NHS: Long-term Strategy

Debate between Steve Brine and Aaron Bell

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I only have a short time, so I will make a couple of points.

On strikes, since we have a major strike today, I understand that many of the trade unions are saying they will not engage with the independent pay review bodies for the 2023-24 settlement. That is a catastrophic mistake on their part. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), and I were on a well-known evening news programme together the other night. Far from trashing the pay review body, he said that although it may need reform, it is important. I am glad to hear him say that, because it is important, and the alternative is Ministers directly negotiating pay settlements with unions. They have tried to do that in Scotland in recent weeks, and the Royal College of Nursing rejected the offer out of hand. The pay review process may not be perfect and may need reform—our Select Committee hopes to talk to the NHS pay review body soon—but I think that madness lies in pay negotiations around beer and sandwiches in Ministers’ offices. The unions should engage with the pay review process for next year. That would be the smart thing to do on their part.

My second point is about demand. The GMB came before the Select Committee just before Christmas and told us that the number of calls coming into the ambulance service is about 10 times what it was pre-covid. There are 100 times the number of people with flu in the acute setting than at this time last year. Demand is significantly outstripping supply in the health service right now, and I think it is disingenuous not to face that.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his work in chairing the Select Committee, and for the joint session with the Science and Technology Committee, on which I sit, about the lessons learned from covid. We heard that there are lessons for the NHS to learn for the future. Does he not find it a bit strange that there is no mention whatever of covid in the Opposition’s motion? Clearly, covid—combined with flu and everything else that he talks about—is one of the reasons behind the acute pressures that we have experienced this winter.

[Steve Brine]

I said in the House on Monday that covid has put the health service on its knees—it has done so to health services in the UK and around the world. To repeat what I have just said, it is disingenuous to suggest that the problems faced by our health service right now are not caused by our covid experience. The number of people presenting with suspected cancers is through the roof. That is good—many of those cases will turn out not to be cancer, which is even better—but so many people are coming forward because we suppressed demand during that time, and it is adding to the demand outstripping the supply in the health service right now.