Community Hospitals

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Savage]

I absolutely agree that a lot of the frustration felt on the frontline is due to lack of clarity of communication. Community hospitals are institutions, and I pay tribute to the people who work at them, who do more with less, year after year. They deserve better than for services to be quietly wound down.

I invite Members to imagine for a moment that they are 80 years old—it is less of a feat of imagination for some of us than for others—and living in a village outside Cirencester. Maybe they can no longer drive due to poor eyesight. They wake up one morning with chest pain. There is a hospital in town, but the services have dwindled one by one: no A&E, acute ward or surgery, and the theatre may be currently paused. What is actually needed—prompt assessment, a bed close to home and blood tests that do not require a 25-mile journey to Cheltenham on rural roads—may not be available. That is the reality for many people across my constituency right now, and it is getting worse.

Community hospitals have been an honoured part of our healthcare system for over 150 years. Research published in the Journal of Community Nursing in 2024 describes them as bridging

“the gap between primary and secondary care.”

They are person-centred, nurse-led and multidisciplinary settings that help people to recover, maintain independence and enjoy visits from friends and family. They are not a quaint historical relic; they are precisely what the NHS says it wants more of.

The Cirencester community hospital was exactly that kind of place. Since the day surgery unit was suspended last year, I have heard so many moving stories from constituents, their fond memories of being in hospital, and how much that hospital, right at the heart of their community, meant to them when their children, parents or spouses were sick. But over the years the services there have been eroded one by one: first A&E, then acute wards, paediatrics, maternity and blood services. In 2025, the day surgery unit was paused as part of NHS Gloucestershire’s centres of excellence trial. Each change came with reassurances, but each one left residents further from care. My constituents have become deeply and rightly sceptical that a trial closure will ever be reversed.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful point about trust and promises being made but not delivered. Twenty years ago, Littlehampton hospital in my constituency closed, with the promise that a replacement health service would follow. In Rustington, there has been a lack of consultation and the hospital has closed; we are hoping it will reopen. Does the hon. Lady agree that consultation, trust and following through on promises are so important?

[Dr Savage]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s point. I have been pressing the NHS to find out the criteria by which they will judge the trial closure, but the criteria have not been forthcoming. I am concerned that there is a circular logic: “Well, you’ve managed without that ward for six months or a year, so you can continue to manage without it.”

A constituent described a cardiac arrest at Cirencester, handled with what she called “absolute skill and excellence” by a team of senior staff working together to stabilise the patient before transfer to an acute hospital. She told me that the nursing care on the wards is excellent, and that patients nearing the end of their lives are cared for with compassion and great dignity. That is what we are talking about when we talk about community hospitals, and that is what the trial closure of a ward potentially puts at risk.

Another constituent—a former GP who started practicing in Cirencester 40 years ago, in 1986—told me about a child who, after the surgical ward closed, waited 20 hours in Cheltenham for an appendix operation. Previously, that operation could have been done in Cirencester much more quickly. That is a family sitting in a corridor in an unfamiliar hospital at 2 in the morning, feeling anxious and far from home, because the local service they relied on had gone.

A month or so ago I launched a petition, in collaboration with a local county councillor, to protect community hospitals across the Cotswolds. Within a couple of weeks, well over 3,000 people had signed it, and last week we handed it in at No. 10. The South Cotswolds population is growing rapidly, largely due to the Government’s housing targets. Thousands of new houses are being built around Cirencester, and there are plans for many more housing developments that will swallow up nearby villages. It does not make mathematical sense for communities to grow while the services that support them shrink. The numbers just do not add up.

NHS bodies often describe these changes as reconfigurations—a shift in how care is delivered rather than a reduction in what is available. For a rural resident with no car and negligible public transport, a 25-mile journey to Cheltenham is a significant barrier to care. The Government’s own 10-year plan talks about “neighbourhood health” and care “closer to home”, but Gloucestershire is heading in the direct opposite direction. I would like to hear from the Minister how those two things can be reconciled.

A few miles to the north-west of my constituency, post-natal beds at Stroud maternity hospital were suspended in 2022. That year, the Care Quality Commission rated Gloucestershire’s maternity services as inadequate—a rating they retained on reinspection the following year. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is a GP, has made the valid point that post-natal care saves money downstream because it is the time when mothers and babies bond, when breastfeeding is established and when families who need extra support get it on a timely basis. If we lose that support, the costs will appear elsewhere later on. Will the Minister provide a timeline, with dates, for the full restoration of maternity services in Gloucestershire, including the Aveta ward in Cheltenham, which is currently closed for labour and births? Will she provide details of the specific workforce support the Government are providing to make that happen?

In other countries, the decline of community hospitals is not seen as inevitable. Other countries are under the same pressures, but they are making different choices. In Sweden, research found that rural GPs value community hospitals because they provide exactly the things that cannot be replicated in a large acute centre, including proximity, continuity and a holistic understanding of elderly patients and others with multiple conditions. Heart failure and pneumonia rehabilitation can be managed closer to home by staff who know the patient and their family.

In Italy, the Government have committed to building or renovating 400 community hospitals using European recovery funds, backed by research from the Emilia-Romagna region showing that they deliver better integration among care sectors, between primary and specialist staff, and between healthcare and the communities it serves. Last October, more than 150 people from 23 countries joined an international webinar co-hosted by the Community Hospitals Association, and the conclusion was consistent: community hospitals anchor care in local communities, support home-based care and help people to live better for longer.

The Government’s NHS 10-year plan commits to shifting care from hospital to community. That sounds like a very good idea, but a Nuffield Trust report published in September 2025 makes a point that needs to be heard: this ambition is not new. Successive Governments have promised to move care closer to home, and most have fallen short, almost always because the community infrastructure needed to enable the shift is simply not there, and nor is the investment. Ireland, which has pursued reform for nearly a decade, had the wisdom to invest up front in new facilities, digital systems and community workforce capacity.

Unfortunately, the Nuffield Trust found that England’s 10-year plan contains no equivalent ringfenced funding. The expectation appears to be that hospitals cut waiting lists and simultaneously release funds to build community capacity. Again, the maths just does not work.

The starting point is already challenging. More than 1.1 million people are currently waiting for community care in England, with the steepest rise among children and young people. A hospital where the theatre has been paused cannot absorb more community care. A maternity unit closed for three years cannot deliver neighbourhood health. A community health system with 1.1 million people already waiting cannot become the landing ground for patients displaced from acute settings unless it is properly resourced to do so. As so often, rural areas pay the highest price when the gap between ambition and delivery opens up. There is no slack in the system and no easily accessible option down the road.

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[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on securing this vital debate. I also commend the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for sharing her experiences in a community hospital setting, which were really interesting to hear.

When I think about community hospitals, I think about trust. I think about the residents in my constituency who lost Littlehampton hospital more than 20 years ago. They were told it would be rebuilt. They were told not to worry. Yet to this day, many local people, like my constituent Sandra, still talk about what was taken away from them. The site is still cordoned off, unused. When local NHS leaders ask my constituents to trust them today, they are speaking to people who have heard those reassurances before, only to see valued community hospitals taken away from them.

That brings me to Zachary Merton hospital in Rustington. For many of my constituents across Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and our villages, Zachary Merton is not simply a building: it is somewhere they received treatment, welcomed children into the world and visited loved ones receiving palliative care. It is somewhere that provided those services close to home when they were needed most.

The decision to permanently close in-patient services and remove beds at this much loved community hospital has caused enormous concern. Residents packed a public meeting that I organised last month. Hundreds more have signed petitions, written to me and contacted my office. They are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for a voice. West Sussex county council’s health and adult social care scrutiny committee has already determined that closing Zachary Merton was a “significant variation” in service provision. That is vital because Parliament has established a statutory process for a reason. Residents trust those of us who sit in this place to ensure that those processes are followed.

We are not talking about moving a cupboard from one room to another; we are talking about the permanent loss of healthcare services. What on earth is the point of Parliament setting rules around consultation if local NHS leaders can simply decide that they do not apply? What is the point of local authority scrutiny committees examining those decisions if their conclusions can be brushed aside? What is the point of telling residents that they have a right to be heard if services can be removed from them before they are ever given that opportunity? That is what my constituents simply cannot understand. Frankly, neither can I.

I have formally asked the Secretary of State to call in the decision to close Zachary Merton hospital. I raised it again at Health questions only last week, and I will continue pressing until my constituents get the answers, consultation and respect they deserve. My constituents have heard this story before. They were told that Littlehampton hospital would close temporarily, but temporary became permanent, and 25 years later people still talk about the services that were lost. So when residents are told not to worry about Zachary Merton, can Ministers really be surprised that they are sceptical?

Community hospitals should be part of the future NHS, and they should help keep care close to home. They support rehabilitation and reduce pressure on acute hospitals. Most importantly, they give people confidence that local healthcare services will still be there when they need them. They must not become easier places from which to remove services. My constituents have already seen one community hospital disappear. Their trust must not be taken for granted again, either by local NHS decision makers or by this Government. They are determined not to see history repeat itself, and so am I.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to all Back-Bench contributors to the debate. We now move to the Front-Bench speeches, beginning with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Access to Dental Services: West Sussex

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), my constituency neighbour, on securing this very important debate. Access to NHS dentistry is one of the issues that my constituents raise with me most often, and when they do, they are not talking about contract reform, commissioning arrangements or NHS structures. They are talking about pain, cost, worry and ringing practice after practice but still not being able to get an appointment.

Anthony in Littlehampton contacted me after being told that he needed a crown. He is on personal independence payment and employment and support allowance. The treatment that he needs would cost hundreds of pounds. His question was simple: how is he meant to afford that? Clare in Bognor Regis did everything that patients are told to do. She remained with her NHS dentist and kept up with her appointments. Yet she was then told that NHS provision at her practice was being reduced and that she would be placed on a waiting list. Jill in Middleton-on-Sea is a pensioner who has spent years trying to navigate a system in which practices close, go private or stop taking NHS patients altogether. She is still trying to find care that she can afford.

Those are not isolated cases. They show what happens when NHS dentistry becomes too difficult to access. People wait, put treatment off and make compromises that they should not have to make, and then routine problems become urgent ones. We too often talk about dental care as though it sits separately from the rest of the NHS. It does not. Poor oral health affects confidence, nutrition, wellbeing and wider health outcomes, including in respect of heart disease and septicaemia.

One constituent who contacted me, Andrew from Bognor Regis, was undergoing treatment for two separate cancers. Through no fault of his own, regular dental appointments had—understandably—fallen by the wayside while he focused on fighting those illnesses. When he later tried to access NHS dental care again, he found himself in effect locked out of the system—abandoned at precisely the moment he needed support the most. What struck me was not simply his concern about finding dental care, but the wider impact that poor access can have on a patient’s healthcare journey. A patient battling cancer should not also be worrying about whether they can access a dentist.

However, there has been some local progress and I would like to recognise it. In Bognor Regis, mydentist is now delivering additional NHS dental activity and offering about 56 urgent appointments each week. That matters. Urgent appointments help people to get treatment when they need it the most, and stop problems becoming even more serious. The local ICB has also confirmed that new NHS dental contracts have been awarded for both Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, with services expected to open next year. That is welcome. But let us be honest: we are not where we need to be. My constituents should not have to become dental detectives simply to find treatment. They should not have to wait until pain becomes an emergency before the system responds. Urgent care is important, but must not become a substitute for routine access.

We also need to get much more serious about prevention. That starts with children. It starts in the early years with good habits, education and helping families to understand the importance of looking after their oral health. Prevention is better for patients, and it is also better for taxpayers.

Finally, we need to make every appointment count. I recently met Katie Cook, the practice manager at the new mydentist in Bognor Regis, and she told me that around 5% of appointments each week are lost because patients simply do not attend. This is not about blaming people—life happens—but a cancelled appointment can often be reused; a missed appointment cannot. When so many residents are desperate to be seen, that lost time matters. The national dental contract still needs reform, access needs to improve and patients need clearer routes to care when they cannot find an NHS dentist.

I will finish by asking the Minister three questions. First, what further steps will the Government take to improve access to routine NHS dentistry so that people are not forced to wait until a problem becomes an emergency before they can be seen? Secondly, what more can be done to support prevention, particularly among children and young people, so that we stop problems from developing in the first place? Thirdly, what assurances can the Minister give that areas such as West Sussex will receive the additional capacity needed to bring down waiting lists and improve access to NHS appointments?

My constituents do not expect miracles—they understand the pressures facing the NHS—but they do expect to be able to see a dentist when they need one. They expect a system that prevents problems rather than simply responding to crises, and they expect access to NHS dentistry to be determined by need, not by whether they can afford to go private. That is the standard my constituents deserve, and it is the standard they expect this Government to deliver.

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[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this important debate and I am delighted to wish her a happy Sussex Day. We may come from different political traditions, but she occupies Gillian Keegan’s former parliamentary seat, and I occupy Gillian’s former office in the Department of Health and Social Care, so we at least have that in common.

This is the second debate that I have responded to on dentistry in as many days—I was in the Chamber yesterday, and I am here in Westminster Hall today. That shows what a critical matter this is to our constituents, which is why this Government are taking clear action. On access to NHS dentistry, I point to 1.8 million extra treatments in the first seven months of the last financial year. In fact, taking the last full year into consideration, we are on track to deliver more than 2.5 million more dental treatments than in the year leading up to the general election.

[Alison Griffiths]

As this is a debate on dentistry in West Sussex, I invite the Minister to share the numbers that relate specifically to West Sussex rather than to the country.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am so delighted that the hon. Lady intervened, as I was about to come to that. We have reduced the underspend—one of the many utterly shocking things I found across my portfolio when we came into office in July 2024 was a £392 million underspend on NHS dentistry. We had an absurd situation where demand for NHS dentistry was going through the roof, but because of utter incompetence, the previous Government were underspending by £392 million. We were hands-on on that. We have the ICBs commissioning; we have micromanaged this. I am delighted to say that we have got the underspend down to just £36 million in 2024-25. That is how we have managed to massively boost the number of treatments.

According to the most recent data available, the Sussex integrated care board, which serves the constituency of the hon. Member for Chichester, has delivered over 67,200 more NHS dental treatments. That is 11% more treatments between April and October last year compared with the same period before the general election. I hope that answered the question from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths).

While we have made significant progress, I do not downplay for a second the issues faced by the constituents of the hon. Member for Chichester. Whenever I reel off these statistics in a debate or on the morning media round, I can hear people saying, “Okay, you say that, but where is my dentist appointment?” I understand that there are pockets of progress and areas where we are not at all where we need to be. But it is important to be realistic: 14 years of neglect cannot be put right overnight. The result of that neglect has been people doing DIY dentistry, and the No. 1 reason why children aged five to nine are going to hospital is tooth decay. It is a shocking and Dickensian state of affairs, frankly, and the Government take it very seriously.

As I said in the main Chamber yesterday, the solution is not to bring out sticking plasters and press releases, and to tinker around the edges. The sector needs long-term reform, and the Government have laid the groundwork for a recovery that is based on solid foundations, not the sort of gimmicks that we saw under the previous Government. For example, the patient premium cost £126 million and we did not see any increase in new patients. We had to scrap that because it was a waste of time and money.

The most important thing we can do to end dental deserts is train the next generation of dentists in the relevant areas. We are taking steps to increase the supply of dentists across the country. Earlier this month, I announced the first sustained expansion of dental school places since 2007. Let that sink in for a minute. It is 20 years since we had any increase at all in dental school places, apart from a one-off increase after covid. Backed by £11 million, a total of 50 dental school places per year have been allocated equally to the University of Portsmouth and the University of East Anglia.

[Alison Griffiths]

In Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and in significant parts of Chichester, we have coastal areas. In our manifesto, the Conservative party pledged golden handshakes to attract dentists to coastal constituencies, because we know that is one of the issues. Could you tell please me what specific proposals you have to attract dentists to coastal constituencies?

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I haven’t any proposals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I look forward to working constructively with the hon. Lady in her role as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. She is absolutely right to point to the importance of embedding prevention and healthier lifestyles in the way that we approach healthcare in this country. Although we talk a lot and passionately about the NHS, health is not just about the NHS; so many determinants of health start long before people access the NHS. In our 10-year health plan, there is a huge focus on tackling obesity, smoking and ensuring that people have more active and healthier lifestyles, because that is the way to reduce pressure on the NHS and ensure that people across the country live healthier lives.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

West Sussex county council’s health and adult social care scrutiny committee has concluded that the closure of Zachary Merton hospital in Rustington “constituted a significant variation” in services. Given the statutory requirements for consultation—promised, but never delivered—when can residents expect a decision on my call-in request?

[James Murray]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the situation in her constituency. For all of us as MPs, our first job is to raise matters that pertain to our constituents, and healthcare is among the most important services that they receive. I will ask my team to look further into the points that she raises and get back to her.

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[Karin Smyth]

I commend my hon. Friend for her experience in this area. She tempts me to look at amendments in that space, but we do not have plans for that at the moment. The changes we made to NHS England placed the responsibility regarding health inequalities in all our policies firmly at the Secretary of State’s door. I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend about her other ideas on that. The Bill transfers that responsibility to the Secretary of State and we have no plans to make any changes in that area.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

T7. Thousands of people in West Sussex are unable to access an NHS dentist and many constituents in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton tell me that they have been unable to secure an appointment for years. What specific steps is the Secretary of State taking to increase NHS dental capacity in coastal communities, and when does he expect patients to see a measurable improvement?

[Stephen Kinnock]

As I have said to hon. Members across the House today, there is a fundamental challenge around the dental contract. Units of dental activity do not work as a way of incentivising dentists to do NHS dentistry, so that, fundamentally, has to be fixed. I am proud that, thanks to the measures that we have put in place, 2.5 million additional courses of treatment have been delivered, compared with the same period before the general election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ahmed]

I see that the brass neck of the hon. Gentlemen’s predecessor has been transplanted to him. He talks about seven months, but what about the last 14 years, through which the Conservatives presided over the decay and decline of our NHS? They failed our patients and the clinicians who serve them. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is in regular contact with maternity families and, like me, he takes the matter extremely seriously. He will report to this House on the outcome of his deliberations on a regular basis.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to increase access to care in the community.

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

Through our 10-year health plan and the shift from hospital to community, our new neighbourhood health service will benefit millions. It is underpinned by 120 new neighbourhood health centres by 2030, alongside the supercharging of community diagnostic centres, which will deliver faster, more accessible care, with over 100 sites open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. This massive expansion will transform community access for millions of patients, regardless of postcode.

[Alison Griffiths]

I am delighted to hear the Minister’s response. Zachary Merton hospital in Rustington was closed temporarily, but that closure became permanent and the site is being progressed for disposal. More than half of residents in Rustington are elderly, and rely on intermediate and step-down care. They have not been consulted on the permanent closure, despite assurances from Sussex community NHS foundation trust and NHS Sussex integrated care board. Will the Minister confirm whether he considers that a substantial variation in NHS services? Will he consider exercising his call-in powers before the site is irreversibly sold?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am not familiar with the details of that case, but if the hon. Lady writes to me I would be more than happy to take the issue up. These matters are determined by the ICBs and trusts, and the Government are not in the business of micromanaging what is happening out there in the field. We believe that people who are closest to our citizens are the best people to take those decisions, but we do expect the right outcomes. I would be happy to work with the hon. Lady on that basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Ahmed]

The hon. Gentleman can certainly be given that assurance from me, as the Minister also responsible for four-nation engagement. The Hughes report examined both the sodium valproate and pelvic mesh issues, and I know that these resonate across the four nations, particularly when it comes to licensing and regulation of medical technology. He has that assurance from me.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to help prevent industrial action in the NHS.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

Trade unions, representing the majority of NHS staff, are engaged in constructive dialogue with the Government, particularly around reform of Agenda for Change. All NHS staff have received above-inflation pay rises. No other staff in the public sector have received a pay rise as high as that of resident doctors. We offered extra jobs, prioritisation for UK graduates and help with out-of-pocket expenses. Against that backdrop, it is simply appalling that British Medical Association leaders led their members out on strike, even though a majority of resident doctors supported the Government’s offer.

I am pleased to report to the House that, thanks to NHS leaders and frontline staff, including the resident doctors who turned up, the NHS met its ambitious goal and 95% of planned elective activity went ahead, meaning that 850,000 patients got the procedures and operations they needed, despite the BMA’s reckless action. None the less, the time and money that this has cost us is detrimental, and I hope the BMA will come back to the table constructively.

[Alison Griffiths]

After warnings from the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, my constituents are still rightly concerned that services may yet be cut, appointments lost and operations delayed as a direct result of the BMA’s industrial action. These strikes did not need to happen. What will the Secretary of State do to reassure patients in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that their safety and wellbeing is a priority for this Government, who have no timetable and no plan, and who have made no progress towards ending these damaging rolling strikes?

[Wes Streeting]

I must say that a bout of collective amnesia has swept the Opposition Benches, because the Conservatives seem to have forgotten the absolute calamity of bad industrial relations over which they presided. The difference between Members on this side of the House and the Conservatives is that we have never closed the door to talks; we have always been willing to engage with resident doctors in good faith. Unlike under that party, resident doctors have received a 28.9% pay rise from this Labour Government. It is a reminder to resident doctors across the land that the grass is not greener on the other side, and that they should work with a Labour Government who want to work with them.

Non-surgical Aesthetic and Cosmetic Treatments

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this important and increasingly pressing issue. I also thank the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), who all made important contributions.

A report by the British Beauty Council showed that spending on non-surgical cosmetic treatments totalled £10.1 billion last year. That includes the 900,000 botox injections that are performed in the UK each year, and other non-surgical procedures, which continue to grow exponentially in popularity. We are not talking about a minor issue here; this is a multibillion-pound industry, which is snowballing at breakneck pace.

Yet this sector remains dangerously unregulated. Although there are training standards, such as the national occupational standards for practitioners in beauty aesthetics, there is no legislative framework to require all practitioners to meet those standards. As a result, some practitioners are not only unlicensed, but unqualified and inadequately insured to perform the procedures they are performing. We cannot sit back and allow patients of these procedures to entrust their safety to unlicensed cowboys profiting from the lack of regulation. It is time to call an end to this wild west free-for-all, and give patients in this industry, and the responsible operators, the protection they need and deserve.

To that end, I am delighted that the previous Government kick-started this process, first by banning cosmetic fillers for under-18s in England under the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act 2021. That was followed by the Health and Care Act 2022, which gave Ministers the power to tighten regulations by introducing a new licensing regime. The current Government are slowly and finally getting into gear on that scheme, but when do they expect to implement this protection as a matter of public safety? What steps will be taken to raise awareness of new regulations to improve public confidence in the non-surgical cosmetic sector as these measures are introduced?

Of the 27,462 procedures performed and recorded by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons in 2024, approximately 93% were performed on women. Young women aged 18 to 25 years old also made up 48% of the 3,000 complaints to Save Face, a Government-approved register of medical aesthetic practitioners. That means that the Government’s failure to get on and implement regulations in this sector is disproportionately affecting a vulnerable group to a significant degree.

Furthermore, the governing voice in this area is social media, again, disproportionately placing the burden of risk on younger people. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh interviewed female Instagram users aged 18 to 30. All of them had undergone, or hoped to undergo, cosmetic surgery, and all of them looked to Instagram influencers for information about cosmetic procedures. With nine in 10 children owning a mobile phone by the time they reach 11, and 75% of eight to 17-year-olds having their own social media account, there is a real danger that our children and grandchildren could be exposed to cosmetic surgery at a young age, unaware of the risks of a cheap bodily enhancement.

Mental health struggles and body image challenges are unfortunately well documented, with almost 850,000 children accessing NHS mental health services in June 2025, and two in three children feeling negative or very negative about their body image, according to a survey commissioned by the Women and Equalities Committee from 2020. Social media, combined with heightened self-scrutiny on video calls since the pandemic, has sadly cast the way in which young people view themselves in an increasingly negative light. As such, the cosmetic surgery “boom”—as termed by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, following a 102% rise in procedures in 2022—is alarming but unsurprising.

A failed procedure can have potentially life-threatening repercussions, and an unlicensed practitioner’s lack of training, skills and experience significantly increases the risk of failure. We owe it to the livelihoods of patients, who are predominantly young women, to improve the safety of non-surgical cosmetic procedures as much as we can. Governments are there not to stifle growth and innovation—the kind that creates jobs, rewards entrepreneurship and helps businesses to grow—but to protect the interests of British citizens in times of need. This is one of those times. The safety, and even the lives, of consumers are at risk if we do not act.

With that in mind, will the Government commit to swiftly implementing a licensing framework to combat such life-threatening risks? Furthermore, the problem in this area is precisely that unlicensed practitioners carrying out procedures are operating under the radar. How do the Government intend to support local authorities to actively and effectively enforce the licensing framework, to ensure that such practitioners are prevented from operating on patients in backroom shadows?

The number of complaints from patients with failed non-surgical cosmetic procedures shows no sign of plateauing. Again, I refer to the figures from Save Face, which received almost 3,000 complaints in 2022, 35% more than in 2020. Complaints about dermal fillers—treatments to add volume, typically to smooth out wrinkles or enhance facial definition—made up almost 70% of that figure.

As we debate this matter today, let us remember the enormity of the influence we are privileged to have. When they go wrong, cosmetic procedures can be life-changing for all the wrong reasons. I urge the Government to accelerate the licensing framework for non-surgical cosmetic procedures and treatments—therefore requiring practitioners to be licensed, qualified and insured—for the sake of public safety and the sake of saving lives.

Access to NHS Dentistry

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is an honour to speak in this debate and to raise the plight of my constituents, some of whom are struggling in silence, pain and frustration, simply trying to access basic NHS dental care. I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) for securing the debate, and I share her views on pretty much everything she has said, but in particular the wider impact of poor dentistry on A&E, the NHS more widely and cardiac health.

I have many constituents’ testimony to refer to today. Let me begin with the real story of a person who has worked tirelessly her entire life. Now, due to long covid, she is housebound and dependent. When she missed a single NHS dental appointment due to illness, she was removed from the list. She has since been unable to find another NHS dentist. When an infection struck, she waited a week for emergency care at St Richard’s hospital, and she is not alone.

In 2023, only 24.7% of adults in the south-east were seen by an NHS dentist in the previous two years—the second-lowest rate in England. In some areas, fewer than one in five adults have been able to access NHS dentistry. The Government have announced recent steps, with 26,546 additional urgent care dental appointments for Sussex—a rise from 245 to 455 a week. We have a £20,000 golden hello relocation incentive to attract dentists to underserved areas. Some 17 of those posts have been approved for Sussex. I welcome those steps, but they are not enough.

The Dental Defence Union and the Public Accounts Committee have made it clear, as have other colleagues, that the NHS contract is broken. It disincentivises dentists from treating those patients with the greatest needs. In 2022, 91% of dentists surveyed felt worn out, and 84% reported burnout. They are walking away from NHS dentistry not out of disinterest, but because the system is unsustainable. How many of the urgent contracts are now available, and when will real contract reform take place?

NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course it is not just in Loughborough that we have a challenge with access to general practice; it is right across the country. I want to be clear, because GPs come in for a lot of criticism: primary care may be broken, and the front door to the NHS may be broken, but GPs did not break it. In fact, there are fewer GPs now than there were in 2015, yet they are providing more appointments. They have worked hard to improve the productivity of general practice, but they are under-resourced. That is why we are committed, as I told the Royal College of GPs just last week, to delivering the shift that we need out of hospitals and into the community—to growing primary care, including general practice, as a proportion of the NHS’s budget, so that we have the GPs needed to treat patients on time.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

Saturday was World Meningitis Day, but in the last year we have seen an almost doubling of meningitis cases in the UK. Does the Secretary of State think that the meningitis vaccination take-up rate is where it should be?

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for her question. No, I do not think that the take-up rate is where it should be. That is why in the short time we have been in office we have put more effort and energy into vaccine take-up, but there is more to do. I welcome her to the House, and will not have a go at her for the record of the people who sat on the Government Benches just before the general election.