NHS England Update

Debate between Richard Tice and Wes Streeting

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

That is a great question from my hon. Friend. We have to give people the tools to do the job. The Prime Minister set me and my hon. Friends in the Department an enormous challenge on behalf of the public. In turn, I am setting an enormous challenge for NHS leaders at every level, but particularly for frontline NHS leaders. We have to give them the tools to do the job in terms of data platforms and the technology that they are given to work with, ensuring that they have access not just to cutting-edge treatments and medical technology, but to the back-office productivity support that can drive efficiency and improvement and, frankly, liberate managers and frontline staff from the arcane systems they are working with.

Some of the very best people I have met in the last few years, shadowing this portfolio and now holding it in government, are NHS leaders, especially on the frontline. It is my responsibility to give them the tools to do the job. That is not just about financial resources; it means bulldozing through some of the regulatory barriers and overcentralised instructions that stop them making decisions in the best interests of patients, in terms of clinical pathways and value for taxpayers. I have given them an undertaking that I will have their backs, both on the decisions that they will have to take on the frontline and on bulldozing through the national bureaucracy that is tying them up in knots when we need to set them free.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on the changes announced today to cut unnecessary waste and bureaucracy. We all know and agree that healthcare should remain free at the point of delivery and, of course, that the NHS needs reform. Just last Saturday, I was in a care home in Boston with a lady—an expert—who knows Melanie Weatherley, and she was telling me about the unnecessary processes within NHS England on the frontline that constrain good care in care homes, impose unnecessary constraints on ambulances and block A&E wards. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the changes and reforms will include unnecessary processes on the frontline in care homes?

[Wes Streeting]

I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We have to cut through the unnecessary red tape that ties leaders and frontline staff up in knots, and we are absolutely determined to do that. Regulatory reform will form a big part of this Department’s agenda and the wider Government’s agenda. As to an NHS free at the point of use, he almost said it with a straight face. I am sure that he meant every word he said. I think he might want to have a word with his party leader, who is his successor and—who knows?—perhaps his predecessor.

Health and Social Care: Winter Update

Debate between Richard Tice and Wes Streeting

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

When I was sitting on the Opposition Benches at the tail end of the last Parliament, I saw my predecessor at this Dispatch Box telling us all the wonderful things that she thought the Government were doing and achieving. It was like hearing about a completely different national health service and social care system in another country. I arrived in July and was honest on day one that the NHS is broken but not beaten, and that these are crises of historic proportions that we will never sweep under the carpet, nor will we hide problems to spare political blushes. In the coming months and years, I will continue to be honest about where we have not yet fixed problems, and clear about the action that we are taking to get the NHS back on its feet and fit for the future and to build a national care service worthy of the name.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

I think we all share the Secretary of State’s aspiration to move healthcare out of hospitals and into the community. However, the two GP surgeries that I visited in Skegness just before Christmas are concerned that the impact of the national insurance increases on their staffing budgets will be around £100,000 per surgery, which will force them to reduce staffing capacity and, therefore, appointment capacity. What will the Secretary of State do to help those GP surgeries in that situation? There seems to be a conflict between the sensible aspiration and the practical reality.

[Wes Streeting]

There are 889 million reasons why GPs should be reassured about their financial sustainability for the year ahead—the £889 million allocation for general practice that I spelled out before Christmas, to provide reassurance to GPs when planning for the financial year ahead. I have been heartened by the response from GPs to that announcement, and I gently say to people who criticise the means of raising it that without the decisions that the Chancellor took in the Budget, we would not be able to invest £26 billion in our health and care services. We cannot have people welcoming the investment but criticising the means of raising it. If people do not support the Chancellor’s decision—a perfectly reasonable political position to take—they will have to spell out what services they would cut or what taxes they would raise.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Debate between Richard Tice and Wes Streeting

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is right, and at some point the Conservatives will have to take responsibility for it. We learned through bitter experience that if we did not change as a party, the country would not choose to change the Government. Long may the Conservatives continue, therefore, with their head in the sand, and long may we continue to get on with the job of clearing up their mess and building an NHS that is fit for the future.

The relationship between the NHS and local government, and between my Department and local government, is of particular importance in relation to social care, which is why I was especially delighted that the Prime Minister chose this week to appoint Tom Riordan, the chief executive of Leeds city council, as second permanent secretary. He is an outstanding public servant with a demonstrable record on health and care integration, public health and prevention. I look forward to having that local government perspective, and local community delivery perspective, at the heart of our Department.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

I think the whole House agrees with what the Secretary of State said in his statement: the NHS needs reform. In reality, when I speak to people in the NHS, almost all of them say that this is not about a shortage of money, but about the legendary levels of waste, bureaucracy and mismanagement. Indeed, the report refers specifically to the huge number of regulators, accountants and bureaucrats from the top down. Is there recognition among the NHS senior leadership that management reform is a critical part of improving healthcare in the United Kingdom?

[Wes Streeting]

I welcome the hon. Member to his place and thank him for that question. I am always cynical about huge volumes of regulation. We reassure ourselves as legislators and regulators that putting regulations in place means that we have dealt with the issue. But the problem is that if we fail to deliver, we put another regulation in place, then another, and then more, and before we know it, we have drowned the people responsible for delivery in so much regulation that they cannot sort the wheat from the chaff or see the wood for the trees, compromising standards and patient safety. That is why I welcome the work that Penny Dash has done in relation to the Care Quality Commission, and we will continue to work with her to reduce the burden of regulation, focus on the things that really matter and free NHS staff from red tape. I hope that he finds that reassuring. I plead with him not to send his party leader to agree with me as well, or I really will be in trouble.