GP Funding: South-west England
Will Stone Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered GP funding in the South West.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. GPs are the front door of the NHS. They diagnose and treat illness, prevent disease and provide vital mental health support. As Lord Darzi once observed, general practice displays “the best financial discipline” in the NHS family while constantly innovating to keep patients out of hospital. However, GP funding is complex, obscure and insufficient. The bottom line is that the amount of money GPs receive is insufficient to deliver the obligations they carry. That is a view held by every single one of the 28 practice managers I met in and around my district, who tell me the situation is unfunded, unsustainable and unsafe.
GP funding is broadly based on two elements: a so-called global sum for core service costs, and additional quality and outcomes framework payments. The global sum starts with a payment per patient per year of £121.79—that is less than we might pay for our dog to go to the vet for an annual check-up, or about a third of the cost of servicing a Renault Megane. It is no wonder that practice managers spend their evenings juggling spreadsheets simply to keep the lights on.
It gets worse. That paltry sum is then modified by something known as the Carr-Hill formula. Carr-Hill was designed for a different era. It weighs patient numbers and postcodes but underrates deprivation, multimorbidity and today’s population health priorities. The consequences are stark and deliver what is known as the inverse care law. In my constituency, the Buckland surgery looks after some 4,000 patients on its list but is effectively funded for 3,200.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
The hon. Member talks about the number of patients that GP practices have on their books. We have an ambitious plan for building more houses. Does he agree that we need to consider not just existing GP practices but funding the infrastructure for future practices, so that we have adequate services for people? There are places in Swindon that will be expected to take on thousands more patients, and the infrastructure is simply not there right now.
Martin Wrigley
The hon. Member is absolutely right: we have to consider these things. I have spent many hours persuading my local hospital trusts and the integrated care board to talk to the local authorities and work in the cycles of the local plan, so that they get their requirements into that plan. All too often they say, “A new housing development has just been built. We need a new GP practice with it,” and that is too late. The cycles do not add up. The system is broken, and we need to change that.
The Buckland surgery is underfunded by some 800 patients every year. It is part of the Templer primary care network, in which 2,500 patients are effectively treated for nothing. This means that the Buckland practice faces an annual shortfall of approximately £84,000—money that would cover another GP. If we then look at the changing number of patients per GP, in 2019 each GP was supporting 1,800 patients, compared with around 2,400 today.
Oral Answers to Questions
Will Stone Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Wes Streeting
I know that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will have noted, through his representations as a constituency MP, that he could not have fought harder to save that service. We devolve these sorts of decisions to ICBs, in order that they make decisions closer to the communities that they serve, with the conviction that those sorts of decisions are better taken locally than centralised in Whitehall. I understand the case that he makes, but having given ICBs a challenge, resources and freedom, we Ministers must resist the temptation to meddle every time they make decisions that they believe are right for the community, even if those decisions are controversial.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
Will the Minister look into minimising the pain of patients going through hysteroscopy and biopsy procedures by requesting that medical professionals fully brief them on anaesthetics and pain relief in advance of procedures to ensure that they can plan accordingly?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend raises an important question. We are committed to improving women’s experience of gynaecological procedures, including hysteroscopies. Women should be provided with information prior to their procedure so that they can make an informed decision about the procedure and pain relief options, including local or general anaesthetic. He will probably make further representations, which we will certainly look at.
Obesity: Food and Diet
Will Stone Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
On that note, I will keep it short. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for bringing forward the debate. I slightly disagree with his suggestion that food is the only answer, because I think fitness plays a part, but I guess that is a slightly different discussion. Prior to becoming an MP, I was a physical training instructor in the Army, and I have worked in the fitness industry for 15 years, so I have seen at first hand the positive effect that good nutrition can have on people’s mental and physical health—it is absolutely massive.
As the House will know, I am an extremely proud Swindonian and absolutely love Swindon—it is the best place in the world, though some might disagree—but there are some facts and statistics that I am less proud of. One of them is that 36.8% of children in my constituency leave primary school overweight—a shocking statistic. They are being set up for failure later in life, for example by getting conditions such as diabetes. It is something we absolutely have to address. As Members have mentioned, when we dig a little deeper into the statistics, we see that not only are those children overweight, but more often than not they come from deprived areas. That means it is not only a health issue, but an equalities issue. That is something our Government have set out to fix, and it is something we must take seriously.
Once again, I am proud that we are having this debate. It is important that we talk about obesity and food, and I am thankful that the Government have taken forward preventative measures for care in the community first, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud for bringing the debate forward and hon. Members for taking part in it.
Infected Blood Inquiry
Will Stone Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
I want to record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson) and the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) for their tireless efforts in seeking justice for the victims of the infected blood scandal. The issue has had an impact on countless families, and I welcome the Government’s ongoing work to address it with the seriousness that it deserves.
Today I want to share the story of Jean Anziani, the mother of one of my constituents. Jean was a nurse who came home with a cut on her hand after a patient struggled during a blood draw, causing the glass syringe to break. Within just over a week, her health had declined so rapidly that she was rushed to hospital, where her children, 17-year-old Kenneth and 15-year-old Christine, had to wear full protective gear just to visit her. By then, Jean was unable to recognise her children. Only 13 days after receiving that cut, she passed away at the age of just 39. Christine shared that story with me; it was truly heartbreaking, and brought a tear to my eye.
Jean had contracted hepatitis B. The current support schemes focus only on those diagnosed with hepatitis C or HIV, leaving victims like Jean without the acknowledgment or the compensation that they deserve. The schemes were originally designed to address the most commonly identified infections, but they have unintentionally excluded people infected with hepatitis B. As a result, Jean’s daughter Christine is unable to receive any compensation or recognition for her loss. I would be extremely grateful if the Paymaster General could look into this matter for me and have further discussions.