Community Hospitals (North-East)

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) on securing this debate, and I pay tribute to NHS staff in his constituency, who do so much for the health and well-being of his and other hon. Members’ constituents.

Robust community services are a vital element of emerging models of care, providing treatment to patients closer to home and improving health outcomes. The Government remain committed to extending and improving access to care and treatment in the community and at home. This includes sharing best practice to enable the smooth discharge and transition of patients from acute settings to robust community services, allowing them to be cared for closer to home.

Community hospitals play an important role in that process. The care that Guisborough hospital provides includes rehabilitation and follow-up care in a community setting. Community hospitals have the potential to make considerable efficiency savings in the local health economy by shifting care, diagnostics, minor injuries and outpatient services, among others, from acute hospitals to the community. They provide both planned and unplanned acute care and diagnostics services for patients closer to home, support best practice in reducing the need for admission to acute hospitals and contribute to the local community by providing employment opportunities and support for community-based groups.

Those are a few reasons the community estate is a core part of the NHS. It can help to transform care pathways, moving care from acute settings to community settings. Local investment in this type of facility is part of a dynamic service model that supports health and well-being for the whole community. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that under the transforming community services programme, responsibility for community services was transferred from primary care trusts to NHS and other providers. To this effect, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust took over the operation of Guisborough hospital in April 2011.

The transfer of community services enabled the NHS to develop new innovative models of care using local multi-disciplinary, clinically led teams to improve services and health outcomes for local patients, families and communities. This has enabled the NHS to be creative in its approach to delivering community services. However, I fully appreciate the context within which all NHS organisations operate. They have to provide high quality services while remaining sustainable and efficient in making the best use of limited resources. The Government recognise this challenge, which is why we have protected NHS funding and are increasing funding in real terms during this Parliament.

In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, Middlesbrough PCT will receive an allocation in 2012-13 of more than £299 million, which is an increase of more than £8 million, and Redcar and Cleveland PCT will receive more than £269 million, which is an increase of more than £7 million. Despite this generous settlement, however, the NHS needs to do more. It needs to find up to £20 billion of efficiency savings over the same period to meet the rising demand for NHS services and to continue to invest in new technologies and drugs to help meet these demands.

We will not dictate from the centre how efficiency savings should be achieved. Decisions about local health services should be made as close to local people as possible. Local NHS commissioners are best placed to identify the scale of the financial challenge and the opportunities for making savings, while driving up and maintaining quality. Every penny of those savings can be reinvested in front-line services and health care.

[Guy Opperman]

An example of that, I would suggest, is Haltwhistle hospital in west Northumberland, which has been rebuilt by the local NHS trust to provide a hospital facility and an integrated care facility. Does the Minister agree that that is a good example of the Department and the trust supporting a community hospital?

[Mr Burns]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, because I understand that the campaign for that decision was kept up for more than 25 years. I congratulate NHS North of Tyne, Haltwhistle council and the friends of the hospital, as well as my hon. Friend, for all their work in ensuring that it is finally happening.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

It is good to hear that every penny saved will go back into the NHS. My main fear is that the new funding calculations that the Secretary of State for Health is proposing will be based not on deprivation but on age, which means that, as shown by studies by Durham university—a fine institution in my region—more than £600 million of the health funding that is currently given to north-east health services would be redirected south.

[Mr Burns]

I certainly note the point the hon. Gentleman makes, and I have read a number of his local newspapers, in which he and a number of his hon. Friends have been making it too. I am delighted that he accepts my argument that every single penny that is saved from the £20 billion of efficiency savings—which, of course, we inherited from the last Government and accepted, because it was the right policy to pursue—will be reinvested in the NHS.

I think the hon. Gentleman attended Health questions on 12 June, at which the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) raised the funding formula and the basis for it with me. I explained that a variety of factors, of which health is one, will determine the allocation of funding—just as it was determined under his Government—and that the question was also being looked at by an independent body. I have seen the newspapers, and I fully appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are trying to drum up a storm by suggesting that they are going to be hard done by. However, if he reads the answer I gave to his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East in Hansard, I hope it will reassure him, on reflection, about the current situation.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The Minister will recognise that community hospitals in the north-east, as well as in Beverley and Holderness, were starved of funding under the last Government. We saw gross distortions in funding, as the formula used deprivation as a way of pouring funding into urban areas, where there were young people who, regardless of their social background, were not in need of health funding. That starved the community hospitals serving ageing populations, which did need the funding. What we need is not reverse gerrymandering, but health funding that follows clinical health need. We did not have that under the last Government, who starved rural community hospitals of funding. I congratulate the Minister on having the courage to face down the vested interests of the Labour party.

[Mr Burns]

Let me return my hon. Friend’s compliment in kind by saying that I am grateful for the valid points he makes. He knows as well as I do that this Government, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), are totally committed to community hospitals. I know that he will also be reassured that, unlike with the last Government, there is no question whatever of this Government gerrymandering the funding formula.

I know that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is aware of the scale of the challenge facing his local NHS. Like every local NHS economy, the NHS organisations that commission and provide services in his constituency must take some fairly tough decisions to deliver sustainable health services in future. Let me also say to him—in the nicest possible way, because I respect him—that we are in the situation of protecting the NHS budget and giving it a modest real-terms increase, given our commitment to the NHS, simply because of the economic mess that we inherited, thanks to the actions of his Government, under the stewardship of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). That meant that there was not enough money to sustain the levels of real-terms investment that might have been available earlier this century.

I turn now to Guisborough hospital. I am aware that Chaloner ward, which provided palliative care and rehabilitation, closed permanently in February 2012. I am advised, however, that services were transferred to the hospital’s larger Priory ward, which I am assured has adequate room and staffing to continue to provide high quality care. I understand that the decision to close Chaloner ward was based on the need to deliver services safely, efficiently and effectively, as the ward had been under-utilised and was not making the best use of nursing resources. Staff were engaged on the decision. In fact, they advised closure—I hope that the hon. Gentleman heard that. The staff advised closure, and staff at the ward were redeployed within Guisborough hospital and to the nearby Redcar primary care hospital.

I am also aware that temporary changes were made to the opening times of the minor injury unit at Guisborough hospital. The MIU now opens between 9 am and 5 pm from Monday to Friday, and between 8 am and 8 pm at weekends. I understand that patients requiring treatment outside those hours use Redcar hospital, local GP walk-in centres or the accident and emergency department at the James Cook university hospital. I have been informed that the MIU is staffed by a small team of nurses, and that the changes enabled the unit to continue to provide a safe service for patients. I also understand that the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is looking at whether other staff can provide support to the unit.

I have been informed that, in the longer term, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is reviewing the provision of acute and community services across all its sites, including Guisborough hospital. The review is aimed at ensuring the future safety, quality and sustainability of services. The trust has been working with GPs, commissioners and local authorities to establish models of care that will enable more patients to be cared for at home and avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital—whether at the larger acute hospital, James Cook, or community hospitals such as Guisborough. Once that work is completed, the trust expects to take a more definitive view of the future role of community hospitals such as that at Guisborough. It is not yet clear when the review will conclude. However, I am assured by the local NHS that there are no plans in the near future for further service changes at Guisborough hospital. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman. Should there be any changes in the longer term, once the trust has completed its review of service provision, local stakeholders and the public will be engaged in this process. He might be aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set out strengthened criteria for service changes. Any proposals for major service change need to be assured by the local NHS against the Secretary of State’s four tests for service change and, when necessary, to be subject to public consultation.

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman met the chief executive of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to discuss these matters in February 2012. I also understand that the trust provides him with regular briefings on these issues, and I hope that he finds that helpful and useful in formulating his views on the provision of health care in his area. I hope that being briefed personally by his local health service providers will allow him to have a more open mind in regard to what is actually going on in the NHS, rather than simply accepting the propaganda that all too often distorts his views. I strongly encourage him to continue that dialogue with the trust as it completes its review of service provision.

Question put and agreed to.