Department of Health and Social Care

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

The Government came into office making all the right noises about tackling waiting lists and delivering a better healthcare service, which all our constituents want to see. However, since their election, I am concerned that Ministers are giving out more money—about £22.6 billion —for the day-to-day running of the NHS, without plans about how that may be spent to reform our health service, make it more efficient and support priority areas, such as dentistry, general practice or hospice care.

The Government are seemingly giving with one hand but taking with the other. No one should overestimate the impact of the increase of the employer national insurance contribution on our GP surgeries. Both Towcester and Brackley medical centres in my constituency have said that that increase will cost at least £40,000 to £50,000 and may result in redundancies, stopping the growth of their practices. Our surgeries are not here to make profit, but to deliver care, and attacks like this make care unsustainable.

The Darzi report said:

“The NHS budget is not being spent where it should be—too great a share is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, and productivity is too low.”

[Gregory Stafford]

I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend says, but has she seen anything from this Government that suggests that there will be a significant shift from acute care in hospitals to community care, despite the rhetoric that we have heard from the Government Benches?

[Sarah Bool]

I concur that I have not seen anything, which is why today’s debate is so important. My GPs tell me that more attention needs to be given to GP practices: they are the praetorian guard who can ultimately protect the NHS. Access to timely appointments is crucial, as is rebuilding the key relationship and contact between a GP and their patient.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Under the last Government, 20% of NHS doctors were thinking about moving overseas. Does the hon. Lady agree that solving GP contracts is a first step towards keeping GPs working in this country?

[Sarah Bool]

I want to encourage all our GPs to remain in the UK, giving back, so I am always fully supportive of anything we can do about that.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

On that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sarah Bool]

I will make some progress.

That key relationship and contact between a GP and their patient was reinforced by the Public Accounts Committee report on NHS financial stability, published in January, which concluded that a reallocation of funds was needed to focus attention from sickness to prevention.

I am a massive advocate of prevention. Many hon. Members will know that I talk about being a type 1 diabetic; if they have not heard me talking about it, they may have heard one of my sensors going off for a low blood sugar. There is so much we could do in preventative measures in the treatment of diabetes. Treatments can be expensive as an initial outlay, but they will solve many long-term problems. We cannot prevent type 1 diabetes, but we could have earlier testing in children, for example, so that we could avoid them being diagnosed when in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis, which can be fatal. Families could be prepared and ready, and children could avoid hospitalisation, saving costs to the NHS while also saving lives.

We can also ensure access to technology that can avoid huge complications. Poor blood sugar control can result in loss of eyesight and limbs, alongside heart and other conditions. Making continuous glucose monitors and even insulin pumps available across the country can significantly help the patient and, again, in the long term save the NHS money. At the moment there is a very unfair postcode lottery, so I ask the Minister to consider ways to tip the funding balance, to ensure both prevention and community care measures are properly funded.

Finally, any reforms to the NHS must consider the computer operating systems in place. Many of my constituents must go out of the constituency for their hospital care, be it to Northampton general hospital, the John Radcliffe hospital, Horton general hospital, Milton Keynes university hospital or Kettering general hospital, but all those trusts operate on different systems, with the result that my constituents often cannot have their scans or medical notes shared easily. That is frustrating for residents, and potentially fatal. One resident noted that his wife was nearly given a drug that she was allergic to, because her notes had not been able to be shared correctly—it was only his presence that saved her.

We must ensure that money is spent to look at that and to change the systems, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) has explained very conclusively. We owe it to our constituents to work across the House to better our healthcare and to support the fantastic work of our doctors and nurses.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I will start to call Front-Bench speakers at 3.15 pm.