NHS Funding

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. Let me first pay tribute to the impassioned speech made by the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). The tales that she told almost left me in tears, and it is hard to imagine how difficult it must have been for her to read so many stories of that kind, given the unfortunate position in which her own family have been. I know that there are a number of nurses in the Chamber today, and in my constituency, who would be horrified to hear what happened to those individuals, and to the right hon. Lady’s family. No one would want anyone to be treated in such a manner. I think that her speech illustrated the difficulties involved in arguing about whether 0.1% is an increase or a decrease, and underlined the fact that today’s debate should focus on whether or not we provide good-quality patient care.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in praising NHS members of staff, including nurses, who are brave enough to come forward and express concern to the senior management of hospitals and in other settings when they see that their colleagues are not putting patient care first and are providing poor-quality care, so that appropriate action can be taken and atrocities such as those about which we have just heard can be prevented?

[Stephen McPartland]

I entirely agree. My hon. Friend has made an important point about the courage of staff whom many would describe as whistleblowers, and who are getting into a great deal of trouble not only with their management for casting light on what is going on in a particular hospital, but with their colleagues for telling tales.

I am proud of the NHS, I am very proud of the staff who work in it, and I am proud to have the Lister hospital in my constituency. We have heard much impassioned talk about the NHS throughout the Chamber today. I think it is fantastic that Members on both sides of the House, and all Members individually, do all that they can to improve the NHS and the service with which their constituents are provided on a day-to-day basis. I know how proud I am of the doctors, nurses and clinical staff who save lives every day in my constituency, and I know that the headlines only appear when things go wrong.

In my constituency there is an organisation called POhWER that provides an advocacy service to some of the most vulnerable individuals who are having difficulties with the NHS. It now has contracts for London, the south-east, the midlands and the east of England. It was created many years ago by a group of service users who were severely disabled and had difficulties daily in interacting with their NHS and other services. They created this charity and are its trustees. It has helped hundreds of thousands of people. It launched a telephone service in the middle of last year, and it has already received 30,000 telephone calls. I had the great pleasure yesterday of taking those involved to see the Minister with responsibility for charities, The Party Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), to demonstrate some of the work they are doing.

Every Member, irrespective of party, wants their NHS to be the best it can be and to provide the best possible care to their constituents. We can all make political points, and my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) referred to the fact that the Whips on both sides put out lots of statements for us to use to attack each other. We could argue that spending in the health service in Wales is going down by 8% under the Labour Administration there, but I do not want to put that case.

Instead, I want to say how much I respect the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). It was refreshing to hear him say he felt he did all he could in terms of NHS spending given the constraints of the budget he had. I do not want to cast political aspersions, because I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman. I believe he wanted to improve the NHS every bit as much as our Secretary of State and Ministers want to do so. I dearly wish the NHS was not a political football and we did not bandy about figures and information.

A great deal has been said about the first and second part of a sentence in a letter from Mr Dilnot. I have read the letter. I imagine most people would not really care about whether 0.1% less or more money was going into the NHS. They are interested in the fact that £12.5 billion extra is going in over this Parliament. The Health Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), made a powerful and eloquent speech—it was far more eloquent than mine. He explained that revenue expenditure has been growing modestly over the past couple of years, and that is the expenditure that the day-to-day care delivered to patients in the NHS comes from.