NHS: Long-term Strategy

Debate between Roger Gale and Liz Kendall

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Today’s debate has laid bare the dire state of our health and care system after 13 long years of this Conservative Government: more than 7 million people waiting for hospital treatment, 400,000 for more than a year; the worst ever waits for A&E, with 50,000 patients a week now waiting more than 12 hours in A&E; excess deaths this winter at their worst level since 1951, except for the pandemic years; ambulance response times plummeting; cancer targets missed; and waits for mental health care so bad that thousands of patients end up forced to go to A&E or even attempting to take their own lives. In social care, the situation is even worse: 165,000 staff vacancies, 30,000 more than in the NHS; more than half a million older and disabled people waiting to have their needs assessed in the first place, not even on a waiting list; and millions—millions—of families pushed to breaking point because they cannot get the help they need to look after their loved ones.

The question I want to focus on today is why we have ended up here. Labour Members have never claimed that everything was perfect in the NHS when Labour last left government, but Conservative Members squandered a golden inheritance of the lowest ever waiting lists and the highest ever patient satisfaction, with access to services we can only dream of now. Ministers want to blame all of the current crisis on covid and this year’s winter flu, but the truth is that waiting times were at record levels and staff shortages were soaring long before the pandemic struck.

The most glaring reason for the problems we face is the sheer incompetence of this Government. To take just one example, effective winter planning in the NHS is a non-negotiable and a key test for any Secretary of State. When Labour was in Government, winter plans were done and dusted well in advance. I know that from my time working in the Department of Health. So, it beggars belief that not a single penny of the original winter hospital discharge funding was out of the door by the end of November. Some £300 million of it still has not reached the frontline. Their latest flawed plan to buy up care home beds, when what most people need is care in the community or their own homes, was not even announced until 9 January. That is not effective planning; it is scrabbling to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.

There are even more fundamental reasons for the current crisis than the Government’s sheer incompetence. The root cause is a decade of Conservative economic failure trapping Britain in a vicious cycle of low growth, low pay and high taxes, which in turn has failed to provide sufficient or sustainable funding for our public services, including decent pay for frontline staff. Einstein’s definition of madness was to keep doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Yet that is precisely what we saw in the Chancellor’s autumn statement, so Britain is once again set for, at best, anaemic growth by the end of the Parliament. Britain deserves so much better than this. Labour’s green prosperity plan, our industrial strategy and our plan to fix business rates set out a different path for the future. No wonder the chairman of Tesco says that in terms of a growth plan Labour is the

“only team on the field”.

Economic growth that delivers proper investment in the NHS and social care is vital, as Labour’s record in Government shows, but on its own it will not secure a care system fit for the modern world. It also requires reform. On that, Ministers have again utterly failed to deliver. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will forgive me if I take the House on a brief trip down memory lane. Remember the Lansley reforms? I am sure Conservative Members would rather forget. That legislation so large it could be seen from outer space, but no one understood what it was for. Years of time and effort were squandered on a disastrous internal NHS reorganisation that failed either to integrate care or to deliver the improvements in patient care that the Conservatives claimed. There was the Conservatives’ cap on care costs—[Interruption]—and their solemn promise that no one would have to sell their home to pay for their care. Remember that? [Interruption.] It was first promised in 2012, postponed in 2015 and 2017, and re-promised by the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) on the steps of Downing Street. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. It is perfectly plain that the hon. Lady does not want to give way.

[Liz Kendall]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The promise was buried once and for all by the Chancellor in his autumn statement last year—a Chancellor, I remind the House, who said that his biggest regret as Health Secretary was failing to put in place a long-term plan for social care.

In contrast—[Interruption.] I am sure the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) will be interested to hear this. In contrast, Labour has a 10-year plan for investment and reform in our NHS and social care. It includes the biggest ever expansion of the NHS workforce, funded by scrapping non-dom tax status; ensuring that patients can see the doctor they want in the manner they want, whether that is face to face, over the phone or online; a new deal for care workers—[Interruption.] Maybe the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) would like to listen to our plan and suggest it to his Ministers. We will have a new deal for care workers to tackle staff shortages and give older and disabled people the support they need. Above all, we will have a relentless focus on prevention and early intervention. There will be a new principle of home first, shifting the focus of care out of hospitals and into the community, with more people being cared for in their own home, which is where they want to be.

Using new technology, providing genuinely joined-up care and support, putting people first, giving staff the support they deserve, providing investment with fundamental reform: that is Labour’s plan, not the failed sticking-plaster approach that we have seen from the Conservatives over the past decade. Britain deserves a fresh start. We deserve a better future. That is what Labour will deliver. I commend the motion to the House.