National Health Service

Stephen Hepburn Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)]

If anybody wants to see the direction in which this Government are going with the NHS and what impact their policies are having on it, they should come up to my constituency.

Let us think back to the Prime Minister’s weasel words before the last general election—that the NHS was “safe” in his hands and that he wanted the initials NHS to be synonymous with and to define his name. Then let us look at what is happening today. It is a wonder he can lie in bed straight at night, as we see the NHS in crisis—the only thing it is doing is crying out SOS. He promised that there would be no reorganisation, but what do we get? We get the biggest reorganisation since the NHS was formed, and one set up for one thing and one thing only: to privatise the NHS. Some £3 billion has been spent on that reorganisation and the bill is going up—£3 billion that should have been spent on the sick instead of on P45s going out to thousands of nurses when cuts are implemented. It is disgraceful.

Ministers have only to come to Jarrow to see what is happening. In my local hospital three elderly patients wards have closed, a minor injuries unit has closed and now, to make matters worse, a popular walk-in centre, which sees over 27,000 patients a year, is to close. The closure is opposed by everybody in the area—the council, the trade unions, the patients and the staff.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend noticed that the Government are running true to form, like the previous Conservative Government, when we had bed blocking and people sleeping on trolleys because they could not get a bed in hospital? Has he noticed particularly that local authority budgets could have provided for the elderly and prevented bed blocking?

[Mr Hepburn]

That is exactly the point that the shadow Secretary of State made in his opening speech.

As we heard earlier, local managers are not listening. They are stooges of the Government and they are carrying out the cuts without listening to local people. It is disgraceful. They are not incompetent, and nor are the Government—they know exactly what they are doing. There is a deliberate effort to sabotage the NHS by piling those 27,000 patients a year on to the local doctors.

[Andy Burnham]

I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend says. His walk-in centre, like mine, was one of the first to open and is greatly valued by the community. I make this offer to him today: if he and his community can keep the campaign going and keep that centre open, and if I am the Secretary of State in May, it will stay open for good.

[Mr Hepburn]

I am sure people in the area are extremely grateful for that statement of support and commitment and that pledge from the shadow Secretary of State. I only hope he will become Secretary of State.

The Government and the management of the NHS are not incompetent. They are acting deliberately. The 27,000 patients in Jarrow who now go to the walk-in centre will have to go to the doctors’ surgeries, where it is difficult enough already to get an appointment. That will only exacerbate the problem. When they go down to A and E, which is doing a terrific job, the situation will only get worse. The Government know exactly what they are doing. They are trying to sicken people of the NHS so that they can turn round and say, “The NHS is not working. We will bring in the private sector to help out and to take it over.” That is the policy of this Government.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Under the previous Government, my predecessor was not able to prevent the closure of A and E. If Labour is in government, I shall remember his speech today and the promise that was given to him, and I shall watch closely what happens.

[Mr Hepburn]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that after that pledge I will certainly be watching the shadow Secretary of State when he gets in, to make sure our walk-in centre is still going.

Who gains from the present situation? Only two lots of people—the Tories, many of whom are up to their necks in involvement with private health care providers, and the profiteers, the health care providers, who are going to come in and cherry-pick the best services so that they can make profits. I welcome the shadow Secretary of State’s statement and commitment today. It will boost the morale of the people of the north-east who are so desperate to keep the service.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just asked the shadow Secretary of State whether his walk-in centre would be kept open and the answer was yes. However, we should not look at future promises. We should look at the past and what was done under the previous Administration. In 2006, Medway hospital in my constituency had the seventh worst mortality rate, yet nothing was done. We must judge Labour by what it did, not by future promises.

[Mr Hepburn]

We must remember that it was the Labour party that created the NHS, that saved the NHS in 1997 and that tripled spending on the NHS in our last period in government. It is the Labour party, when we get in, that will return the NHS to the people—unlike the Tories, who would return the NHS to the profiteers who fund them and their organisation. The only way to get rid of the crisis in the NHS is to get rid of the Tories.