Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

Let me be really clear in my advice to any man who is worried about prostate cancer, whether he has symptoms or not: go and discuss it with your GP. Testing is available when GPs recommend it, and I would recommend to no man that he should worry about it in silence, sit at home and fret about what might be going on.

The wider, targeted screening programme to which the Government have agreed is based on the evidence from weighing up the benefits of screening versus the harm that it can cause. We know that, at present, if cancerous cells are identified and treatment follows—for example, removal of the prostate—it leads to permanent urinary incontinence in 20% of cases and in two thirds of cases to permanent erectile dysfunction.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

8. If he will make it his policy to retain Healthwatch.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

20. If he will make it his policy to retain Healthwatch.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

We inherited a decades-old system whereby patient voice was divorced from decision makers, with more than 20 organisations offering a place for patients and users to share feedback. The Health Bill will put the views of patients and users at the heart of decision making, ensuring that that directly informs those responsible for commissioning locally, and we will create a new patient experience directorate in the Department to ensure that patient and user insight directly shapes national policymaking.

[Steve Darling]

The abolition of Healthwatch will see the NHS and the Government effectively marking their own homework. Can the Minister please give some assurances about how the Government will ensure that the voice of those with learning disabilities, complex needs and dementia is heard?

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the variety of needs that local commissioners need to take account of. That is exactly what the Health Bill will try to do, not by outsourcing that role to an outside body but by putting those views at the heart of what all commissioners do, which includes making sure that under-represented or often unheard voices do have a voice.

Health Bill

Steve Darling Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

As I am sure is the case in many other constituencies, the NHS is perhaps the most valued service in Torbay, where it is the largest employer. Ironically, while the Government talk about investing in the NHS, Torbay is looking at 300 voluntary redundancies. Rather than the investment that the Government talk about, the reality in Torbay is job cuts, many of which are likely to be to clinicians. That is the background to my comments, which I will limit to the crucial ones.

Torbay has had the luxury of an integrated care organisation, which has been vaunted internationally as the way forward. The direction of travel of the Government is very much toward integrated care organisations, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) alluded to. We have section 75 arrangements, yet because there has been a failure of focus on this matter by NHS colleagues over a number of years, they have been binned in recent months. We have appealed to the Secretary of State to intervene, but he has failed to do so. In the light of that, how can we have any confidence about greater influence from the Secretary of State? When the appeal happened, he said, “It is a contractual relationship.” The integrated care organisation has resulted in many people being discharged early and people being cared for in the community at a grassroots level. As Liberal Democrats, we know that that is desperately important.

The binning of Healthwatch is disturbing. I pay tribute to Kevin Dixon, who heads up the organisation in Torbay and Devon. Only a few years ago, it identified a failure by domiciliary care workers who were supporting the most vulnerable people in their own homes. That resulted in an investigation, which took away the contract from that provider, and another provider ended up better supporting those people. How can we expect that to happen if we effectively give the duty to providers to mark their own homework?

Let me focus on the better care fund. It is bonkers that this is being handed on a plate to the NHS acute care services. There needs to be partnership working between adult social care providers and the NHS. It should be driving better care—it says that on the label. This is extremely perverse. I hope that as the Bill progresses, common sense will prevail in a number of areas.

GP Contract

Steve Darling Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

A number of things have happened which will help with access to GPs. One is the very significant increase in the number of GPs we have put on the frontline and another is online access. We are now dealing with the 8 am scramble by ensuring we do not have a choke point on the telephone lines because more and more people are able to use online access. On capabilities in terms of physical infrastructure, a very important part of that is our commitment to neighbourhood health. There will be 120 new neighbourhood health centres by the end of this Parliament, which will really help to deliver the hospital-to-community shift that I am sure my hon. Friend’s constituents are looking forward to.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

GPs truly are the frontline of our NHS. I recently had the pleasure of meeting representatives from the Chilcote practice in Torquay. They shared with me their concerns about the global sum payment. Their calculations suggest that it should be a little in excess of £200, yet the recently announced payment is £128 a year. Will the Minister please advise on how he plans to bridge that gap?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The very significant uplift we have made to the contract—the £1.1 billion last year and the £485 million additional investment we are making this year—will go some way to address the hon. Gentleman’s question, but there is, of course, always more we can do. We have to deal with very many competing priorities across the Department of Health and Social Care, but general practice is right at the top of the list. That is demonstrated by the fact that we have invested in more GPs, better online access and more physical infrastructure for general practice.

NHS Capital Spending

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under you as chairman, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) on securing this important debate. Sorting out Torbay hospital, the hospital that serves my constituency as well as the constituents of my hon. Friends the Members for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley), is my No. 1 priority as the Member of Parliament for Torbay.

I knew that the hospital was in a difficult place prior to my election, but as I began to immerse myself in the challenges facing it, I was shocked. I was shocked by what was effectively wanton vandalism—corporate vandalism, even—undertaken by the previous Conservative Government by making promises that they just could not keep. The vandalism—the fact that they chose not to invest—made it much harder to invest in the longer term and actually made it more costly. It is that old proverb: a stitch in time saves nine.

In Torbay we face some massive challenges. We have seen more than 700 sewage leaks at our hospital. These sewage leaks do not just happen in the corridors; they happen in clinical areas and affect wards where patients are. There have to be deep cleans, and there are delays for patients in getting on to lists and, most importantly, delays in supporting people who need medical interventions.

We heard from my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, that delays are occurring because of poor ventilation, and we have heard about the impacts—indeed, there have been very significant impacts in Torbay hospital. However, approaching the hospital, someone might think that the seventh cavalry was coming over the horizon—the tower block is wrapped in scaffolding, so it must be being sorted. However, the reality is that the £1 million scaffolding is there purely to stop bits of the building falling off and braining staff and members of the public as they go past. Having to spend so much of our NHS money just maintaining a crumbling building is not good. The Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust has some bids in with the Minister around the challenges in the tower block; I am sure she is considering those at the moment and I hope she will look upon them kindly.

I also want to reflect on what works well in Torbay hospital. I recently visited and saw some really exciting changes. There are millions of pounds-worth of investment in the emergency department, for example, which is really welcome. The daytime operations area, where people come in for a short period in the hospital, is calm and businesslike, which is what we want during hospital visits, but that is very different from other parts of the hospital, particularly for those people who suffer from cancer, for whom the offer is chaotic and situated all over the estate. Cancer sufferers deserve a better experience.

We have seen investment in the endoscopy unit, and 90% of patients are being seen within five weeks, which is a massive improvement. However, looking at the estate of Torbay hospital as a whole, 85% of it is not up to standard. The £350 million investment supports only half of the hospital.

We have also seen a toxic change to the spending power of this capital programme. We have seen Brexit, we have seen the pandemic, which has impacted on the spending power of capital programmes, and we have seen the war in Ukraine, which has seen building prices spiral. Some of the management in the hospital field say that, since the pandemic, the spending power of capital programmes has halved, so can the Minister tell us how the Government have taken account of the fact that money is going only half as far as it did historically?

In conclusion, Torbay is one of the most deprived communities in the country and the NHS often picks up the rough end of that. Only recently, a director told me she has patients who believe that living to their 60s is a good span of life. I am sure the Minister agrees that is not the aspiration we should have for our communities. In the south-west we have seen a lack of capital investment, whether in our railways or NHS infrastructure. I hope the Minister will tell us how the Government are planning to invest in the NHS in the south-west and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington asked, what innovation there is to bring forward that investment. Sadly, Torbay has been kicked into the long grass until the mid-2030s. The staff are our most important asset, and they deserve that investment much sooner.

[Matt Western (in the Chair)]

The next speaker will have five minutes. Thereafter, I am afraid I will have to drop to four minutes.

Budget Resolutions

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

Perhaps the most important commodity for a Chancellor is not finance but trust. We saw how the Conservatives wrecked the country’s trust in them with partygate and the scandal of the fast track to personal protective equipment contracts for those who were in the know. I am afraid to say that what we have seen with the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a continuation of the Conservative Government but with a Labour approach. The way that the Chancellor appears to have not kept the Cabinet in the loop on the OBR guidance is shocking.

On the more positive note, I would like to reflect how the Liberal Democrats welcome the support through cuts to fuel bills, but failing to backfill the scheme with core funding is a shame. The Liberal Democrats have campaigned against the two-child limit for many years, so we clearly welcome the change. However, the stealth taxes hitting working people—again, the Labour party has echoed what the Tories did previously—are absolutely outrageous, as is how Labour is now hitting those with student loans with a stealth tax, which actually equates to the mansion tax. Why are we putting recent former students in the same bracket as those who fall under the mansion tax? It is quite shocking.

I come to something we do well for in Torbay: our large number of pensioners. Many of them have small pension pots, yet they will be hit by the fiscal impact of the drag into income tax.

The hospitality industry in the west country is extremely important, yet last year we saw it impacted by the national insurance hike. The Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust in my constituency had a bill of £100,000. That charity, which supported important beauty spots across Torbay, has gone into liquidation because of that move from the Labour Government and the failure of our Conservative council to support it appropriately. There are future challenges for hospitality with the increasing of business rates, and I fear for the future of some of our much loved pubs across Torbay.

I fear that we have seen a failure to invest in the south-west with these proposals from the Government. I ask them to think again.

Suicide: Reducing the Stigma

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

On 30 September, I had the privilege of participating in the Baton of Hope relay across Torbay, which is an initiative that propagates conversations around suicide. The impact that it had across our communities in Torbay was amazing. Does my hon. Friend agree that the more conversations we have about suicide, the more we will prevent it?

[Sarah Olney]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that encouraging example of how taking steps to reduce the stigma around suicide can have a positive impact, and how we need a community approach to help reach out to all those people who might be struggling.

Although talking about mental health is becoming more socially acceptable, to what extent are we asking the challenging questions? To what extent do we really want to know how other people are getting on, and to what extent do people who are suffering feel comfortable in talking honestly about how serious their struggles are? For those reasons, I want to echo my constituent Philip Pirie’s calls for the Government to launch a public health campaign to truly tackle the stigma associated with suicide.

As we have seen today, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has launched his men’s health strategy. He promised the Samaritans that

“mental health and suicide prevention”

would be at the “heart of it”. Everyone in the House will welcome these words and the recognition that the men’s mental health crisis needs serious attention. I would like the Secretary of State to go one step further and consider a public health campaign with posters and adverts on TV and radio, and to hold regular open discussions with the public on the topic of suicide.

World Stroke Day

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson]

Of course I am very happy to congratulate the staff in the hon. Gentleman’s local hospital. Through my personal experience with my mother, I have seen how amazing hospital staff are, and where community services are available, I am sure those staff are brilliant, but the crux of my speech is about how poor the rehab services are in some parts of the country and how we really need to staff and boost them if we want to help people to have a good quality of life.

I have heard time and again from those who have lived experience that support for community rehabilitation is simply not good enough and often collapses six weeks post discharge from hospital. In some cases, support even six weeks post discharge is not available, depending on which integrated care board or local authority is responsible.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

In Torbay, in Devon, we have the third highest prevalence of strokes in the United Kingdom, and yet, within the last 12 months, we have seen cuts to support for the local stroke association. That has left people who are suffering from strokes feeling isolated and abandoned. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see more investment at the grassroots to support sufferers of strokes?

[Munira Wilson]

I 100% agree. The post-stroke support is critical, and I will share some stories about people who have felt abandoned and isolated in exactly the way that my hon. Friend describes.

Despite guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy says that 20% of people do not receive the minimum specialist rehabilitation required in the first five days following a stroke, and 68% do not have an assessment for rehabilitation, which is required after discharge. The reality is that those who want to regain a level of independence need to be able to fund support privately.

I pay tribute to Richard Sealy, who runs the Neuro Rehab Practice in Hampton, which is in my constituency. He and his whole team are doing brilliant work in trying to fill that gap. Over the summer, I had the privilege of visiting the practice and speaking to stroke survivors and their carers about their experiences. What runs through so many of their stories—I am sure Members will have heard similar—is the cliff edge that people fall off when they leave hospital, and the devastating knock-on impact that can have.

I would like to share some of their testimonies. One stroke survivor said:

“I felt lost, like I had been thrown out of the boat, not knowing what to do or where to find help”.

Another survivor’s family member said:

“Although the NHS took care of her while she was in hospital, we felt that after the six weeks had finished, it was very much goodbye. You’re now on your own”.

Another, when asked what happened when the NHS rehab ended and whether they were given any further options, simply replied, “Nothing.”

Those survivor stories are far from unique, and that is unacceptable. According to the Stroke Association, only 17% of community-based rehab services have appropriate access to each core therapy—physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy. The Right to Rehab campaign argues for the simple idea that rehabilitation should be accessible to everyone who needs it, for as long as they need it.

We know that stroke survivors continue to make incremental improvements over many months, even years, so I welcome the Government’s ambition to rebuild our NHS through transitioning care from hospital to the community, and to improve integration of rehabilitation. While the Government target to reduce stroke and heart attack deaths by a quarter in the next 10 years is also welcome, given the devastating impact that stroke can have and the struggle to recover faced by many, the scope of that target must be widened to also reducing disability.

Take Miriam, a resident of Twickenham, who at just 21 years old suffered a stroke only three months after graduating with a BA in music. After spending four days in hospital without diagnosis or treatment, where she suffered two more strokes, she was unable to play an instrument or even grasp a pencil. She suffered significant challenges, including depression and isolation, but through therapy and determination, she was able to rebuild her life. Miriam is now a neurological music therapist, working with children and adults with learning disabilities, and I believe she is here, watching today’s debate.

Chris Stirling, who suffered a stroke in his 60s, was told by doctors after six months in hospital that he should go into a care home. He left hospital in a wheelchair, unable to shower. Thanks to privately funded neuro physiotherapy and the support of his family, he is now able to play golf, one-handed. Not everyone is as lucky as Chris to have both the means and the family support.

Miriam and Chris’s stories, and the testimonies I shared earlier in my speech, show just how important it is to get both stroke diagnosis and rehabilitation right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Darling Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I find it quite extraordinary that Opposition Members come to this House and lecture us on the sustainability of funding, given the way in which they crashed the economy and left us in a dire fiscal position. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that, rather than the annual funding cliff edge that they left for vital children’s hospices services, we have moved to a three-year funding settlement. His criticism beggars belief.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

5. What progress his Department has made on the implementation of the new hospital programme.

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

The Conservative Government’s promise of 40 new hospitals by 2030 was a fantasy—there was no funding beyond last March. In January, we published a realistic plan that put the programme on a credible and sustainable footing. We are committed to delivering all the schemes in the programme and are moving at pace with funding in place for design work, construction activity and business case development.

[Steve Darling]

The Conservatives still have not apologised for the appalling state that they left our NHS in. Torbay hospital is the third oldest hospital in the United Kingdom. It has a tower block wreathed in scaffolding to stop bits of it falling off rather than it being under repair, and it has sewage leaks throughout. Sadly, it needs significant investment, which has been kicked into the long grass. A senior manager described the situation only this week as “dire”. Will the Minister meet me and hospital representatives to explore how we can achieve the investment to turn this round?

[Karin Smyth]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point; it was echoed by Lord Darzi in his report about the state of our hospitals, and I know many hon. Members have similar problems. I have visited many such hospitals and would be happy to discuss the matter with him further. I remind him that, of course, the Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust has been provided with £7.3 million from the estates safety fund for works at the hospital, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring that it will be developed in line with the programme.

Mental Health Bill [Lords]

Steve Darling Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I will speak to amendments 24 to 28 and 36 to 38 in my name, which address gaps in crisis provision and accountability for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

On Second Reading, I told this House about Declan Morrison, my constituent who died aged just 26 after spending 10 days in a section 136 suite that was wholly inappropriate for his complex needs. I remind the House that section 136 suites are designed for 24-hour stays, or a maximum of 36 hours in extreme cases. The coroner who investigated Declan’s death found that

“there is a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken.”

The timeline of what happened in the run-up to Declan’s death shows a cascade of systemic failures. Declan’s family, Graeme, Sam and Kaitlyn, have asked me to ensure that Parliament learns from what happened. These amendments in my name reflect those lessons and the coroner’s recommendations.

In Committee, the Minister made several points about earlier versions of these amendments, which I have tried to address in these revised versions. In particular, on crisis accommodation, the Minister argued that existing duties on ICBs already cover crisis provision and that the amendment was too prescriptive, potentially restricting ICBs in designing provision, emphasising the importance of flexibility for ICBs to meet local needs. I understand the desire not to be overly prescriptive, but in Declan’s case, over 100 places were contacted and no suitable accommodation could be found anywhere in the country. Flexibility failed Declan.

The revised version of the amendment allows for regional solutions beyond the ICB, but I suspect that the Minister will still find it too prescriptive. However, the fundamental question remains: should there not be a duty to ensure that provision exists somewhere? The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB established a crisis service after Declan’s death that operated at 98% capacity, demonstrating both need and viability, but it closed when funding was withdrawn, highlighting the challenge with voluntary provision.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

On funding, the Devon partnership NHS trust looks after people with mental health challenges in the Torbay community, where levels of depths of despair are particularly high. The trust is facing a £21 million cut, so does my hon. Friend agree that changes will be irrelevant if we do not have adequate funding?

NHS Funding: South-west

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered NHS funding in the South West.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. For me, the NHS is a family affair, as my wife has served it for more decades than she would want me to admit and my son is a registrar at Torbay hospital.

This time last year, many of us were out pounding the streets at the general election, and the NHS was a big plank of what many of us talked about. It was one of the key themes on which the Liberal Democrats fought the election. We knew the NHS was a shambles, but we did not know the challenge that would face the new Government when they came to power. The Minister for Care highlighted that the money for the new hospital programme ran out in the March just gone, and there was a £6.6 billion hole in the programme’s budget. It was a real challenge for the new Government, but equally, their “waves” approach has caused real concerns in hospitals across the south-west and in our communities. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister for Secondary Care could address that today.

I will focus on Torbay hospital as a useful example of the challenges we face across the south-west. It is the third oldest hospital in the UK, with only 6% of the estate up to standard. Some bits are very good, such as the endoscopy and out-patient units, but those constitute an extremely small proportion. Someone suffering from cancer has to go to a number of locations across the hospital where there are real challenges. That is not the offer we want for those suffering from that disease. There have been almost 700 sewage leaks on the site, often infecting clinical areas, resulting in closures and delays of service to our community. The tower block of the hospital is swathed in scaffolding—not for a rebuild, but to stop clumps of it falling off and braining passers-by. There are some massive challenges, which have impacted our world.

Wave 2 mitigation bids went in in February from affected trusts. Torbay bid for £183 million to collapse the tower block and ensure that we have four fit-for-purpose wards built. I understand that the white smoke from the Government is yet to appear. So far, we have had only £7 million to help tackle some of the challenges, which hardly touches the sides.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the NHS in the south-west into the spotlight. Does he agree that the pressures on Musgrove Park hospital, due to the closure of the Yeovil maternity unit, put staff in an almost impossible position, with 30° heat in summer and leaking roofs and walls with holes in them in winter?

[Steve Darling]

I agree that staff are the NHS’s most important asset and what makes it tick, which my hon. Friend is right to highlight.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am here to support the hon. Gentleman; I congratulate him on bringing this subject forward for debate. He is right to highlight issues with cancer care. It is the same for us back home: only a third of those referred by GPs begin treatment within the target time. Does he feel that there is money to be saved through the administration in the south-west trust area? If there is, perhaps that could help.

[Steve Darling]

That is very insightful. After being around medics for many years, I know the concern about the increase in managers. Equally, I know that integrated care boards, which I will come on to now, have real challenges with the savings that they are making. There is talk of merging ICBs, including, in the far south-west, a merger in Cornwall and Devon. Both ICBs are relatively challenged, and I fear that it could be a marriage of two bankrupts. Perhaps it would be better to look at a bigger footprint, including Somerset.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

I welcome and echo the hon. Member’s comment about an inappropriate marriage in respect of the Devon and Cornwall ICBs. They have quite different issues. I commend the work of Cornwall’s ICB, of course, but we have to recognise the specificities of the peninsula penalty and the unique challenges facing both our areas.

[Steve Darling]

That is also very insightful. There are lots of good staff throughout the NHS, including in ICBs. It is about unlocking their potential, which I hope the Minister can do.

I was suggesting a bigger footprint, which could include Somerset and maybe even Dorset, as well as Devon and Cornwall, to give greater corporate capacity. I hope the Minister will reflect on that. Perhaps she will give some guidance on when we will hear about the ICB merger. A larger ICB could reflect the footprint of a mayoral authority; I fear that we could be poorer country cousins if we have only two county mayors in the west of England.

The real challenge with our ICB is that we are looking at a quarter of a billion pounds in cuts to services for Devon. The Exeter trust faces £69 million in cuts. The way to save money is mostly by not filling posts, so that is a real challenge. In Torbay, the figure is £42 million. We have an integrated care organisation, as a result of the merger of NHS acute and social care services, and people often say that is the direction in which we should be going. It saves 60 beds in the hospital by ensuring that we get people out of hospital sooner and into their own homes, where they want to be. However, I worry that the organisation is threatened by the quarter of a billion pounds-worth of cuts to services in Devon coming down the line; I fear for its future. I know that the Government actually want to move in the direction of services working together—it is so important.

The last area I want to touch on is Getting It Right First Time. I have heard from a number of professional sources that they feel that is a metropolitan approach that does not always work well in areas with significant rurality, such as Devon, mostly because it does not take into account some of the deprivation we have, our coastal communities, rural communities and the need for travel, or the fact that our population is older than those in metropolitan areas. We have older folk who are perhaps more digitally excluded. The approach does not always work.

We have seen that in respect of a procedure called PPCI—I will not share what that stands for, but it is an intervention used when someone is having a heart attack. They have a balloon inserted through their groin that goes up to the artery, and a stent is inserted to prevent a blockage in the system. A proposed merger in the offer will see people from south Devon drive past Torbay hospital and go 24 miles up the road to Exeter. That was originally the out-of-hours service, but it is now the emergency service, so when someone is thrown in the back of an ambulance, assessed and told, “You need this intervention,” they will go up to Exeter.

As my son says to me, “Time is tissue.” A consultant told me that if we push forward with this approach, it could result in greater debilitation and deaths. As a result of campaigning, the can has been kicked down the road on two occasions, and the ICB is due to return to the issue again at the end of July. I thank the medics who stood up and shared their concerns about the issue, as well as the thousands of people who signed our petitions on it. This situation shows how, because of the challenges in more rural areas, Getting It Right First Time does not always lead to the right solutions.

I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on wave 2 mitigation, on the challenges in relation to ICBs and, finally, on coronary care issues in south Devon and how we can ensure that we are providing an appropriate service for our communities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Darling]

I thank all colleagues for coming and joining this debate, however short people’s interventions may have been. I also thank the Minister for casting at least some light on this subject, but what we have heard from other colleagues from all over the south-west has been very enlightening. I am sure that there is much more for us to go away and campaign on, but this has been truly debated.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered NHS funding in the South West.