World COPD Day

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my dear friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), on securing this debate and on his long advocacy for both COPD and other respiratory conditions, which I know he does with his chairman for the APPG for respiratory health hat on. We thank him for all his work, and the vice-chair of that APPG, the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), who spoke just before me.

As the hon. Members for Strangford and for Blaydon and Consett have both already said, COPD is the most challenging condition to live with. Many people go undiagnosed for far too long, believing their wheeze, cough and breathlessness is simply result of seasonal winter flu. But it does not go away; there is no cure, and when someone with COPD does catch something as common as the winter flu, it can rapidly escalate into other conditions, such as pneumonia. That is why treatment, early diagnosis and proper management are vital. However, a recent King’s College London report, carefully titled “A matter of life and breath”, revealed that COPD sufferers often feel like they live as second-class citizens in the UK—their voices go unheard. I know that the hon. Member for Strangford was involved in the launch of that report in Parliament back in May.

Respiratory illnesses are now one of the leading causes of hospital admissions in the UK, yet our healthcare system is still not optimised to support people with long-term conditions effectively. According to Asthma + Lung UK, there were 2,268,865 emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in England between April 2024 and March 2025, a 23% increase compared with the year before. Worse still, in just the month of December 2024, more than 220,000 were admitted to hospital with breathing emergencies. That is not just a one-off; between April 2024 and March 2025, there were over 405,000 so-called bounce-back admissions, where people are discharged from hospital only to return to A&E within a month.

I have heard from numerous constituents of mine in Surrey Heath—not only those with COPD, but many others with chronic conditions—who frequently travel across the country for work or education. However, when they move, their medical records do not. Let us take the example of university students, who are not necessarily a high-risk population for COPD. They move between home and campus, yet they can be registered with only one GP surgery at a time. The result is delayed treatment, repeat diagnostics and even difficulty accessing the medication that they rely upon. The burden often falls hardest on those with complex conditions such as COPD, where timely diagnosis and regular specialist input can be life-saving.

I have a few key questions for the Government. First, do they agree that people with conditions such as COPD should not face the anxiety of being unable to access the right NHS specialist care, simply because they happen to live in the wrong part of the UK? Secondly, will they commit to stronger data sharing and a truly integrated, nationwide healthcare system, so that records follow the patient, not the other way around? Finally, what steps is the Minister taking to winter-proof the likes of Frimley Park hospital in my constituency, so that it can cope with additional demand and also provide support to those with diseases such as COPD that worsen in the colder months? People with COPD and other chronic illnesses deserve continuity of care, wherever they are living. Our NHS must be connected enough to deliver exactly that.