NHS Workforce

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I have not seen it myself but, from descriptions I have heard, I am not quite sure that is what he was trying to—[Interruption.] Members ask why I have not watched it. I was actually getting ready for a birthday party for my 10-year-old. We are allowed lives outside this place.

For those who have commented on workforce figures over the past decade, between May 2010 and August 2022, 36,000 more hospital doctors and 38,000 more nurses and health visitors were recruited. We are also asking the NHS, like all public services, to tackle productivity and inefficiency. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) emphasised the importance of that and brought his experience to the debate.

To help colleagues, the initial findings by Patricia Hewitt, the former Labour Health Secretary, will be delivered to the Department within three weeks, which shows the pace of work that Ms Hewitt and others are taking on this important project. In addition, we are boosting NHS funding by £3.3 billion next year and by another £3.3 billion the year after that, helping to ensure that the NHS can take rapid action to improve urgent and emergency care and to get elective performance back to pre-pandemic levels.

[Sam Tarry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will just make a little progress, if I may. Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of the NHS, has said that this should

“provide sufficient funding for the NHS to fulfil its key priorities”

and shows that the Government are serious about their commitment to prioritise the NHS.

The hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough emphasised the role that pharmacies can play, and I hope we can discuss ways that different services can be delivered differently over the NHS in the coming months and years. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who chairs the Health and Social Care Committee, made the sound point that prevention is part of productivity.

Overall, the NHS resource budget in England is expected to increase to £165.9 billion in 2024-25, up from £123.7 billion in 2019-20. Our determination to deal with the covid backlogs has seen the NHS already hit its first milestone in terms of waits of over two years, and it will go further, eliminating waits of over 18 months by April next year, over 15 months by March 2024, and over 12 months by March 2025. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State compared that with the figures in Labour-run Wales, and noted that a fifth of the population there is waiting for care and remarked on the curious anomaly that Wales stopped publishing its workforce vacancy rates in 2011.

[Sam Tarry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

I will, but then I must make progress.

[Sam Tarry]

The Minister talks about waiting lists dropping. I would like to hear an explanation as to how, in one 24-hour period last week, in the whole of the UK, there was one paediatric intensive care unit bed. What is her explanation for that?

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point. I do not have the answer to hand, but I will ensure that the relevant Health Minister writes to him, because I understand why he raises it.

There has been a great deal of discussion about nurses’ pay, and we are extremely regretful and very much hoping that accommodations and agreements can be found. To put into context recent pay rises, more than 1 million staff including nurses have benefited from a pay rise of at least £1,400 backdated to April this year. That is on top of the 3% pay rise they received last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester asked an interesting question: does Labour support or oppose the independent pay review bodies, which set the recommendations that have been accepted?