NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation

Debate between Wes Streeting and Jeevun Sandher

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree with the hon. Member. I will talk about the 10-year plan shortly, but I can guarantee that children and paediatric care will be front and centre of that plan. We can do much more to shine a spotlight on paediatric waiting lists, as well as doing much more in practice. She mentioned children and young people’s mental health, on which our parties strongly agree. We will deliver our manifesto commitment to put mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country, as well as providing walk-in services in every community, so that young people receive the mental health and wellbeing support that they need and do not get to the crisis point reached by far too many of our children.

The hon. Member’s intervention is an example of why I am looking forward to the debate. I hope to listen to contributions and to challenge from all sides of the House. Before I take any interventions from Conservative Members, I advise them that if they want to get a hearing on the NHS ever again, then the first word that should pass their lips is, “Sorry”. Only last week, at the Conservative party conference, we did not see a single shred of remorse or contrition for their appalling record. Indeed, when it comes to the shadow Secretary of State and her party, it seems that sorry is the hardest word.

The NHS is broken. NHS staff do not want to accept that, but it is. According to YouGov, that is what the vast majority of patients say. It is also what staff tell me every time I am on the frontline, but I understand why some people find the word difficult. In the past few weeks, I have met some of the NHS team who happened to be on duty on Monday 29 July. I have listened to paramedics describe the scene they walked into at the community centre in Southport. Children and adults who had been dancing to Taylor Swift were lying bleeding and, in some cases, tragically dying as a result of an unimaginable, senseless, mindless attack. Those paramedics had to make split-second decisions about who to treat and in what order to give the injured the best chance of survival. Security teams cleared busy hospital corridors to shield as many people as possible from the horror. Lab teams mobilised blood supplies. Receptionists fielded calls from panic-stricken patients. Surgical teams across multiple hospitals worked together, fighting to save those young lives. Even now, months later, mental health staff are picking up the pieces for families who are either grieving or going through the unimaginable challenge of supporting their children through what they witnessed.

On that day, those NHS responders—the whole team involved—were the best of humanity confronting the worst. That is who NHS staff are. That is what they do. Let me be clear: the NHS may be broken, but NHS staff did not break it. I want to be clear about this too: what is broken can be fixed. While the NHS may be in the midst of the worst crisis in its history, the biggest asset that we have is the people who work in it. They are up for the challenge, and up for change. The NHS is broken, but it is not beaten. Together with the 1.5 million people working in the health service, this Government will turn our NHS around, get it back on its feet, and make it fit for the future.

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

Across my constituency, my constituents are struggling to see the GPs they need; indeed, we see that across the whole nation. On Friday, I visited the Park View surgery, where the GPs do not have the necessary resources and cannot move into the premises that they need to be in to treat their patients. Can the Secretary of State assure me that he will follow Lord Darzi’s recommendations and invest in primary care, so that my constituents get the GPs they need and the Park View surgery can move into the premises that it needs, with the capital expenditure that it requires?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course it is not just in Loughborough that we have a challenge with access to general practice; it is right across the country. I want to be clear, because GPs come in for a lot of criticism: primary care may be broken, and the front door to the NHS may be broken, but GPs did not break it. In fact, there are fewer GPs now than there were in 2015, yet they are providing more appointments. They have worked hard to improve the productivity of general practice, but they are under-resourced. That is why we are committed, as I told the Royal College of GPs just last week, to delivering the shift that we need out of hospitals and into the community—to growing primary care, including general practice, as a proportion of the NHS’s budget, so that we have the GPs needed to treat patients on time.