Mr Speaker While I am not obliged to explain my decisions about
urgent questions, I want to make it clear why I have agreed to this
urgent question. I have made it clear, repeatedly and as recently
as last Thursday, that Ministers must make important announcements
first to this Chamber. Despite those very clear comments, it is
evident that the Government and the Treasury briefed journalists on
the content of the forthcoming Budget over the weekend, including
on NHS funding....Request free trial
Mr Speaker
While I am not obliged to explain my decisions about urgent
questions, I want to make it clear why I have agreed to this
urgent question. I have made it clear, repeatedly and as recently
as last Thursday, that Ministers must make important
announcements first to this Chamber. Despite those very clear
comments, it is evident that the Government and the Treasury
briefed journalists on the content of the forthcoming Budget over
the weekend, including on NHS funding. Therefore, and in line
with what I told the House last Thursday, I am giving the House
the earliest opportunity to hold the Government to account.
I repeat to the Government that if they persist in making
announcements first outside this House, Ministers will be called
to account in this Chamber at the earliest opportunity. The Chair
of Ways and Means, who oversees the Budget, is also very upset by
the briefing that has gone out. At one time, Ministers did the
right thing if they briefed before a Budget: they walked.
[Interruption.] Yes, absolutely! They resigned. It seems to me
that we are now in a position where if they have not got the
information out five days beforehand, it is not worth putting
out. Members are elected to this House to represent their
constituents and those constituents quite rightly expect their MP
to hear it first in order to be able to listen to what the Budget
is about and also, in the days following that, to hold the
Government to account. This is unacceptable and the Government
should not try to run roughshod over this House. It will not
happen.
15:36:00
(St Albans) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask whether the Government will make a
statement on the announcement to the media of £5.9 billion for
NHS England.
The Minister for Health ()
Mr Speaker, I hope that you will recognise that I seek to be
assiduous in my accountability to this House and in adhering to
its protocols and forms, not least as a former member of the
Procedure Committee. I can reassure you that what you said just
now will have been heard not just by me but by colleagues in my
Department and in Her Majesty’s Treasury.
Just as we are determined to keep this country safe from
covid-19, we also want to tackle the backlog that the virus has
brought with it. We know that “business as usual” will not be
enough, so we will do whatever it takes to ensure that people get
the treatment they need as quickly as possible. In September, we
announced plans to spend £8 billion to tackle the elective
backlog over the next three years, in addition to the £2 billion
this year.
The House will have seen the announcement of £5.9 billion to
tackle the NHS backlog of diagnostic tests and procedures and to
support the delivery of millions more checks, scans and
treatments for patients across the country. This includes £1.5
billion for increased bed capacity, equipment, new surgical hubs
to tackle waiting times for elective surgeries and at least a
total of 100 community diagnostic centres to help to clear
backlogs of people waiting for clinical tests such as MRIs,
ultrasounds and CT scans, as well as £2.1 billion of investment
to modernise digital technology on the frontline.
This is an historic package of investment that will support our
aim of delivering around 30% more elective activity by 2024-25
compared with pre-pandemic levels. That of course comes on top of
the work we are doing to strengthen the NHS workforce, who have
performed so brilliantly throughout this crisis. All of this is
vital if we are to help get our NHS back on track and ensure that
no one is left waiting for vital tests or treatments and that we
have the right buildings, equipment and systems so that our NHS
is fit for the challenge ahead.
Almost every elected Member of this House woke up this morning to
see the announcement of extra cash for the NHS in England to
reduce the covid backlog, although it contained absolutely no
details at all. There were no details on where the money will
come from, no details on what this means for the almost 6 million
people still waiting for treatment, and no details on what it
means for our exhausted NHS staff. The Minister has reportedly
said that this money is new. Well, is it? How do we scrutinise
that claim? Will the Minister set out clearly today—not on
Wednesday—where the money is coming from?
Many hospitals in the Government’s so-called new hospitals
programme, including those in west Hertfordshire, have been
waiting months for funds to be released so that they can start
renovation work. Is any of this so-called new money actually part
of these existing commitments? There are almost 6 million people
stuck at home in pain waiting for treatment. Senior medical staff
are predicting thousands of early deaths if the Government fail
to act. People are desperate to know how many more weeks they
have to wait for their operation. Can the Minister tell them?
Finally, it is all very well announcing money for new diagnostic
tests and medical equipment, but there are tens of thousands of
vacancies in the NHS. Without the trained medical staff to use
these new facilities, this plan is doomed to fail. Without a
serious plan to recruit the NHS staff that we desperately need,
England could face an epidemic of empty wards and shiny new
scanners and superfast broadband going to waste because the staff
who make our NHS what it is simply are not there any more.
The hon. Lady is right that the waiting list is 5.7 million and
growing. As she will have seen, the Secretary of State has made
it clear that the number could grow to more than 13 million if
all those who would normally have come forward in the previous
year do come forward. That is exactly why we are taking these
steps. Rather than expressing concern about the announcement, I
would have thought she would welcome this investment, this new
money, to help tackle those waiting lists. Of that 5.7 million,
around 1.36 million—I may be slightly out—are waiting for
diagnostic tests, which is why this is so crucial.
The hon. Lady asks where the money is coming from. She tempts me,
but I am afraid she will have to wait until Wednesday’s Budget
for the Chancellor to set out how he is funding each of the
announcements.
The hon. Lady touched on the single most important element of our
ability to tackle the pandemic and to respond to the consequences
for the elective waiting list and, as I know she would, I put on
record our thanks and gratitude to those staff. Radiologists and
radiographers are the key people in this space, and since 2010 we
have increased the clinical radiology workforce by 48% from 3,239
to 4,797 full-time-equivalent posts. The number of diagnostic
radiographers is up by 33% since 2010.
Does that mean we need to continue to do more? Of course it does,
and she is right to highlight the need for continued investment
in our workforce. She will have seen last month’s announcement of
£12 billion of funding, a significant part of which will help to
build that workforce, on top of the commitments we made at the
last election and on which we are delivering.
(Wellingborough) (Con)
The well-known journalist Michael Crick put out on Twitter:
“Tonight, in quick succession, I—& no doubt other
reporters—received 6 Treasury press releases about what’s in next
week’s budget—5 of them embargoed to various times over weekend…
Whatever became of budget secrecy & announcing things to MPs
first?”
The Government have put up a good Minister, so we cannot have a
go at him for that, but why does he not go back and tell his
friends in the Treasury, at the very least, to provide Members
with copies of these embargoed press releases? If it is good
enough for the media, it is good enough for us in this House.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, indeed my friend, and I
understand and entirely appreciate where he is coming from. He is
an assiduous parliamentarian and quite rightly, as Mr Speaker
alluded to, he takes the role of this House extremely seriously,
as do I. I suspect that what he says, just as what Mr Speaker
said, has been heard loud and clear both in the Department of
Health and Social Care and across the Government, including in
the Treasury.
(Leicester South)
(Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I
remember a time when Chancellors went into purdah before a
Budget. Perhaps that tradition needs to return.
Fortunately, I received the press release on Sunday. I should not
have, but I was sent it, and obviously Members should have
received it, too. Of course the NHS is in a desperate state and
is under crushing, unsustainable pressure, partly because of a
decade of under-investment in infrastructure, the cutting of
thousands of beds and raids on the capital budget. It means that
today, hospitals are facing a repair bill of £9 billion, and we
have sewerage pipes bursting, ceilings collapsing and equipment
breaking down. The number of safety incidents in hospitals as a
result of these problems has increased by 15% in the last year
alone. Not only is the equipment old and outdated but, on a
head-for-head basis, we have some of the lowest numbers of
computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scanners in
Europe and the highest numbers of fax machines. Capital budgets
have been raided throughout the last 10 years. Will the Minister
confirm that, in what he is announcing, the total capital budget
will be ring-fenced and not raided in the coming years?
The Minister has not mentioned mental health, but we have
thousands of unsafe and undignified dormitory wards. Will there
be extra capital investment to get rid of them? If so, by when?
Will the diagnostics centres that he mentioned be provided and
run by the NHS or run and supplied by private sector contractors?
He said that we will clear the 1.3 million backlog in diagnostic
tests by the end of the Parliament, but nobody wants to see ghost
surgical hubs or new equipment standing idle. Who will staff the
diagnostics centres? Who will staff the surgical theatres? Who
will operate the new equipment?
The Minister mentioned diagnostics staff, but we are short of one
in 10 of them. We are also short of 55% of consultant
oncologists, short of radiologists and short of 2,500 specialist
cancer nurses. Will he guarantee that the Health Education
England budget will be not frozen or cut but properly funded to
recruit the thousands of extra doctors, nurses and NHS staff
needed to provide safe care and bring waiting times down?
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman—my constituency
neighbour—for his sensible and reasonable questions. I will
endeavour to answer each of them in turn. On capital, he will
know, not least because his local hospital—mine as well—is in
that list to receive capital investment as part of the overall 40
new hospitals programme, that an initial £3.7 billion has been
already allocated to the 40 hospitals that we are committed to
delivering by 2030. That is investment not just in maintenance
but in replacing old or outdated stock with new hospitals to
minimise those longer-term maintenance bills. He is right that we
must continue to support ongoing maintenance, as we have done. To
take one example, we did exactly that by making an extra £110
million available to help support the maintenance of
RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—plank hospitals
around the country.
On mental health, the right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about
capital investment. In the context of those new hospitals, mental
health facilities and hospitals are included. They have not been
left out; they have got their share.
The right hon. Gentleman also rightly talked about staff, which,
as I said to the hon. Member for St Albans (), is a key point. We have seen
significant increases in the number of doctors and nurses. He is
right to highlight the need for continued increases in
specialisms such as radiographers and radiologists. I highlighted
the increases that we have seen, but we know just how valuable
they are. I alluded to the £12 billion that the Secretary of
State announced back in September, a significant part of which
will go to support the workforce in the delivery of elective
recovery.
On how community diagnostic centres and community diagnostic hubs
will both be selected and operate, we are working closely with
the NHS on exactly how to do that to ensure that the workforce
are sufficient and that we do not impose burdens over and above
those already imposed on them. I think that I have answered the
right hon. Gentleman’s questions, but I am sure that his hon.
Friends will come back if I have missed anything.
(Wokingham) (Con)
Mr Speaker, you spoke for many of us in the guidance you gave the
Government. I trust that they will follow it.
Given that in the last two years very large sums of money have
been spent on test and trace, establishing a successful vaccine
programme, Nightingale capacity and other one-offs for the
pandemic, how much of that money will become available to spend
on the other work that is now so desperately needed in the
NHS?
My right hon. Friend will know that by far and away the
overwhelming majority of that money was one-off spending to
tackle the pandemic in its most acute phase. We will need to
continue to spend some of that on therapeutics, vaccinations and
similar. On other things, such as the significant increase in
infrastructure and understanding that we have built in test and
trace and in testing and diagnostic capacity, I am looking at how
a long-term legacy can be born of that and how we can transition
the learnings and infrastructure from that to continue to deliver
for patients in more normal times.
(Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
(SNP)
This announcement goes to the very heart of what is wrong with
the Union. Ministers make decisions from here in real time for
England based on their perception of needs, while the devolved
nations get the consequentials. The Health Secretary’s
announcement mentioned that consequentials would be coming. Can
the Minister tell us today exactly how much money is coming to
Scotland and when the Treasury will send it?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the Secretary of
State said that there would be Barnett consequentials. The
details of those will be set out on Wednesday.
(Chipping Barnet)
(Con)
I warmly welcome the huge sums that the Government are devoting
to the NHS, but I echo other people in saying that for the
funding to work we need to have the people working in the NHS.
Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to
improve the retention of doctors and nurses in our national
health service, and particularly to persuade women to stay in the
workforce because of the crucial roles that they play and the
importance of having that capacity in the NHS?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. We have rightly set out
what we are doing to increase numbers through recruitment, but as
she says a key part is retaining the skilled and dedicated
workforce. We need to recognise that there is not a separate
workforce who have been dealing with the pandemic and who will
now to be dealing with elective recovery—they are the same NHS
workforce, who will all have been working very hard. We have to
be sensitive to the fact that they need the time to recover
physically and emotionally after the pandemic. That is what we
are seeking to do.
We are being realistic in setting expectations about how long it
will take to clear the backlog. It is right that we do that with
the public, because we must look after our workforce. One of the
single biggest things we can to do help with retention is to be
flexible with our workforce—recognising, exactly as my right hon.
Friend says, the need for flexibilities, not just for female
members of our workforce but for all our workforce, as well as
the need for additional staff to come through and help ease the
burden.
(Bristol South) (Lab)
The waiting lists are now the longest we have ever seen, plus
there are the 7 million people who did not come forward during
the pandemic. That means that the validation of the lists is a
mammoth task. The clerical validation is quite simple—phoning
people up to see whether they still live at the relevant address,
whether, sadly, they have died or whether they have moved on—but
the clinical validation is now really important. What
conversations is the Secretary of State having with clinical
leaders about the criteria being used to validate these lists?
Crucially, how are local people going to be involved in how and
why clinical decisions are being made about who will be treated
and in what order?
The hon. Lady and I have spent many days in recent weeks sitting
opposite each other in the Health and Care Bill Committee, and
she knows of what she speaks given her background in the NHS. She
is right about the validation of those lists and then the
prioritisation, but although it is absolutely vital that we
ensure that patients and those on the waiting lists are kept
informed and included in the decisions and discussions about
their care, her key point was about clinical decision making. In
this context, the decision making and prioritisation must be
clinically led.
I have spoken with the Royal College of Surgeons and others of
the royal colleges about how we approach the issue. We should
look at a number of factors. Is it possible with these new
approaches to deal quickly with a large number of high-volume,
low-complexity treatments that impact on quality of life?
Equally, there are very complex treatments for which a month, a
week or even a day longer can lead to more adverse clinical
outcomes.
It is right that we go for clinical prioritisation. Although I am
keen that we should keep people informed and engaged as
participants in the process, it is vital that we see this issue
as clinically led.
(Forest of Dean) (Con)
I warmly welcome the funds that have been provided to the NHS to
deal with the backlogs, particularly for those who stayed away
from the NHS during the pandemic. Does the Minister agree that
this is effectively a deal—a contract, if you like—with the NHS?
We are providing the resources, which we voted for; it is the job
of NHS chief executives to take those resources and now turn them
into the healthcare that our constituents need. It is not their
job to send their representatives on the radio to try to get us
to shut down the economy. If we do not have an economy to
generate the wealth, we will not have the resources that we need
to fund our NHS.
I always listen with great care to my right hon. Friend. He is
right that we in this House, on behalf of taxpayers, provide the
resources to the NHS and others to deliver the outcomes that we
want for all of our constituents, but it is absolutely right that
the NHS and others set out their plans for doing so, and that we
hold the NHS to account for delivery against those plans.
Ministers will draw up those plans in tandem with the NHS
because, quite rightly, just as I will hold the NHS to account, I
know that my right hon. Friend will hold me to account in this
House. A key element of those plans for tackling the backlog must
also be reform and innovation rather than simply more of the
same.
(Rhondda) (Lab)
I honestly despair. This announcement will not make the blindest
bit of difference to the backlog. There will not be the kit in
place anywhere near in time to make sure that people get their
biopsies back in the next 18 months or two years. There will not
be enough staff, because we are not training enough this year
even to backfill the number of people who are leaving all of
these professions this year. The problem will get worse, not
better, unless the Government can tell us how they will make sure
that more doctors, oncologists, pathologists and dermatologists
stay in the profession and that more of them do more additional
sessions a week, for instance, by increasing their overtime
payments. The Government might want to sort out the pension
problems, which mean that many people are leaving. They might
want to provide some kind of golden staying-on bonus for people
and make sure that they have a few extra days’ holidays. Most of
them are not desperate for money; they are desperate for just a
moment to be able to draw breath so that they can do a decent
job. However, if we do not have the people, this is all a waste
of money.
I know that the hon. Gentleman genuinely feels strongly about
this issue. He and I discussed it in a recent debate in
Westminster Hall, and I think I am due to meet him to discuss the
10 points that he flagged up then as genuinely practical
suggestions to help improve both retention and recruitment in the
NHS workforce. He knows that I am always happy to do that.
Hopefully, my office will have been in touch with him. If it has
not been in touch, it will be, because I want to have that
conversation with him.
On the hon. Gentleman’s key point, there are number of things.
This is about not only tackling the urgent backlogs now, but
building a system that is resilient for the future and that can
actually tackle the broader challenges that we as a society face.
That means more diagnostic capacity and more diagnostic capacity
at an earlier stage, as some other countries have. I am quite
happy to acknowledge that, under Governments of both political
complexions, we could have done more, and that is why we are
doing more now, and I say that to him gently. He talks about
urgency; he is right. He also makes a very important point, which
I tried to allude to in my earlier answer. If I did not land it
clearly, I will attempt to do so now. He is absolutely right to
highlight the risk of burn out and exhaustion, for want of a
better way of putting it. As I said, it is very easy for people
to say that X specialty was not working during the pandemic
because that surgery was not happening, but you can bet your
bottom dollar that the people involved were probably helping
out—the anaesthetists and theatre nurses were—so we do need to
address that point. I will be happy to see the hon.
Gentleman.
(Bosworth) (Con)
To answer one of the points just raised, one of the key problems
with driving productivity is that about 10% of a clinician’s time
is spent on chasing admin. Can the Minister confirm that some of
this money will be put into dealing with the primary and
secondary care interface, for example, so that people do not have
to spend their time chasing letters and appointments and finding
out what has been happening? Those things should happen as easily
as they do in our phones.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why part of this
figure—£2.1 billion—is allocated for things such as ensuring that
digital patient records and shared care records are rolled out
across every trust. There has been an extensive roll-out, but
there is more still to do.
(Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
(Alba)
I hate to tell the Government but there has been a shortage of
clinical radiologists for at least 20 years. It takes 12 years to
train a clinical radiologist, three to six years to train a
radiographer, three to five years to get a specialist nurse and
the same for a biomedical scientist. While the investment in the
infrastructure is welcome—I would never shy away from welcoming
investment in the NHS—there is a very real problem with staffing
these centres. What assistance will be provided to NHS trusts to
mount an international recruitment drive, because we will have to
go to the international market to recruit the staff to these
centres?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the capital and
for his tone. Quite rightly, he highlights the workforce point
again. I go back to what I said to the hon. Member for St Albans
(): on the basis of the figures
that I have, since 2010, we have increased the clinical radiology
workforce by 48% and the number of diagnostic radiographers is up
by 33%. We continue to build on that. The hon. Gentleman is right
about the long lead time, which is why it behoves me to say that
the increase in numbers is a reflection not just of this
Government, but of the previous Government’s investment in this
space.
(Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
It is certainly true that vast numbers of NHS staff have done an
amazing job in the last 18 months in my constituency and
elsewhere, and in secondary and primary care. It is right that we
are committing these extra resources to help them to get the job
done, and it is certainly the case that in the past we have not
trained enough professionals in this world. However, I echo the
comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean
(Mr Harper): it is simply not right to have the profession at
this stage—when we are all, as taxpayers, making a big new
commitment to the health service—demanding more lockdowns and
more restrictions. We have got to live with this virus. It is
also not right, when these large amounts are found by
taxpayers—with some doubts from some of them—that we hear the
same representatives still turn around and say, “It’s not
enough.”
I entirely appreciate where my right hon. Friend is coming at
this from. I hope that, in answering my right hon. Friend the
Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), I was clear that we hugely
value the amazing work done by all our NHS workforce. This is
about providing them with the money and resources they need to do
the job, but also stimulating reform and innovation alongside
that. The final point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for
Epsom and Ewell () was about the calls by some
for particular policy approaches to this winter by Her Majesty’s
Government. He will have heard my response to that on various
media outlets on Thursday morning.
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
We are all agreed across the Chamber on the importance of the
workforce in the NHS and social care. Will the Government
consider—alongside a decent pay rise—a covenant to protect and
support our NHS and social care staff, akin to the one that they
are introducing for the police and the one that we already have
for the armed forces?
The right hon. Lady makes a good point. It is an interesting idea
and I will certainly reflect on it.
(South West Bedfordshire)
(Con)
Thousands of new homes are being built to the east of Leighton
Buzzard and to the north of Houghton Regis. Does my hon. Friend
agree that those residents deserve a plan for a rational and
budgeted increase in general practice capacity?
My hon. Friend is coming back for a second bite of the cherry
after Health and Social Care questions last week. I am well aware
that there is significant housing development in his constituency
and in many others. We need to ensure that the GP and broader
health facilities follow that development, and do so in a way
where the local health system can predict it and plan to deliver
on that basis.
(Rotherham) (Lab)
Minister, any investment in the NHS is welcome, but let us be
honest: this is just a drop in the ocean compared with what has
been taken out over the last 11 years. I am very concerned that
there is still a lack of parity between mental health and
physical health. In Rotherham, the longest wait time for a
child’s mental health assessment is 204 weeks; that is nearly
four years. What will the Minister do to speed the process up and
ensure that there is parity of funding?
The hon. Lady knows that I have a huge amount of respect for her
and her work in this House. She is absolutely right to highlight
the need for parity of esteem not just to be a phrase, but to be
made a reality in our constituencies and on our streets. That is
why we have significantly increased funding for mental health not
just in revenue terms, but in the capital terms about which we
are speaking today—as I alluded to in response to the shadow
Secretary of State, in terms of investing in eliminating mental
health dormitories, but also in terms of new hospitals. I suspect
that the hon. Lady was possibly alluding to child and adolescent
mental health services. I am always happy to discuss that issue
with her, as is the Minister for Care and Mental Health, my hon.
Friend the Member for Chichester ().
(Winchester) (Con)
My good friend and the very excellent Minister is going to help
me out here, because he said that we will hold the NHS to account
for these plans. He knows that I have raised this matter in the
House before, when we announced the £12 billion of funding. I
know that there is a plan for the catch-up; I know that it has
been agreed with the Department and I know that it has been
agreed with the Treasury, because a Treasury Minister has told me
from the Dispatch Box. How can we all hold our local health
trusts to account when we have not seen that plan? Please can it
be published?
My hon. Friend asks a key question. I can reassure him that he
will see that plan published in the coming weeks. I know that he
will both study it carefully and hold me and the NHS to account
on what is in it.
(Stockton North) (Lab)
The new money is very welcome, but North Tees and Hartlepool NHS
Foundation Trust is having to spend millions of pounds every year
just to keep University Hospital of North Tees safe and
operating. It is doing a grand job. But the Minister knows the
facts of this: we really do need a new hospital in Stockton. So
will the new one be announced any time soon?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Everyone loves a trier in
this place, particularly on behalf of their constituents. I have
met him to discuss this, as he alludes to. I think I am overdue
giving him an update letter on where we are. As he will be aware,
we have had significant numbers of expressions of interest in the
opportunity to be one of the next eight hospitals. We look
forward to making an announcement on them in the spring of next
year. I cannot say any more than that—but, as ever, he makes the
point on behalf of his constituents.
(Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I warmly welcome this funding announcement. A few weeks ago, I
visited the biochemistry department in Furness General Hospital.
It is one of the best in the country, so I am glad that there is
this focus on diagnostics capacity. Can the Minister confirm that
funding will go to centres that already have capacity and the
will to do more, rather than creating additional units that may
draw it away from them?
My hon. Friend makes an interesting and important point. These
will be new diagnostic hubs, but he alludes to a central point.
For example, there could be a hub in the car park of an existing
hospital where these services are delivered to allow it to
deliver them in a covid-free environment, rather than having the
same front door for A&E or similar. We are working through
the exact detail of how these new hubs will be delivered, but we
will be looking at how they can potentially fit with existing
services.
(Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Capital investment in our hospital estate is desperately needed
at Royal Lancaster Infirmary—an incredibly old hospital site,
which comes with its challenges. Does the Minister agree that
closing two hospitals—Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Royal Preston
Hospital—to make one new hospital is not creating a new hospital
but is in fact a net loss of one hospital? He has a letter on his
desk from me asking for a meeting to discuss the future of the
hospital site at Royal Lancaster Infirmary. Does he agree that my
constituents in Lancaster, which is a growing city, need to have
a hospital that they can access?
The hon. Lady will know that, while her local clinical
commissioning group—her local health system—may well be
considering various options, it has not put any particular option
forward to me in that context. I look forward to seeing her
letter, but I am certainly happy to meet her if that pre-empts my
reply.
(Peterborough) (Con)
My constituents in Peterborough will be thrilled with the £5.9
billion to clear the backlog and the extra cash for diagnostic
services, but they will also be keen that that money is spent
well. Will the Minister ensure that many more clinicians practise
at the top of their licence doing the things that we need them to
do, rather than spend their time doing things that clerical staff
and more junior colleagues would be better placed doing?
We need to make sure that our NHS workforce, which is diverse in
terms of its skills and background, is able to work where those
skills are most effectively deployed to deliver the best outcomes
for patients. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: where are there
are administrative tasks, which I do not in any way denigrate,
that are better performed by an administrator than a clinician,
we should be looking to deliver that.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the Minister for being assiduous and incredibly
dedicated. We welcome money wherever it comes from because it is
important to have it. In Northern Ireland we are very keen to see
what that money will mean. Will similar money be provided for
Northern Ireland through the Barnett consequentials? Will there
be any direction as to how the money is spent—for example, to
address this year’s non-elective surgery waiting list to give
people their sight back, their ability back, and indeed, for
some, their lives back? What discussions have taken place with
, the Health Minister, in
relation to that?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman —my hon. Friend—for his
question. The Chancellor will set out the detail of Barnett
consequentials in due course. The hon. Gentleman knows that I
speak to , to whose work I pay tribute,
at regular intervals—almost fortnightly—about a number of things.
I have not yet discussed the detail of this matter with him, and
it will be for him as a devolved Health Minister to make those
decisions, but I will of course discuss it with him.
(Kettering) (Con)
My constituents in Kettering will welcome the extra NHS
investment in diagnostics and elective care, but the best way to
permanently increase elective capacity in Kettering is for
permission to be given for the go-ahead for the redevelopment of
Kettering General Hospital. In that regard, will the Minister
impress on NHS England and NHS Improvement the urgent need to
approve and give permission for the strategic outline case for
the hospital redevelopment?
For a brief moment, I thought my hon. Friend was not going to
mention the new hospital at Kettering. Yes, I am very happy to
have that conversation with NHS England colleagues as I continue
to discuss the new hospital in his constituency with them at
regular intervals.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
Workforce planning failures have brought us to this point, but
many of the patients on the elective waiting lists will be
showing up in primary care, and with greater acuity as they wait
longer for their treatments. What additional support will the
Minister give primary care to manage people on all these waiting
lists?
The hon. Lady is right to highlight that primary care and GP
practices are often the front door for the vast majority of these
people on the waiting lists, and I pay tribute to the hard work
of GPs up and down the country over the past year and a half to
two years. She will have seen the announcement a few weeks ago by
my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in which he set out
further support that would be made available to help GP
practices.
(Rother Valley)
(Con)
Our GPs have done an amazing job across the country, but
especially in Rother Valley, whether that is the Dinnington Group
Practice, Swallownest Health Centre or the Stag Medical Centre. I
note that there has been a 35% increase in the amount of junior
doctors wanting to become GPs. Can we make sure that some of
those new GPs and new applicants are in Rother Valley?
We should make sure that general practice is an attractive career
for newly qualified doctors wherever they are in the country. I
suspect it will be for those individuals joining the profession
to determine where they wish to practise, but I suspect my hon.
Friend will do a very good job of explaining to them the joys of
working in Rother Valley.
(Hornsey and Wood Green)
(Lab)
There are very worrying press reports about a lack of midwifery.
Can the Minister put his hand on his heart and tell us that every
single trust in the country has a safe ratio of staff to women
giving birth?
The hon. Lady asks a very important question. Patient safety,
including in midwifery and births, is central to what we are
about in this Government and in NHS England. That is one reason
why we have seen more than 9,000 more nurses, midwives and health
visitors recruited, but we need to continue to do more, and we
will continue to do so.
(Truro and Falmouth)
(Con)
I am certain my constituents will warmly welcome this additional
funding. There is currently unprecedented demand on health and
care services in Cornwall, more now than at any point in the
pandemic. The Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro has escalated its
operational level from operational pressures escalation level 4,
or OPEL4, to “internal critical incident”. I welcome the meeting
that the Cornish MPs had with the Minister last week. I have
written to the Secretary of State to ask how we can get some
additional support to help us to de-escalate this unprecedented
situation.
As my hon. Friend alludes to, I met her and other hon. Friends
from Cornwall last week to discuss this matter. I appreciate the
pressures facing the NHS in Cornwall, particularly after the
pressures it faced over the summer, when other parts of the
system may have experienced slightly less pressure, because of
all the holidaymakers who rightly go to visit Cornwall. I look
forward to working with her further on this and thank the staff
of the trust for what they are doing. We recognise the
challenges, which is why we are providing this extra capital
funding, including capital funding from previous pots, to her
trust. I am happy to have a further meeting with her and her
chief exec, if she feels that would be helpful.
(Bath) (LD)
The Royal College of Radiologists reports that, as of today,
another 1,675 consultants are needed to keep up with current NHS
demand. The Minister pointed earlier to a recruitment drive and
said that 48% more have been recruited. Still, 1,675 consultant
staff are needed. If he cannot give us the answer today, how on
earth will he recruit these important people very soon? Will he
come back with a statement very soon on how this situation will
be resolved?
What I said in response to the hon. Member for St Albans () and other hon. Members was
that we have seen the number of radiographers and radiologists
grow steadily since 2010, and it continues to increase. I
appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Bath () about the rate of growth,
but it is growing. We are recruiting and training more, so I
think we are on track to continue recruiting more into that
space.
(Harlow) (Con)
I strongly welcome the new money for the national health service
on top of the £34 billion that will be spent. Is it not the case
that the new money—the many billions being spent on the NHS—is
one of the reasons why we will be able to fund our new hospital
programme, including the new Princess Alexandra Hospital in
Harlow?
The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow has no greater champion
that my right hon. Friend. I reassure him that, as he knows, it
is on the list of 40 new hospitals that we are committed to
building before 2030.
(Crawley) (Con)
I, too, welcome the significant extra resource for our national
health service as we tackle the covid backlog. I seek an
assurance from the Minister that more difficult to detect
conditions, such as blood cancers, will be at the heart of what
those diagnostic hubs will deliver.
The purpose of the investment in diagnostic capacity is not only
to tackle the backlog but to provide a long-term solution to
allow diagnostic tests to take place for more people earlier in
the illness and to detect illnesses at an early stage. We know
that is a key part of tackling illness, preventing serious
illness and aiding recovery.
(North Norfolk) (Con)
I welcome the funding for the NHS, and I ask the Minister whether
the funding will get down to our ambulance trusts too. Around the
country, including in my constituency, waiting times are under
huge pressure. What help will there be for winter ambulance
pressures, particularly in North Norfolk?
The funding is capital funding for diagnostic hubs and surgical
hubs, which will ease pressure by allowing day surgery to
continue but without taking up beds in acute settings and while
allowing the flow of patients through A&Es. On my hon.
Friend’s specific point, we have already announced and provided
£55 million to aid our ambulance trusts this winter.
Mr Speaker
Can I say thank you to the Minister? In fairness, he had to
answer the urgent question because of the actions of others.
Hopefully the message has gone back to the Treasury that it ought
to ensure that the House hears first. Hopefully there is a lesson
that may have been learned; if not, we will continue with the
same lessons.
|
