NHS

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stella Creasy

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the opening of those services. I look forward to attending that opening with him and colleagues across his area. In the dental recovery plan I set out a number of ways in which we will improve the delivery of dental care across England, including immediate, medium and long-term work. The immediate-term work is already seeing results. Having switched on the new patient premium, we are already seeing practices opening. We want to bring forward the golden hellos to encourage dentists into areas that do not have the services that we would like. There was a slightly misinformed Prime Minister’s question yesterday; we are in the middle of tendering our dental vans, because as a rural MP I want services as quickly as possible while we are building the foundations to ensure that people get the care they need.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me say that it has always been a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall miss you terribly; your fairness, insight and wit has brought colour to this Chamber. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

Moment of consensus over, I stand here as the Member of Parliament for a constituency that will have listened to the Secretary of State with horror. For 14 years we have been desperately waiting for Whipps Cross Hospital to be redeveloped. The Minister for Social Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and I had a meeting about it this morning that she had to cancel, presumably because the general election has been called. The failed new hospital programme has cost my constituents dearly. We were told under that programme that works would be finished by 2025. They have not even started, because the Government still have not committed the funding. The board meeting notes admit that they will not even start next year, and they certainly will not be finished by 2030. What a damning indictment of this Conservative Government.

My constituents have to be treated in corridors at Whipps Cross. The physical layout of the mangled, broken building is directly impacting on the quality of care that my constituents receive. There is an amazing team at Whipps Cross, doing incredible work, almost in tears that we still do not have our new hospital, because of the impact on patient care. Will the Secretary of State answer the question that I wanted to ask her colleague in that meeting this morning? We need urgent confirmation that we will get the funding to build the hospital at Whipps Cross, to finalise the plans and to start talking to a contractor so that works can begin in 2026. Conservative colleagues in my borough pledged to start works last year, but that was not true. Will the Minister at least confirm that under her plans we will finally get the funding? Walthamstow deserves better.

[Victoria Atkins]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I had not heard the news that you were stepping down. I share the House’s dismay, but also pass on our thanks to you for having been a Chair. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, although it is a steely pleasure because you let us know, most of the time, when we speak for too long. [Interruption.]

[Stella Creasy]

Answer the question.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am trying to; the hon. Lady’s colleagues are trying to prevent me.

We have committed to Whipps Cross Hospital. It takes time to build hospitals. We have six new hospitals open to the public already, and another 18 entering construction. I hope that the hon. Lady is challenging her own leadership, including the shadow Health Secretary, because Labour’s health mission—or first step, or pledge; who knows what the terminology is—says that one of its first steps in government would be to pause all capital projects in the NHS. The Labour party needs to answer on that.

Cass Review

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stella Creasy

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. He is always very good at exposing the differences in treatment that patients in Wales receive compared with those in England. Given that the leader of the Labour party has said that Wales is the “blueprint” for how it plans to run the NHS in England, I hope and expect that the Labour party will be true to its word and the Labour-run NHS in Wales will be announcing its immediate adoption of these recommendations, as well as the transformation to services that we in England are already undertaking.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of us recognise the value of the Cass report, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) set out, in its call for evidence and a thoughtful approach, and its recognition that the collapse of child and adolescent mental health services has contributed to the difficulties in children accessing services. However, I stand here today with terrified constituents who are part of the backlog. I dare say that thousands of those children have been watching this debate with their families and are frightened to hear the heat, not light. The Secretary of State has a brief in front of her, so can I ask her a practical question for my constituents who do not understand what this will mean for waiting times and delays? She said that she was not putting any new money into the service but funds were being reprioritised. In practical terms, what will that mean for those young people who are trying to navigate what is happening to them, who need our support and care, not the derision of any political movement?

[Victoria Atkins]

I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave earlier about funding. In relation to the waiting list, we have already removed the Tavistock as the single provider of these services. We have now set up two sets of services in highly respected—world-respected—children’s hospitals, and we will add more. Again, the issue goes back to giving GPs and other practitioners the confidence to look after these children as they would if they were presenting solely with, for example, ADHD symptoms or concerns about mental health. This is about saying that this issue is one part of the patient they must treat, not isolating and siloing it in the way that has happened historically.

Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Stella Creasy

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a diligent campaigner on these issues. I remember meeting him some months ago on precisely these issues and he has dealt with them, if I may say so, in a sensitive and appropriate way, understanding just how delicate some of them are. In terms of virginity testing, I am really pleased that he welcomes that. We will work together, I am sure, with my counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care to find the appropriate legislative vehicle. On hymenoplasty, we have already spoken to clinicians about that process. Whereas virginity testing has no medical validation, I am told by clinicians that there are circumstances where it is not quite as clearcut—if I can put it that way—as virginity testing, so we have very much undertaken to examine that in great detail with clinicians and the royal colleges to ensure that in relation to that particular practice we arrive at the right result that is medically sound.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I thank the Minister for her work on this strategy. She will know that if somebody is subjected to abuse or attack because of the colour of their skin, we rightly ask the police to record that and the courts to prosecute it as a form of hate crime. Yet if somebody is subjected to abuse or attack simply for being a woman, they face no such protection under our current system. Will the Minister meet me and campaigners, who are waiting for the imminent report from the Law Commission about how to make misogyny a part of our hate crime rubric in this country, to look at how we can quickly close that gap and give equal protection to everyone everywhere?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes. I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady and campaigners to discuss that issue. I hope she will recall that when the Domestic Abuse Act went through the House of Lords, we undertook, in response to issues raised in the other place, to ask the police to record issues of gender where the victim felt it was relevant. We look forward to that data, but I am always happy to discuss such matters with her. Indeed, I hope she will find the public communications campaign, for example, a helpful intervention from this strategy. Again, over the longer term we believe that education and changing cultural attitudes is one of the ways we can tackle misogynistic beliefs.