NHS and Social Care Funding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Rosena Allin-Khan
Main Page: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)Department Debates - View all Rosena Allin-Khan's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Caulfield
I thank my hon. Friend, but that is obviously not of interest to Labour Members. I have been a nurse for over 20 years and have seen 20 years’ worth of winter crises. They are not unusual. There is no doubt that there is more pressure this year than ever before—we have heard about record numbers of people attending A&E—but there have been winter crises under many previous Governments. It was not unusual when I worked in A&E for patients to be treated in corridors or on chairs—wherever there was space. It was not unusual for ambulances to be queued up around the block, waiting for hours to unload patients—[Interruption.] I still work in the NHS and disagree with the chuntering from the Opposition Benches.
Maria Caulfield
I will not. I must make progress and others want to speak.
It was not unusual for my hospital to declare a major incident because we could not take any more patients. It was not unusual for us to take on the extra work when neighbouring hospitals declared major incidents. The truth hurts, but that is what has happened over my 20 years of working in the NHS and what has happened over the past few days of this winter crisis. It outrageous for Labour Members to suggest that it is something new. They are in denial if they believe that it has not been happening for many years.
The Labour Government was so fixated on the four-hour rule that managers used to bully us and tell us which patients would get a bed based not on clinical need, but on the need to meet a target that was about to expire. I want to tell the House a story. One night I was working in a busy A&E when an elderly gentleman was admitted. He had fallen at home and broken his hip and had to be nursed on a trolley in the middle of a busy corridor. The four-hour target was looming, and at three and a half hours he called out to me and said, “Nurse, I desperately need to go to the toilet.” I had no cubicle to put that man in. He could not get off his trolley owing to his broken hip. The best that I could do under that Labour Government was to wheel a curtain around him and he went to the toilet there in the middle of a busy hospital corridor, with his war medals on his chest. Now, he got to a ward within four hours—his target was met—but that was not good care. If Labour Members think that it was and think that this is a new problem, they have buried their heads in the sand.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
After four years of having responsibility for the national health service, the Secretary of State for Health has declared:
“We need to have an honest discussion with the public about the purpose of A&E departments”.
We, who have seen his work from this House, and those who have felt the effects of his work on the frontline know exactly what he means:—“Let me tell you why everyone is to blame except for me.”
Earlier this week, the Secretary of State told the UK that nearly one in three visits to accident and emergency do not need to be made. That was his reasoning for weakening the target that every patient should be seen within four hours. That target applies only to people whose condition is serious and urgent enough, so I find staggering the sheer hubris of those comments, the avoidance of accountability in that decision and the danger inherent in both. As an A&E specialist doctor, I have treated patients who arrive in A&E with what seem like minor injuries or illnesses but develop into much more serious and life-threatening issues. The fact that the Secretary of State, both in his words and in that decision, is telling the people of the UK that they should self-diagnose before heading to A&E could have disastrous consequences, for which he would be responsible.
What if, because of the Secretary of State’s words, patients decided to stay at home after a serious bang on the head that turns out to be a life-threatening bleed to the brain? What about a potentially deteriorating case of pneumonia that is not serious enough to warrant being in A&E but eventually results in somebody becoming severely septic and dying?
As a citizen of this country and a patient of the NHS, I find the Secretary of State’s refusal to accept responsibility for the state of A&E departments deplorable. Instead, he blames patients for visits that “do not need to be made”. However, patients do not go to A&E for fun. They go because they are ill and cannot get a doctor’s appointment for two weeks. We have heard today from Members on both sides of the House who have taken their own young children to A&E. Did they do so for fun, or because they felt there was a need for their child to be treated? People go to A&E because their GP does not have resources at their practice, in some cases for something as simple as handing out crutches. They go to A&E because there is something wrong and they are worried sick and simply desperate to speak to somebody professional about their health.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Let us just calm it down. Government Members did not give way before, and let us not get into the habit of shouting at each other. Let us have a nice, sensible debate.
Dr Allin-Khan
Many people who go to A&E know that they should not be there. I have had elderly patients saying to me, “I’m so sorry, doctor, for wasting your time.” But what other option are the Government leaving them? That is what we are debating today. The Secretary of State wants an honest conversation—well, let us have it. Let us talk about the impact that the current state of the national health service, which he has been in charge of for four years, is having on accident and emergency departments and throughout hospitals in this country. Let us talk about rock-bottom staff morale. Let us talk about the breakdown of staff marriages, a rise in depression among staff and the fact that waiting times are not the responsibility of patients. They are not to blame.
Rising waiting times are the Secretary of State’s responsibility, yet he blames them on the number of people going to A&E since the target was set. It is his responsibility to lead a national health service that can meet the needs of its people, but again he pleads innocence. He says that no other countries have such stringent targets, suggesting that it is unfair that we do. The meeting of the A&E target in particular, not watered down but in full, is what establishes the NHS as the best health service in the world, and one that we can, should and would be proud of under a Labour Government. After all, emergency departments’ ability to meet the four-hour target is directly related to the health of the NHS itself. It is simple: more people go to A&E when they have no other options available.
Sue Hayman
On those options, the use of A&E in my area of Cumbria is entirely down to the lack of GPs. With so many GPs reaching retirement age, the situation is only going to become more acute. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to tackle this matter urgently?
Dr Allin-Khan
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. She makes an eloquent point about the lack of GPs and the problems we will face when more retire. Three GPs in my constituency contacted me this week to say that they had been offered jobs that were subsequently retracted due to financial pressures.
The Secretary of State pleads innocence. He says no other countries have such stringent targets. We should not compare ourselves to the worst; we should be leading as the best. The explosion of waiting times is his failure and a sign of the dangerous erosion of one of the country’s greatest institutions. As we saw last week when the British Red Cross had to be drafted in to our hospitals, our NHS is in crisis. Yet instead of listening to doctors and fixing the systemic problems they have created, our Government are repackaging the A&E four-hour target to try to save face and take attention away from the real challenges: the challenge of social care packages not being in place, prohibiting flow through A&E departments; the lack of access to GPs across the country, making A&E the only resort; the chronic underfunding and significant cuts in funding at local authority level; doctors and nurses being forced to miss breaks, as we heard earlier today, and working 14 hours, some without a break, sleep-deprived and unsafe to practise clinical work; and an NHS staff who do not feel supported, encouraged or motivated by the Government. None of these things will be addressed by a watered down four-hour target.
Having spoken to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, those working on the frontline at all levels, and those who are training our junior doctors, I would like to put forward questions for the Secretary of State to think about. Why has it been decided that the four-hour target will now be downgraded? Who has been consulted on that? Which body said it would be beneficial to patients and A&E staff across the trusts? How will he define major and minor health problems? How are doctors and nurses magically meant to know, at first sight without proper assessment, whether it is a major or minor health problem? Who is responsible if a seemingly minor condition is actually life-threatening? Will it be him? Who will be responsible? How will the Government explain that we will be going back to the days when patients could wait over 12 hours if they were not considered ill enough?
The Secretary of State must recognise the impact of this systemic crisis on A&E rooms across the country in his words and in this decision. In downgrading the target, the Secretary of State does neither, instead placing blame on patients and putting patients at risk. Let me tell it straight: I have been an A&E specialist doctor under a Labour Government and under a Conservative Government. There has been a change under this Government—and for sure it has not been for the better.