NHS Winter Pressures

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

To address my hon. Friend’s two points, first, the NHS will take immediate action to start arranging additional step-down care; that is a clear message that she can take to her constituents to show that the Government have listened and acted on the very real pressures we have seen. On the wider social care system, an example from Hull—the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) is not in her place now—is the Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre, which co-locates social care and NHS staff. The feedback I received from those staff was that that integrated model is extremely rewarding for staff and a much better way of operating than working in silos. The workforce themselves have said that that co-location and greater integration between social care and health is extremely beneficial.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Patients living with cancer, their families and the outstanding cancer workforce will be staggered—as am I—that we have just had a statement on NHS pressures that put forward no serious plan to tackle the deadly cancer backlog. Some 17,000 cancer patients in the last three months have had their targets for cancer treatment delayed or missed; 43% of people diagnosed with cancer in south Cumbria waited more than two months for their first lifesaving treatment, and in north Cumbria that figure was 63%. Where is the urgent plan to tackle the cancer backlog? On a practical, cross-party level, will the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers attend the all-party parliamentary group for radiotherapy’s inquiry on 18 January, so that we can work together to come up with some quick technical solutions that will save lives?