Ambulance Pressures

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement and welcome him to his new role. It would have been helpful if, ahead of the current temperatures, he had responded to our urgent question last week, but I am glad that he is here now.

The Secretary of State claims that everything is in hand, but I know from my own experience and that of colleagues across the country that that is far from the truth. We have already seen ambulance wait times soar and pressure on staff spiral, all while the NHS struggles to find the essential staff needed to deliver patient care. I am sure that everyone across the House will agree that our frontline workers are truly amazing. But if nurses and doctors are so overworked and do not have the time and resources to take care of themselves in this heat, the care that they can give patients will be impacted. The Government must step up and show the urgency that this crisis demands.

The Secretary of State talks of creating additional space for new patients in hospitals. How will that happen—with what money, what resources and what staff? Will the Government try to call those new hospitals, too? Is not the reality that creating capacity elsewhere in hospital really means patients being left in corridors on trolleys or in car parks? Can he assure us today that that will not be the case?

Under the Conservatives, the NHS is simply struggling to cope. A record 6.6 million people are waiting for NHS treatment—and they are waiting longer than ever before, often in pain and discomfort. The people in our thoughts this afternoon are those waiting in queues outside hospitals in ambulances, with soaring temperatures and no air conditioning. If it were dogs or cattle, it would be against the law, but these are people in tropical heat unable to enter hospitals. People with conditions triggered by excessive heat are unable to get an ambulance, because ambulances are logjammed outside A&E. Will the Secretary of State apologise to them and their families?

This situation is impacting mental health, too. People attending A&E experiencing a mental health crisis cannot get a bed in a psychiatric hospital, so they wait in A&E, some of them for more than three days. Why? Because the Government have spent the past decade cutting a quarter of mental health beds.

I worked in A&E over this weekend and saw the amazing work being done by staff to prepare for the record heat. The heatwave and surge in covid cases are putting additional pressures on the NHS. I am glad that the Secretary of State recognised that in his statement. Without doubt, 12 years of Conservative mismanagement and underfunding have left our health service unable to cope, which not only has an impact on patients but hurts staff. Staff morale is at rock bottom. Is it any wonder that 5.7 million days were lost to mental ill health in the NHS last year?

Last week, the Minister of State claimed that the Government had procured a £30 million contract for an auxiliary ambulance service, but, moments later, it was revealed that it was yet to be awarded. Can the Health Secretary confirm whether the Minister of State has issued a correction yet?

On Wednesday, ambulance trusts were placed on their highest possible alert level. A national emergency was declared on Friday and, over the weekend, hospitals were scrambling to increase capacity. Why then has it taken until today for the Health Secretary to step up and show leadership? Can he tell us who he met over the weekend? I do not mean at Chequers; I mean from the NHS. Can he also tell us why the Prime Minister did not think it necessary to chair Cobra today? Just when we thought irony had reached a peak, the Prime Minister spent the weekend partying when he should have been dealing with a health emergency. Has the Secretary of State spoken to the Prime Minister today? The Health Secretary has been too slow. The Prime Minister has not even bothered to turn up and the Government have gone AWOL.

If the Government will not step up now, then Labour will. As temperatures reach a record high, all we are getting from the Government is more hot air. This is a crisis. The country has one message for Ministers: stop squabbling and plotting, do your jobs and get a grip.

[Steve Barclay]

Let me start with the area on which the hon. Lady was correct, which is that I recognise the increased pressure on ambulances and hospitals. That is why we put in place the long-established contingency plans. Since the heatwave in Paris in 2003, it is the case that each year in May, we put in place our heatwave plans. That is what has been activated. Those plans were refreshed as recently as two months ago and sit alongside the work that has been done on urgent and emergency care, including the 10-point action plan that was set out last September.

The hon. Lady is right: the House as a whole will recognise the significant pressure on the system, which is why we are taking the steps from our contingency plans. It is also why we have put in specific funding, such as: the additional £150 million of support targeted at the ambulance service; an additional £50 million for 111 calls to build capacity; and as she said, an additional £30 million for auxiliary ambulances, which is what the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), was referring to in the House last week.

The Met Office and the UK Health Security Agency went to level 4 on Friday. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I updated the House on the first available sitting day after that. The irony will not be lost on the House that this issue is seen as so important that the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has failed to turn up to this statement in the middle of a heatwave. [Interruption.] Well, he is not here, which speaks for itself.

The hon. Lady also suggested that these challenges, which are being faced across Europe as a whole, were in some way due to the overall investment in the NHS. I remind the House that, to take the resource departmental expenditure limit alone, RDEL in 2010 was just under £99 billion and last year it was £150 billion. That is a good indication of the significant funding. We could also come on to capital investment, not least with the 40 hospitals programme, part of a £22 billion package to 2030, which underscores this Government’s commitment to investing in our NHS—an investment that, most recently, the Labour party voted against when we brought it to the House.

The hon. Lady asks about an apology for operational levels of performance. I do not know whether she is asking for that apology from the Welsh Government or just from the English Government. She may want to clarify that, given the performance of the Welsh ambulance service under the Welsh Government.

On the hon. Lady’s point about auxiliary, the Minister of State, Department for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, said in her statement that we had seen improvements in May. I referred to that as context, but on auxiliary in particular I can clarify for the House that a contract is being procured for auxiliary ambulance services and is expected to be concluded shortly.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked what meetings I have held over the less than two weeks that I have been in post. I am happy to share with the House that I have been on visits to four different hospitals, in Whipps Cross, Hillingdon, King’s Lynn and Bedford; I have been out on two different ambulance shifts, been to three different ambulance centres, been out to see GPs to look at boosting access to their services and been to look at life sciences. I have been engaging, and that sits alongside, for example, the meeting with chief execs of ambulance trusts on Saturday, Cobra on Saturday and other such meetings that I have had in the course of my duties.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the Prime Minister’s engagement. Just as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster set out that he was engaging with the Prime Minister in his role chairing Cobra as Minister for the Cabinet Office, I am happy to confirm to the House that I also engaged with the Prime Minister over the weekend, updating him on the health plans we have put in place. He has been closely engaged on the contingency we have put in place.