Healthcare Provision: East of England

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this important debate. As we have heard from the contributions so far, the levels of disparity in healthcare in the east of England are significant; in my constituency of Luton North, they are very stark indeed. There are huge gaps in health and life expectancy across the town of Luton itself—I am not talking about the region, but just the town itself. Those gaps mean that someone in one area of Luton can expect to live up to 10 years longer than someone in another part of the town. I am sure that hon. Friends will agree that the fact the gaps in life expectancy within one town are so stark in 2024 is shocking.

We know that unfortunately there is a link between poverty and healthcare outcomes—and, indeed, healthy life expectancy. Those cannot be separated. Luton currently has the second lowest public spend figures in the NHS, local government, police and public health when compared to other towns in England with relative need, which comes after the 14 years of austerity that we in Luton have also suffered from.

Sadly, Luton has high levels of child poverty, with around 45% of children in the town living in poverty. There seems to be a misconception that when we talk about poverty and about child poverty in particular, we are talking about families where people are not in work. Actually, what I find when I see my constituents who are struggling and reliant on voluntary services, such as the food bank, the Curry Kitchen or the Breakfast Battery Boxes running out of Sundon Park, is that most of these people are in employment. They are working hard to try and support their families, but are unable to make ends meet.

There is one issue regarding child health that I will focus on, although I know that everyone who has spoken so far has already touched on it: access to dentistry. A report on children’s oral health published by Luton Borough Council in March 2023 found that Luton had some of the highest prevalence of tooth decay among five-year-olds in England.

I want to dive into some of the reality behind those stats. I have visited countless primary schools across Luton North and one of the key things that teachers always raise with me is oral hygiene. Sadly, I have seen children with brown nubs where white teeth should be. Many of those children have never owned a toothbrush or had access to one at home. Many schools in Luton North now provide children with toothbrushes to be kept at school, and take time out of lessons to ensure that children are brushing their teeth. Most of these children have never seen a dentist before, and many require painful tooth extractions, with tooth decay being the most common reason why children aged six to 10 are hospitalised. The situation has a knock-on effect on children’s vital early years of development: they are missing school and are unable to speak properly, learn phonics or eat a proper healthy and balanced diet.

There are organisations trying to fill the gap, such as the Dental Wellness Trust, which visited Waulud primary school in my constituency. It was lovely to see the trust working at the school to provide 250 children with free dental health screenings and fluoride varnishing. But despite these mechanisms to try to plug the gap and target the problem, it is clear we need a much more joined-up approach to dentistry in order to improve health and break the cycle of poverty, and to put children’s smiles back into our community. However, the issue does not affect just children—it is about adults as well. Every time I knock on someone’s door, I am asked where NHS dentists are available in Luton; shockingly, I have to point them outside of the constituency, into Harpenden.

That is why I am very proud of Labour’s dentistry rescue plan, which will fill the current gap with an extra 700,000 urgent dental appointments a year and reform the dental contract, which, as we have heard, is a problem, to rebuild NHS dentistry to ensure that everyone has access to dentistry appointments and to improve incentives for dentistry graduates to work in the areas most in need of NHS dentists, such as Luton.

It is key that we draw on the knowledge of local community leaders, stakeholders and organisations to inform our approach on improving health in our local areas. This is something I would say is uniquely well done in Luton, where Pastor Lloyd Denny, who has lived in our town and worked with the local communities through his faith for years, carried out an independent review of health inequalities. His review highlighted four key areas that needed urgent attention and improvement: communication, access, representation and cultural competency.

We had to lean on these four areas during the pandemic. We saw this with Imam Qazi Chishti, a friend of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) and myself, who was one of the first faith leaders to take the covid vaccination—that is representation, cultural competency, access and communication right there in action. We see this with Love Luton RunFest, where I am always pressured to try to do the half-marathon. Forget it, guys—that’s not happening. I will do 10k max.

We also see it with our primary care networks, such as the Equality PCN initiative that is working to target and work with our communities to ensure that people can live healthy lives. Dr Tahir Mehmood is doing fantastic work with our community. That is not to mention the fantastic representation in women’s sport that we have in Luton, with Hina Shafi, who is one of the most brilliant representatives for women and inclusion in sport, and Dionne Manning, who is another fantastic woman—a local hero—working in women’s football and to try to keep people like me in shape.

There is no doubt that brilliant work is being done at a local level, but there is undoubtedly still a devastating postcode lottery for people accessing cancer care, with major variation across England in terms of expectancies and outcomes. Something that is very close to my heart when it comes to cancer care is brain tumours. I have had a number of constituents impacted by this cruel disease, and I have been lucky enough to work closely with Khuram and Yasmin, the parents of Amani, who lost her battle with glioblastoma in April 2022, aged just 23.

Despite the significant leaps and bounds made in other forms of cancer treatment, which should be welcomed, outcomes for those diagnosed with brain tumours remain extremely poor, with no new treatments developed in the past 20 years. Patients with brain tumours today will receive exactly the same treatment as 20 years ago. Around 12,000 people are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year, and brain tumours remain the largest killer of those under 40. Fewer than 13% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years, compared with an average of 54% across all cancers. I urge the Minister to continue working with MPs such as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) and I, and campaigners on this issue.

Let me take a moment to touch on an area of medical injustice that is particularly painful for a constituent I met just last week. She is a Primodos baby, which means her mother was given an oral hormonal pregnancy test that around 1.5 million women took in the 1960s and ’70s. Although it was found to be harmful and was banned in other countries in 1970, the UK continued to circulate it until 1978. Tragically, the use of those pills resulted in many babies being born with disabilities such as missing limbs, heart defects and brain damage. Many babies did not survive beyond the womb.

Most patients were issued Primodos without prescription, which means there is no evidence that they ever took it. My constituent’s mother just had it handed to her from the GP’s desk drawer. For others, their medical records were destroyed or lost. We have heard similar stories in the infected blood inquiry of medical records suspiciously going missing. That is extremely harmful, physically and psychologically, for the patients involved.

My constituent has suffered from a rare brain tumour and continues to suffer from many other health issues, all due to Primodos. In spite of that, she is inspirational in her continuing campaign for recognition and a response from the Government for victims such as herself and others. Sadly, she and her peers are yet to receive any sort of compensation, despite being victims of a mass case of medical negligence that has resulted in the painful lives and premature deaths of so many. Will the Minister agree to meet me and my constituent to discuss a way forward for those affected by the Primodos scandal?

I have chosen some specific issues—health inequalities, life expectancy and how healthily we can live our lives—as well as some acute cases in dentistry and cancer. However, I know that our Labour Government are committed to shifting the focus of the health systems towards prevention, and that is where we need to see focus. I am hopeful that health schemes such as those we heard about during the election campaign can be rolled out across the east of England and the country, to improve issues such as cancer care and outcomes for all who are suffering from that cruel disease, and especially to close the deep-rooted health inequalities that we see across our town and our region.