Oral Answers

Rob Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are putting an additional £7.9 million into four new pilot gender identity clinics, because we want services to improve and waiting times to come down. The four new pilot services are now operating in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside, East of England and London, and a new clinic will be opening in Sussex later this year. The four pilot studies have already removed 3,400 patients from the waiting list and I am hoping the fifth clinic will go further.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to reduce health inequalities in deprived areas.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

23. Whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential relationship between poverty and life expectancy.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Barclay)]

The Government are committed to our levelling-up mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030. That is why, in October, we committed an additional £50 million to 13 local authorities to tackle inequalities and why we are also setting out our plans through the major conditions strategy.

[Rob Butler]

Even in areas that people consider to be affluent, such as Buckinghamshire, health inequalities can be a serious concern. Figures from Opportunity Bucks show there is an eight-year difference in life expectancy between residents of the Aylesbury North West ward and the Ridgeway East ward, both of which are in my constituency, yet the funding for those areas is essentially the same. Will my right hon. Friend explain the steps he is taking to ensure that deprived communities, wherever they are in the country, get the additional help and support—not necessarily purely financial—that they need to address their needs?

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the importance of targeting health inequalities. Let me give the House a practical example. For lung cancer, patients are 20 times more likely to survive five years if we catch it early rather than late. Before the pandemic, those in the most deprived communities had the worst diagnosis. However, as a result of the targeted action we took with lung cancer check vans, they now have the best early diagnosis, which obviously has a big read-across for the five-year survival rate.