National Health Service

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I give way to the Chair of the Health Committee.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am concerned. Does he understand the difference between a pilot and an experiment? Does he not think it is right that the Secretary of State should listen to clinically led advice about how we might improve ambulance waiting times, rather than just roll out changes without a pilot, not an experiment?

[Andy Burnham]

I do not think there is a massive difference between a pilot and an experiment. My objection is that that is being introduced in winter—and a difficult winter at that—in the most troubled ambulance service. I am not against a pilot, but it should be conducted at a quieter time of year. I should have thought that bringing it in now would strike the hon. Lady, with her long experience of the NHS, as more than a slightly risky thing to do.

I need to hear today the Secretary of State’s plan. What is his plan to bring standards in ambulance services and A and E back up to where they should be? If he waits much longer to tell us, people will conclude that he simply does not have one. The simple truth is that our hospitals are full and operating way beyond safe bed occupancy levels. It is a system that is visibly creaking at the seams.

Care Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Andy Burnham

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I could not agree more. I would guess that disabled people listening to the debate today will be very worried about what they are hearing. The change will restrict support for them, and it is a false economy. If they cannot go out to work, how on earth does that help them or, indeed, anybody? The change will have an impact on disabled people, with some losing their support.

I was going on to make the point that disabled people and older people are already paying much more for care as a result of changes in recent years. As research by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) has shown, they are paying almost £740 more a year for vital home case services compared with 2010, up on average by almost £50 a month. That is a hidden cost of living crisis, because who sees that older people have to pay more out of their bank accounts? It goes unnoticed by the media and large parts of society, but the most vulnerable people in society are bearing the brunt.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned older people. Does he accept that although health inequalities are very important in setting funding formulas, age is one of the greatest predictors for establishing need? It is absolutely vital to include such factors as age and rurality in deciding funding formulas, and it is precisely to remove the politicisation of such decisions that we are handing them over to another body.

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady must have misunderstood me. I am not saying that age is unimportant; I am saying that age is important, but so is need. In my view, those two must have equal weighting in the system, as they do at the moment. As I understand it, the proposal is to deprioritise need or deprivation as part of the funding formula, which will have the effect of removing funding from communities in which the expectancy for a healthy life is already shortest. I do not believe that that is defensible, and I would be surprised if she found that it was.

[Dr Wollaston]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Burnham]

I shall do so once more, but then I must make some progress.

[Dr Wollaston]

The right hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. The point is that we are discussing the Care Bill and how need relating to age is the single greatest predictor of someone’s need. I accept that health inequality is a very important factor, but the formula currently does not take enough note of age-based need and multiple long-term conditions.

[Andy Burnham]

I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Lady. Some older people in my constituency probably do not have as good a quality of life in later life as some in her area, because there are ex-miners with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other things, who have very extensive needs caused by the dangers they were exposed to during their working life, and that places a burden on our health service. Of course, people are more likely to be living with chronic disease in more deprived areas, and both those things have to be recognised in the funding formula. If the change goes ahead, it will cause great volatility and move a lot of money around the system, but it will not allow areas such as the one I represent to invest in the home-based, high-quality, integrated services that the Secretary of State said he wanted.

To return to the costs of care charged by councils, let us call the hikes in charges what they are—stealthy dementia taxes that seek out the most vulnerable people in our society. The more vulnerable someone is and the greater their need, the more they pay. People who are paying more for care under the current Government and often receiving a worse service will not be convinced by the Secretary of State’s claims for his Bill today. It will feel like a con, and that feeling will only intensify when people understand more about the proposed cap.

Although we welcome the principle of a cap, this one is not what it seems. It is set at £72,000, despite Dilnot warning that a cap above £50,000 would not provide adequate protection for people with low incomes and low wealth. The Health Secretary has repeatedly said that people will not have to pay more than £72,000 for care.

NHS Funding

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I hear reports from ambulance services all over the country that they simply cannot hand over patients at the door of A and E departments and are having to queue outside. Consequently, large swathes of the country are being left without adequate ambulance cover. That is unacceptable, especially as we go into winter and temperatures drop. We need to see some evidence that the Government have a grip on these things. I have been told that large parts of my constituency have occasionally been left without adequate ambulance cover. We must have answers on these matters today.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I am very disappointed to hear the right hon. Gentleman talk down the NHS. As he has just acknowledged, before the election the NHS knew that it was facing an unprecedented efficiency challenge. He will also know that under Labour productivity in the NHS fell continuously. I wonder whether—[Interruption.] Okay, but for almost every year—

[Dr Wollaston]

Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge the NHS’s achievement in making a productivity gain?

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady just made another untrue statement. She talks about talking down the NHS, but productivity has not fallen. I am sorry, but let us have some honesty. We are not just going to sit here and take one statement after another—

National Health Service

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Andy Burnham

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) before I conclude.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I hope that in his conclusion, the right hon. Gentleman will address a point raised by the King’s Fund. It said that the greatest policy failure of the previous Administration was the failure to tackle health inequalities. He says that he wishes to appeal the whole of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, but does he accept that shifting public health back to local authorities gives us one of the greatest opportunities to tackle health inequalities? Will he seriously put public health back where it was before and, by so doing, continue to fail to address health inequalities?

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Lady mentions the Act, and I seem to remember that she called the Bill a hand grenade thrown into the health service. She seems to have changed her tune since then. We made huge progress on tackling smoking and improving the public health of this country, progress of which we are very proud. We can always say that we could have done more, but I remember putting through measures on smoking towards the end of our time in government that were opposed by those on the Government Front Bench. I am not sure how she could justify that.

The budget cut combined with the distraction of reorganisation means that six out of 10 hospitals in England are now off target for their efficiency savings. That brings me back to where we started: this is the wrong time to reorganise the national health service. In conclusion, the House cannot reverse tonight the damage of the NHS reorganisation, but we are not powerless. There are things we can do to help the NHS at one of the most dangerous moments it has faced. Our constituents will expect us to hold Ministers to account for promises made on rationing and reconfigurations. They will want us to do the right thing by NHS staff facing pay cuts and redundancy. Our constituents have a right to expect that one of the central pledges in the coalition agreement—not to cut the NHS—will be honoured. That is the simple call of our motion this evening which, we hope, can unite all sides of the House. A vote tonight for the motion would be a positive vote for an NHS under siege and a message of appreciation for NHS staff facing uncertain times. I commend the motion to the House.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

I am not trying to trivialise the issue; believe me, I understand how vital the NHS is to all our constituents and to patients. My view is that the transition risk register has been elevated to a status far out of proportion to what it merits. I completely understand the points made by Lord Wilson and Lord Armstrong—very experienced civil servants who tell us that they would feel constrained in giving full and frank advice. However, we have seen how any detail can be taken out of all proportion in this House; we are all partly responsible for that. As I said, some of the shroud waving over this Bill has been disgraceful, and I know of patients who have been genuinely frightened by it. I would be prepared to see the risk register published, but I accept the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) that it has to be done on the basis of a clear understanding.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. I remember, however, a comment that she made to The Guardian, I believe, at the start of this process, when she said that this Bill was like throwing a hand grenade into the NHS. What has changed?

[Dr Wollaston]

There we go—a deliberate misrepresentation. After I made those comments, I wrote to senior colleagues and told them that what I had said was completely different. I was deliberately misquoted on that statement and have been consistently misquoted by Labour Members. They should go back and look at the original.

I feel that it would be reasonable to present all the risks, but it would be crucial for Members of all parties to recognise that we are talking about a lasting change. We would also need to see a change in how risks are extrapolated out of all proportion to what they represent and an end to the deliberate frightening of patients into believing that they will have to pay for health care, which has been a consistent feature of how this Bill has been misrepresented by Labour Members.