Summer Adjournment

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) who is a tenacious parliamentarian. He has used the opportunity of this debate very effectively and has raised some important issues that must be considered. All Members of this House—both current and former—have an obligation and a duty to their staff.

We have seen lots of variety in this afternoon’s debate. I wish to focus on one particular issue that is incredibly important to my constituents in Corby going into this summer recess. I am talking about the Corby urgent care centre, which many colleagues will know, because I have raised it in questions on many occasions in this House. When I went back through my speaking record, I was interested to note down how many times I had raised it in different contexts.

Let me provide some background: the Corby urgent care centre was first opened in 2012 under the coalition Government with a Conservative Health Secretary—I am incredibly proud of that. It is a flagship facility, class-leading, hugely popular and a beacon of best practice. It is also the envy of many other communities across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is in his place, would like to have exactly the sort of facility that we have in Corby at the Isebrook site in Wellingborough.

Perhaps most importantly, the biggest advantage of the Corby urgent care centre is the enormous impact that it has in relieving pressure on the A&E at Kettering general hospital, which, as we all know, has been under some strain in recent months and years. The urgent care centre makes a big difference. Let me give Members an idea of its impact. Last year, the urgent care centre in Corby saw more than 70,000 patients. Of all those who came, only 6% had to be referred to Kettering general hospital for further treatment. That shows how many people are dealt with in Corby that would otherwise have to go across to Kettering.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that such great alarm was caused by this press release issued by the clinical commissioning group. Issued on 13 July, it said:

“As has been reported previously, the contract between the Commissioners…and Lakeside +, the current provider of services at the Urgent Care Centre, expires on 30 September 2017.

In order to ensure service continuity and to safeguard the future of the centre, the Commissioners ran a competitive procurement inviting bids to continue the service for a further 12 months. Unfortunately, the only bidder in the process formally withdrew their bid yesterday and so the process has failed to generate any bidder willing to continue to provide the service.

In light of these developments, the Commissioners will be considering what options exist for the Corby Urgent Care Centre.”

Interestingly, that runs completely at odds with what I was told earlier in the year by the commissioners. We have known for some time that there has been a contractual dispute between Lakeside Plus and the CCG, and we have always known that the current contract with Lakeside Plus would finish at the end of September, so there has been plenty of time to plan for this.

The earlier reply that I received on 22 March said:

“I can confirm that Corby Urgent Care Centre is not closing. The organisation running the Urgent Care Centre, Lakeside Plus, have given notice that they wish to withdraw from their contract at the end of March, but it is not their role to decide whether the service comes to an end. That decision rests with the CCG as commissioners of healthcare for the people of Corby, and we will ensure that the service continues—with another provider if necessary. We are now working urgently to make that happen.

We have been expecting Lakeside Plus to continue the service until November, as stated in the contract notice issued by the CCG last year. We appreciate that this sudden announcement will be a cause of some disquiet for the people of Corby, who are always our primary concern. We therefore regret the alarm that is being caused by misleading suggestions that the Urgent Care Centre is to close, and would appreciate your help in putting people’s minds at rest.”

The statement issued last week is inconsistent with the reassurances that I was given earlier in the year. The current position is much more ambiguous, so I wrote to the commissioners on 13 July, seeking reassurance for my constituents and clarity on what the future might hold. Their reply was equally ambiguous:

“Following withdrawal of the remaining bidder for the caretaker contract, we are urgently considering the options available. It is therefore not possible at this stage for me to say exactly what services will be in place on October 1st, when the existing UCC contract expires. I realise that this does not give you the absolutely clarity you and local people are seeking, but it is very important for me to be honest with you. The CCG is facing an unprecedented situation, with a very challenging timescale and a highly restrictive legal and commercial environment.

As you know, the CCG is also looking at how the healthcare system in Corby can best meet the needs of the community. The CCG is in the process of engaging with the community on this issue.”

To my mind, that is wholly unacceptable. I have written again, pressing for reassurance, seeking details about the contingency plans, which earlier this year I was assured were in place should agreement not be reached by 30 September—I was told that it was all in hand—and requesting an urgent meeting. I am currently awaiting a reply.

People in Corby and the surrounding areas are very worried about this. With the summer holidays coming, people are coming together to campaign on the issue. I am going to meet the Save Corby Urgent Care Centre campaign group, which already has a huge social media following. We are working cross-party. Tom Beattie, the Labour leader of Corby Borough Council, and I are dusting off our joint campaigning attire and getting ready to campaign together on this, as we have done a number of times on the steel issue. I am grateful to him for being so willing to work together on this, because it is relevant to all our constituents, regardless of how they vote, or indeed whether they vote at all.

One of the points that Tom raised with me was the challenge of housing growth in our area. Our health infrastructure needs to keep pace. The Corby site is very relevant in the context of the hub-and-spoke model that Kettering General hospital is trying to develop, with a new urgent care hub at Kettering General, a hub in Corby and hopefully a hub in Wellingborough.

What needs to happen? We need urgent reassurance from the commissioners that the current service will be not only protected, but further improved in the years ahead, and that the quality that we have become used to will continue. We must always review our health infrastructure, but to my mind it is unthinkable that the urgent care centre would not be a key component right at the heart of our local health infrastructure. Given that the procurement for the new contract was for only 12 months in any event, surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man to sit down with the current providers and try to come up with an agreement—I have offered to help facilitate that process—or, failing that, to put in place the arrangements that I was previously told were available. What we need is a bit more dialogue, properly listening to local people, because local wishes are exceptionally clear on the matter. The CCG was set up to advance Corby’s cause. It represents only the borough of Corby—it is the smallest CCG in the country—so I would like to think that its key focus would be on listening to local people and putting them first without having to take into account the needs of wider north Northamptonshire.

Therefore, over the summer recess I plan to be—to use a variant of a phrase—a bloody difficult man on this issue. I am going to stand up for my constituents. I really hope that the commissioners will be listening to me this afternoon and to my constituents—please do not let us down.