NHS: Long-term Strategy

Debate between Tahir Ali and Valerie Vaz

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my friend the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), the new Chair of the Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the shadow Secretary of State, is right about Government mismanagement of the NHS since 2010. As a member of the Health Committee from 2010 to 2015, when it was chaired by the right hon. Stephen Dorrell, the former Health Secretary, I want to set out why this crisis has been brewing since 2010. Incidentally, Stephen Dorrell has noted five mistakes that the Government have made and should look at.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 prevented integration. It made the NHS not the first and default option, and it was opened up to privatisation, fragmented and destabilised. The reorganisation was described as so big that it could be seen from space, and it was opposed by so many that it had to be paused. Despite the pressures of the pandemic, we had a further reorganisation with the Health and Care Act 2022, under which we will not have CCGs any more, but integrated care boards.

His Majesty’s Opposition have been pushing integrated care since before 2010. Our Select Committee visited Torbay in 2009, during the last Labour Government. We saw the single-point entry of Mrs Smith, who could be tracked from the start—from a single phone call—to hospital and out again, with any of her needs met by an upscaled, co-located team. However, the 2012 Act stopped that pooling of resources. Integrated care can only work if there are adequate resources for local authorities. Austerity measures since 2010 have starved local authorities and other public services of funding. Clinicians should be at the heart of the NHS. People who use it or work in it do not get a say.

In 2016 the then Secretary of State, now Chancellor, picked a fight with the junior doctors. I met them outside Richmond House. We have had more mismanagement, with £347 million for a covid testing contract to Randox, which then had to be recalled because of concerns about contamination. Now we have PPE Medpro, and today the Public Accounts Committee said the Government have mismanaged the economy by losing £42 billion in uncollected taxes. There is money, but not the will to find it.

Nurses went on strike in December, yet in the first statement the Secretary of State has made since—he is not in the Chamber, but he said that we did not mention his statement—he did not mention the workforce at all. In fact, he gave an understatement of the figures for people with delayed discharge. He said that there were just 6,000 cases in June 2020. Last year, there were 12,000 to 13,000 a day. The Government knew the figures, but they did nothing—they had no plan.

Not talking to a workforce who stepped up into the unknown during the pandemic is mismanagement. Stopping nurses’ bursaries was mismanagement. Not holding cross-party talks to solve the care crisis when we urged them to—the Health Committee report was in 2012—was mismanagement. The Government dismantling a health service that had its highest satisfaction levels in 2010, when Labour left office, is mismanagement.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

On the workforce, existing nurses are underpaid, but the serious number of vacancies that existed in September—47,000, as reported by Nursing Times—must also be addressed adequately and immediately. Those vacancies are putting pressure on nurses, on top of the pay awards they are after.

[Valerie Vaz]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and puts the point perfectly. I have questions to ask the Minister. Are the recommendations on safe staffing levels made by Sir Robert Francis being followed now? Will the Secretary of State consider a patient discharge dashboard so we can see the figures on a weekly basis? Where is the accountability for the £500 million in the discharge fund? Are the 42 NHS system control centres mentioned in the statement just the ICBs by a different name? Our shadow Secretary of State for Health has outlined a plan for training more doctors, paid for by abolishing non-doms, and I am with him on salaried GPs as a step in the right direction.

Nye Bevan heard the cries of his community in the valleys. He said:

“No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”

He turned his dream into a wonderful service that is free for all of us. We will not let this flailing and failing Government destroy our NHS.