NHS (Contracts and Conditions)

Will Quince Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Vaz; I missed the first few minutes of the debate owing to a delegated legislation Committee, so I appreciate your calling me to speak. I speak not as a healthcare professional, but as a husband, father and proud supporter of our NHS. I am passionate about our NHS, because it has always been there for me and my family when we needed it. My daughter was born in Colchester general hospital and my son sadly passed away there in October last year. I cannot fault the care and compassion that the NHS gave me and my family, and I will never forget that. Yet, I am bombarded with criticism that, as I am a Conservative, I must somehow care less about the NHS than the Labour party does. The scaremongering and empty rhetoric is patronising and insulting. It has to stop.

I spent several months, as we all did, speaking with constituents in the run-up to the general election. The message I received was loud and clear: they care deeply about our NHS and want us to work together to address the underlying causes and challenges facing it—challenges like an ageing population and the rise in long-term health conditions like diabetes and dementia. They do not want cheap party political point scoring.

I am fortunate to represent a constituency with a large general hospital. The pressures on my own hospital are well known, as it is currently in special measures. Last year, we saw a major incident declared in relation to accident and emergency. I desperately want Colchester hospital to come out of special measures as soon as possible. However, I want it to happen only when the healthcare regulators feel that it has improved significantly enough to warrant it. Although I and many others were saddened to see Colchester receive an inadequate rating from the CQC, that close scrutiny is absolutely necessary. High standards at the trust are needed to address some of the deep-rooted issues facing the hospital. That is why I welcome the steps taken by the Secretary of State to introduce such a rigorous inspection regime, which puts patient safety at its heart.

I do not recognise the assertions of the petition we are debating today. The changes to contracts and conditions for workers in the NHS are absolutely vital to help us deliver the seven-day NHS that we all need. Diseases and illnesses do not strike only in the working week. Patients should get the same high-quality, safe care on a Saturday and Sunday as they do on a weekday. To take the case of my grandmother, who also sadly passed away last year, why can someone diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the week have radiotherapy within two to three days, but someone diagnosed at the end of the week have to wait until Monday? That is not acceptable, which is why we need better flexibility in NHS staff contracts, going hand in hand with recruiting more doctors, consultants and nurses to staff those enhanced services.

Colchester general hospital emergency department has undergone a major reform programme over the past six months, which has contributed significantly to a sustained improvement in performance. The trust invested in three rapid assessment and diagnostic units, which have increased the department’s ability to assess and treat patients rapidly, resulting in shorter stays. In addition, there is now an action plan in place to address low staffing levels, which have improved significantly on every shift. The trust is welcoming a cohort of new substantive nurses, who are joining following a successful recruitment campaign. I sat on the recruitment panel for the new chief executive of the trust, Frank Sims, and I am very confident that he will be able to help turn the trust around. He has a strong record on staff engagement and working with partner organisations—two areas in which our trust desperately needs to improve.

I want to put on record the help and support that the Secretary of State has given Colchester general hospital. He has visited twice during the past year and has taken a genuine interest in our local healthcare. I also very much welcome the recent announcement about the success regime, which shows the determination of the Secretary of State to address the underlying issues facing the NHS in Essex and tackle them head on. Identifying problems, bringing in better leadership and helping our health and care systems to work better together is, in my view, the right approach.

NHS professionals tell us what is needed to address the underlying issues in the system: better self and family care; early diagnosis of illness and response; more focus on preventive healthcare; faster access to medication; community-based care where appropriate; and quicker discharge into community services. We can argue and debate about the process and the different ways of implementing the change our NHS needs. We can debate the funding. We could and should debate the future challenges. Make no mistake, our NHS will need to adapt over the next five years to keep pace with our changing demography and society, but let us make it a grown-up debate based on evidence and professional opinion, not conjecture and scaremongering.