NHS Winter Readiness

Steff Aquarone Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your experienced chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this vital debate. Our rural constituencies share many similarities, and the NHS winter crisis will be as great a source of concern for her constituents as it is for mine. She may or may not have noticed that she was speaking at the same time as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), was in the main Chamber. I am grateful to the Minister for attending the debate at the precise time that her colleagues are responding to my right hon. Friend’s questions. This debate could not be more timely, given the context of today’s Budget and the winter we are rapidly heading into.

As I hope many Members will know, North Norfolk is proudly the constituency with the oldest demographic in the country. That means that when our NHS struggles, North Norfolk is acutely vulnerable to its effects. I pay tribute to the hard work going on in Norfolk to prepare for winter in our health services. Our GP surgeries and community nurses are working day in, day out to deliver flu and covid vaccinations for thousands of eligible residents. I encourage anyone eligible who is yet to take up their free vaccinations to contact their GP and do so. That work is vital to building the resilience of our communities ahead of the cold winter months, and I know that local residents are incredibly grateful for it.

We are once again heading into a difficult winter. In my constituency we have historically had some of the longest ambulance waiting times in the country. In towns and villages such as Blakeney, Cley and Wells-next-the-Sea, people are subjected to appalling and unacceptable wait times for urgent calls. Nationwide, people are fearful of the crisis, with recent polling stating that one in four people have avoided calling an ambulance because they are worried it would take too long to arrive. This cannot carry on.

To ease the pressure on our hospitals this winter, we need people to be able to leave acute settings when they are ready, and to keep well enough to avoid going back in. To add to what my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said about delayed discharges of care, that is yet another reason why I find myself completely baffled by the decision of the Conservative-led Norfolk county council to close the Benjamin Court reablement facility in Cromer. I declare an interest as a sitting Liberal Democrat member of that council.

The Benjamin Court facility helps to bring people back into the community, enabling them to recover in a more familiar setting. We know that convalescence works, reducing readmittance and enabling people to spend more time with their families as they recover. The integrated care board for Norfolk and Waveney says it wants to place a greater focus on recovery at home. I appreciate that may work for some, but it will not work for many. I am working alongside the campaign to save Benjamin Court to secure the future of the facility. I would greatly appreciate it if the Minister could take the time to meet me and representatives from the campaign to discuss why that vital service must be maintained.

Winter exacerbates one of the major challenges for people in North Norfolk accessing healthcare, which is our inadequate rural public transport. Wintery conditions and car reliance do not mix well; that is the reality that will present to many if they have an early morning appointment at one of our hospitals. People are faced with multi-hour round trips when using rural buses, and limited times when they could make an appointment, let alone the impact that any winter-led delays will have on their plans. To improve my constituents’ access to healthcare, we must also improve their access to public transport.

I fully support the Liberal Democrat plan to winter-proof our NHS, and a winter taskforce with ringfenced funding will go a long way to building the resilience that we need in North Norfolk. We cannot keep lurching from crisis to crisis each winter, stuck in one of the doom loops that the Chancellor spoke about before the Budget. We need to see a change of approach, a funding settlement that is proactive and not reactive, and an NHS that can fully support people across North Norfolk all year round.