New Hospitals

Debate between Steve Barclay and Maria Miller

Thursday 25th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The announcement and the manifesto commitment were to build by 2030. The hon. Lady touches on the engagement with industry; Lord Markham has been engaging with industry. We have had a significant team, both within the Department and in NHS England, working on the standardised designs. The whole point is that we have seen in other sectors how standardisation allows us to construct much more quickly. It will also allow internal processes in government to be much quicker because we are not looking at each scheme in a bespoke way; we will have much more standardisation. That is how we will move at a much quicker pace. It has required us to take a little more time over recent months as we have finalised the plan, but now that we have that plan and clarity about the RAAC hospitals in particular, we will be able to move with much more pace.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the confirmation that the new Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust hospital in Basingstoke is one of the cohort 4 hospitals due for completion in 2032-33. It will serve residents in my constituency and those of a number of right hon. and hon. Members. We have a plan, a preferred site and an amazing team on the ground, so how can my right hon. Friend work with me and other colleagues to speed up this new hospital? It is badly needed to replace the current hospital, which was built in the 1970s to last 50 years. We have one of the biggest maintenance backlogs, and we really need the new hospital to meet the needs of our growing population. We have some of the highest levels of house building in the south-east. What can he do to help?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend has assiduously and passionately led the campaign on this. I stand ready to have further discussions with her. She is right about the trust going into the rolling programme; that is how it will be taken forward. As I touched on in response to the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), there are some questions that we are keen to work through—not least around junction 7, the land acquisition, and the service design—and I know that she will be at the fore in making representations on those points.

Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan

Debate between Steve Barclay and Maria Miller

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First, I thank the hon. Lady for recognising the steps that we have taken on transparency. That has been an area of challenge and it is part of my wider commitment to transparency.

The ambition of the targets has to be realistic, and targets are not a ceiling but a floor. It is about saying, “How do we set a target that is realistic?” Of course, we will aim to do better than that, but it is about setting something that the system feels is achievable, because that in turn gets much more buy-in.

On beds, we are increasing capacity, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) alluded to. What it is really about is freeing up patients who are fit for discharge from hospital, who should not be there and would actually prefer to be getting care at home. It is about looking at the end-to-end bed capacity, not simply at beds within the acute sites.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. In the pandemic, the use of local private hospitals by the NHS, particularly in places such as Basingstoke, kept services such as cancer care going uninterrupted. Could the NHS be using more private facilities more widely to relieve some of the pressures that he so eloquently outlined in his statement?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Again, within that is patient choice and how we empower more patient choice—providing services that are free at the point of use—to use what capacity there is within the system, including in the independent sector. I absolutely agree that we should be maximising capacity. At Downing Street with the Prime Minister, we had a very useful roundtable with the independent sector about how we can make more use of its capacity. That is certainly an area that we are exploring.

Women’s Health Strategy for England

Debate between Steve Barclay and Maria Miller

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady says that she is not being listened to, but my understanding is that she is co-chair of the menopause taskforce, which has been set up to look at these issues. Indeed, she has also had meetings with officials on the subject of HRT. It is slightly remiss of her to suggest that she is not being listened to when Health Department officials are meeting with her and when we have a taskforce under way. There is much consensus around the points that she raises. She has highlighted, quite rightly, the importance of HRT, and we have acted on that. Part of the reason for the delay until April is that the IT systems need to be put in place. I well recall, when I was a Treasury Minister, being asked to move at pace in response to covid, because of the cash-flow pressures on businesses, and sometimes having the same colleagues complaining that forward controls and other issues had not been put in place. We need to put the right IT in place. We will do that for April, and the work is under way. The issues that she raises are being addressed, but in an effective way.

As I said to the shadow Secretary of State, we will work with the royal colleges to address the issue of training. It is a perfectly fair point, and I do not think there is disagreement in the House on that. On the wider issue of addressing disparities, that is exactly what the taskforce is about. That is why we have such a relentless focus on data, why we have a women’s health ambassador to give greater voice to these issues, and why we have brought forward specific measures, such as the family hubs and mobile breast screening units, to better address those disparities.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and its recognition of the need to have specific strategies to make sure that women have equal access to services. However, it is silent on the biggest healthcare injustice that women face in our country—that abortion is still treated under Victorian criminal law, with the most draconian laws in the world. Seventeen women in the past eight years have been subject to criminal investigation, including simply because they suffered the appalling issue of stillbirth. This strategy should stop that by expanding the Government’s own change in the law in Northern Ireland to ensure that abortion is an issue between women and their doctors, and that every woman is protected from criminal investigation at a time when what they need from us is care and compassion.

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is right that there is a need for care and compassion, and she highlights an extremely important point. She will be aware that the sexual health review is currently being conducted. That will report later this year and will look into the issue that she raises.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Barclay and Maria Miller

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay)]

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

[Mrs Miller]

[Steve Barclay]