A&E Services

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a prescient point. The Government talk the talk but do not want the walk, and she has detailed precisely why that is the case.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly as he has just responded to the intervention by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who is from Wales. Does he accept that in every financial year since 2010 the NHS in England has had a real-terms increase in funding, albeit a modest one, but that there has been a cut of 8% by the Labour Government in Wales and the A&E target in Wales has not been met since 2008?

[Mr Reed]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his knighthood—it is remiss of me not to have done that. He will know that real-terms increases and cash increases are not the same. He will also know, because he voted for it, that the budget in Wales has been cut by this Government by more than £2 billion. Let us compare like with like.

The Royal College of Nursing has calculated that almost £1 billion—£980 million—was spent on agency staff in the last year alone. Those and other choices made by this Government have meant that, collectively, trusts in England reported a total deficit of £822 million in 2014-15. That is simply unsustainable. A recent survey by the King’s Fund found that 90% of trust financial directors and 85% of commissioners are concerned about the financial state of their local health economies, and that view will be shared by many Members on both sides of the House. An investigation by Pulse revealed that clinical commissioning groups were being forced to use their 2015-16 winter pressures allocations just to maintain regular services.

Questions must also be asked about this week’s revelations that thousands of foreign nurses working in our NHS could be forced to leave the country as a result of the Government’s immigration rules. The RCN points out that this would cause chaos for the NHS and waste tens of millions of pounds—the Secretary of State laughs as I mention that. It would make matters much worse for patients and for front-line clinicians. Will the Minister tell us how many nurses will be lost from A&E and how many will be lost in total as a result of this move? Where in the country will they be lost? How will the vacancies be filled? What will this cost? Has he or any Minister in his Department made representations to the Prime Minister about the effects of this policy? If so, will he share those with the House? When did Health Ministers know that this policy might cause so much damage?