Health

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Andy Burnham

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I will move on to that point. Whenever there is a problem, we are told, “Speak to NHS England.” I am afraid that is not good enough. Up and down the country we are seeing services closed without adequate consultation. NHS walk-in centres continue to be closed, piling more pressure on A and E departments. It is just not good enough. We have seen top-down changes driven through, and the hospital closure clause is on the books, so sadly this will continue. It will only change when we have a Labour Government back in control—a Government committed to putting the public and patient voice at the very heart of the NHS.

I was talking about A and E and the reorganisation. We know that Ministers were explicitly warned about an A and E recruitment crisis by the College of Emergency Medicine a couple of years ago, but they said they were too absorbed with the reorganisation to listen or act. That brings me to the nub of the matter before the House: the root cause of the deterioration in the NHS is that reorganisation, which nobody wanted and nobody voted for. It threw the service into chaos just when it needed stability. As we warned, it has damaged standards of patient care. Four years ago the Government inherited a self-confident and successful NHS, with the lowest ever waiting times and the highest ever public satisfaction. Since then it has been destabilised, demoralised and reduced to an uncertain organisation that is increasingly fearful of the future.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to cuts in funding. The only cuts in funding that we have seen in this country have been in the NHS in Wales. With regard to patient satisfaction, I can assure him that the targets left behind by the previous Labour Government did nothing to satisfy patients who were left on the ground by ambulance services because they had already gone past the eight or 19-minute limit. I am afraid that the focus on targets, rather than patients, is something that this Government have had to address.

[Andy Burnham]

I think that it would behove Government Members to have a bit more self-reflection and humility. The hon. Lady was not a Member of the House at the time, but she may recall that before 1997 people used to spend years on NHS waiting lists, and some never came off them. Over Labour’s 13 years in government we saw waiting lists come down, and down, and down, to the point that, when we left office, they were at their lowest ever level. I am not claiming that the NHS was perfect and did everything right, but it had the highest ever level of public satisfaction. We must have done something right. A bit of balance and accuracy in this debate is just what the NHS needs.

Accident and Emergency

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I mentioned the reorganisation, through which we saw the complete disruption of training arrangements in the NHS. The Government’s eye was taken completely off the ball of the growing problem of recruitment, not just of GPs but of A and E doctors. That is a real problem around the country. We now have fewer GPs per 1,000 of population than we had a few years ago, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue.

The new spin is that the Secretary of State admits that A and E has got worse on the Government’s watch, but it is not his fault and it is not a crisis. That is the public line, at least. In private, it is a different story. This is the Secretary of State who has taken up ringing hospital chief executives who are not meeting their A and E targets. I have heard from two senior sources that the Secretary of State has discussed within government whether Cobra should be convened to discuss the A and E crisis. Can he confirm or deny whether that is the case? I have no way of knowing, but he needs to give a straight answer.

The longer we see the Secretary of State in this job, the more familiar we become with his style: spin before substance. That is the real danger when someone holds a job as important as his. If they use spin to distract people from the real causes of the problems, they end up neglecting those problems and precious time is lost.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is passionate about the NHS, but he seems to ignore the history. In the last year of the Labour Government, the average wait in A and E was 77 minutes. It is now 33. The Labour-run Welsh NHS has missed every target since 2009. Frankly, I am proud that our Government are putting the patient at the heart of the NHS by tackling the issues in hospitals and in our ambulance services.

[Andy Burnham]

Last week, the NHS missed its A and E target—the hon. Lady’s A and E target—which is a lowered target. If she is going to maintain that complacency through the winter, I suggest that it might well backfire on her.

National Health Service

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Andy Burnham

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that I protected the NHS front line as Health Secretary. As Health Secretary, I would not have introduced a £2.5 billion reorganisation when the NHS is facing severe financial stress.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Is it fair to say that under his leadership of the NHS, Monitor suggested that it needed to make efficiency savings? Those are coming through now, but the right hon. Gentleman is trying to present them as cuts to front-line services.