprehensive spending review or from the current NHS budget.

This is an opportunity to think about the future of the national health service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) said. We would all hold it in even greater esteem if all of us, as patients, were alert to the cost—the actual cost—of our medicines and our treatments. There would be far fewer medicines flushed down the loo and far fewer appointments missed if people knew the true cost to them, as taxpayers.

A number of hon. and right hon. Members have referenced the need to bolster preventive health still further. There is far more that we can do. Very often, the NHS is a national ill-health service; it merely picks up the problems that a more proactive preventive agenda could have solved. In that regard, I make a plea, in particular, for bowel cancer and prostate cancer—indeed, for the male cancers generally, which often get overlooked.

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[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. May I congratulate those who have made their maiden speeches? May I also praise all those who work in the NHS in South Dorset and in Dorset generally? I concur with many of the things that my friend and colleague my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said. I congratulate the Secretary of State, not least on his endurance capability. He was sitting on the Front Bench for so long and listening to us all, for which I am grateful, as I am sure all other colleagues are too.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset rightly mentioned community hospitals, which are so important, certainly to rural constituencies. I know they are important everywhere, but they are particularly important to us. We struggled to keep open Swanage, but we have won that battle. Sadly, we have lost the beds on Portland, and all the facilities have gone to the hospital in Weymouth. The Portlanders—they are fiercely independent, and rightly so—jealously guard all that they have, and they are very sad that the beds have had to move. That was entirely due to the lack of trained staff, so that is one case highlighting the urgent need for more trained nurses.

In Poole, although it is not in my constituency, a decision was made by the clinical commissioning group to move the A&E to Bournemouth. For those who live in Swanage, that means a considerably longer journey— sometimes through rush-hour traffic in Bournemouth, which can be bad—or, alternatively, going to Dorset County, a journey that is slightly longer. I stress to the Minister that what we need down in Dorset is money to keep ambulances in their local towns and villages? For example, Swanage has an ambulance station. It was under threat, as I understand it; it is now not. That ambulance must remain in Swanage and available to Swanage people, so that it is not called from, say, Wareham, which would be a 20-minute journey down and a 20-minute journey back, making it over an hour to A&E, which simply is not on. I am working with the CCG to try to ensure that that is the case.

Finally, I will speak briefly—it is all the time I have anyway—about the Dorset County Hospital and its plans for a new A&E, which is desperately needed. I am afraid the figure is eye-watering: £62 million is needed completely to refurbish Dorset County Hospital A&E. What it has now—it is low roofed, there is no space and there is a shortage of places to move more beds to—means that people are really working in conditions that are not suitable for the demand placed on this hospital. Its budget is in balance, I am glad to say. It reckons it is going to draw even this year, but it is forecasting a loss of about £3 million to £5 million next year. What we would love from the Government is a little bit of attention to our rural acute hospitals, which seem to suffer because of the funding formula and various other things, and just a little bit more money. Let us face it, £3 million, £4 million or £5 million, when we are talking about a budget of billions, is not actually that much, but it would mean so much, certainly to our constituents in Dorset and to a vital hospital that everybody loves.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Member makes a very important point about rural provision and the difficulty for so many communities of accessing these services, particularly when people are dependent on public transport. My father and my mother used to live in South Dorset, near Swanage, and it took two hours to get to Bournemouth.

[Richard Drax]

Regrettably, we have had one or two cases where that has been repeated. The ambulance service has had a huge investment of 70 new vehicles, and I think 140 new staff are being trained as paramedics right now, all of which is very good news. The rurality issue—it is so often not taken into account when it comes to funding—has all too often been forgotten by Governments of all colours. Dorset has been at the bottom of many funding pools for a long time. On behalf of my constituents and all the constituents in Dorset, I implore the Minister, who is patiently sitting on the Front Bench, for a little bit more attention and just a tiny bit more money. That would make all the difference.