Access to Primary Healthcare

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. That is an important point and I apologise for not making it in my speech. Optometry is really important, and as somebody who spends their whole life looking for their other glasses, I can absolutely appreciate his point.

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

Should’ve gone to Specsavers! [Laughter.]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

This really has been a vibrant and powerful debate. I thank the Liberal Democrats for using their Opposition day constructively to shine a searing spotlight on the challenges that our constituents face. Hon. Members made a series of outstanding contributions, but I thank in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), for Bury North (Mr Frith), for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan), for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), for Croydon East (Natasha Irons), for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald), for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), for Thurrock (Jen Craft), for Gloucester (Alex McIntyre), for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) and for Hexham (Joe Morris) for demonstrating why our party always has been, and always will be, the champion of the NHS.

I also congratulate the hon. Members for North Devon (Ian Roome), for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) on their excellent maiden speeches. It is quite shocking to note, however, that in spite of the vital importance of this debate to our constituents, there was not a single contribution from the Conservative Back Benches. [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Not only do the Conservatives refuse to apologise for the last 14 years, but they have run for the hills. Their silence truly speaks volumes.

Labour Members deal with facts and the unvarnished truth. On the subject of today’s debate, the list of facts illustrating the appalling neglect and incompetence of the last 14 years is truly as long as my arm. If I were to pick out just one statistic to summarise the last 14 years, I might choose that the most common reason for children aged five to nine being admitted to hospital is tooth decay. It is a truly Dickensian state of affairs. I could also point to the UK’s decreasing GP numbers, as there are 1,500 fewer compared with seven years ago, against the backdrop of a rising population. Or I could pick the collapse in patient satisfaction from 80% in 2009 to a shocking 35% last year. Or I could single out the fact that more than 1,000 pharmacies have shut their doors since 2017, and that almost six pharmacies a week have left the market in the last year.

The charge sheet is so long that a month of debates in this Chamber could not cover the profound damage that has been done by 14 years of short-termism and sticking-plaster politics, and by the botched top-down reorganisation in 2012. The reality is that the Tories doused the house in petrol and covid lit the match.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

The reaction to a proposed ward closure in my local St Cross hospital in Rugby shows how concerned the public are about the health system after 14 years of underinvestment by the last Government. In this case, however, the closure is because patients are being cared for closer to home. Does my hon. Friend agree that bringing more services into the community, and into smaller hospitals such as the one in my constituency, is integral to managing present and future demand, and to putting our NHS on a sustainable footing?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This strategic shift from hospitals into the community will be vital and central to our 10-year plan for the future of our health and care system.

Primary care is the NHS’s front door, but the Tories spent 14 years bricking it over. Now it is walled off to millions of people across our country, so it falls to this Labour Government to tear down that wall. We know that there is not a second to waste, not least on mental health. It is unacceptable that so many children, young people and adults are not receiving the mental health care they need. We know that waits for mental health services are far too long, and we are determined to change that. We will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across child and adult mental health services, we will introduce a specialist mental health professional in every school, and we will roll out Young Futures hubs in every community.

We will reopen the front door to the NHS by rebuilding general practice on the firm foundations it needs to get the service back on its feet and fit for the future.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

As well as needing more GPs, our GPs need decent premises from which to deliver high-quality care to patients. Park Road surgery in my constituency has been looking for new premises for more than a decade—it serves 13,000 patients out of an old Victorian house—but there simply is not the budget, and the processes are too complex. Will the Minister commit to both looking at the bureaucracy and pressing the Chancellor for more capital investment in primary care?

[Stephen Kinnock]

As the Darzi review shows, one of the most egregious examples of the neglect and incompetence of the past 14 years is the underspend on capital. We are clear that a number of premises across the country can be repurposed, and that the bureaucracy needs to be cleared out of its way. As the Prime Minister said earlier this week, we will have a mission about smart regulation and clearing the bureaucratic barriers to change.

We are also cutting red tape so that GPs spend less time pushing paper and more time face-to-face with the patients they serve. We are working to bring back the family doctors and to end the 8 am scramble. We have done more for primary care in the last 14 weeks than that lot did in the last 14 years.

On dentistry, we will introduce supervised tooth brushing for three to five-year-olds in deprived areas, ending the national scandal of tooth decay. And we are rebuilding the bridges that the Conservatives burned with the British Dental Association. I have already met the BDA, and we will deliver a rescue plan that gets NHS dentistry back on its feet, with 700,000 additional urgent appointments, starting as soon as possible, in those parts of our country that need them most.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Given the shocking state the last Government left us in, is it not good that the grown-ups are now in the building and that we have seen the urgency needed in the NHS, commissioning the Darzi report and investing £82 million, alongside making our commitment to tackle dentistry, use pharmacies and reduce the unnecessary burden?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for getting the strikes sorted within a week of us taking power—what a change that has made. We will reform the dentistry contract to make NHS work more attractive, boost retention and deliver a shift to prevention.

On pharmacies, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) made clear, we will shift the focus of our NHS out of hospital and into the community, empowering more pharmacists to prescribe independently, and freeing up GP appointments for those who need them most. That shift from hospital to community is vital for demand management in the primary and acute sectors.

On the whole, this has been an excellent debate, but I find it absolutely extraordinary that not a single word of humility or contrition was uttered by the official Opposition. Where was the apology for the fact that they spent 14 years bringing our NHS to its knees? Where was the mea culpa for the way in which they spent 14 years scapegoating the workforce, dodging the tough questions and passing the buck? Where was the acknowledgment of the fact that they called the election and ran away from their £22 billion black hole and from the multiple crises in our public services?

While the Conservative party continues to live in a parallel universe, we on the Government Benches are living in the real world. We are honest about the scale of the challenge, and we are up for the fight. While the mountain before us is daunting, we are not daunted. Instead, we are focused on the future, reform and rebuilding, and on shifting from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, and from analogue to digital. Let us roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.