NHS and Social Care Funding

Debate between Tania Mathias and Simon Burns

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I certainly welcome today’s debate and the opportunity to discuss an issue that is extremely important to all hon. Members in all parts of the House. During recent weeks, there has been a significant problem because of the increasing number of people needing services at A&E and from local health services. I would like to pay tribute to the magnificent work, often in very difficult circumstances, that doctors, nurses, consultants, ancillary staff and people in general practice carry out on a day-to-day basis—not simply during a winter crisis period, but throughout the year—looking after people to the best of their abilities.

My own hospital, Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford, is doing a fantastic job, in difficult circumstances, to provide the best possible care in good times and in more difficult times. As a constituency MP, I am certainly aware that there have been some problems for some of my constituents over the last week or so, because of the demand and the pressure.

We have to look at what we can do to move forward in a positive—not a partisan, politicised—way to make sure that our constituents get the best treatments possible. There is no point in just shouting. As the Chair of the Health Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), said, it is no good engaging in yah-boo politics. We have to be mature and come up with sensible suggestions.

Funding is, of course, a key issue. I am extremely proud of this Government’s record and commitment to funding the NHS over the last seven years and their commitments for the next three to four years. We made sure when we came into office, at a time of austerity when Departments’ budgets were cut, that the Health Department’s budget was one of the few to be protected, so that we got a real-terms increase in funding every year we were in power—albeit, I accept, a modest real-terms increase. It nevertheless showed our commitment and our intent to invest in improving the national health service.

I am also proud of the fact that I and all my right hon. and hon. Friends fought the last general election on a commitment that over the five-year period of this Parliament, we were going to increase NHS funding substantially—to what has turned out to be to the tune of £10 billion. That is more, I say in a very gentle way, than was on offer to the country from certain other parties. I am pleased, too, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have been planning for any potential strains of demand during this winter period with the provision of £400 million to local health economies and other measures such as the vaccination programme, a preventive health measure that has got a record number of 13 million people vaccinated to try to offset some of the potential health problems that can flow during a winter period. That is using foresight and planning to try to minimise problems, while at the same time providing funding to back up their actions. That is what a responsible Department of Health should do and has done.

Now, people can demand as much money as they like for the health service, but my argument is this. Yes, the health service does need extra money—year in, year out—but it should not just be thrown at an issue. A far bigger part of the equation is building on the performance, standards and quality of care that the health service will provide to our constituents.

[Dr Mathias]

I entirely agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying about the increased resources, but does he not agree with me that we now need more resources for integrated health and social care and that this is the time to stop using the NHS as a political football and engage in a cross-party review?

[Sir Simon Burns]

I certainly agree that, under the leadership of the Department of Health, we should work with anyone and everyone to come up with a solution.

I was the Social Care Minister in the late 1990s, before we left office. Integrating health and social care was then at a very early, formative stage, and the ambitions were immense and tremendous. I am afraid that the reality has not matched the ambitious nature of what was being said in the 1990s, which is why I was particularly interested by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes. Yes, we must think about that, but what we must also think about—let me push the funding element to one side for the moment—is building on the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, particularly his investment in patient safety, the raising of standards, dignity for patients in our hospitals and throughout the health system, and the cutting out of waste and inefficiencies.

In 2010, when I was at the Department of Health for the second time, we had the Nicholson challenge, which was to save £20 billion over three or four years by cutting out waste and sharing best practice to improve the quality of care. I know from a debate that we had just before Christmas that the NHS achieved £19.4 billion of those savings. The beauty of that was not just that it created greater effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of healthcare and the sharing of best practice, but that the Treasury did not receive £19.4 billion with which it could do as it wished. The £19.4 billion was reinvested in patient care.