Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that primary care is in crisis, with people across the country struggling to access GP services and dental treatment; believes that everyone should be able to get an appointment to see a doctor when they need to and has the right to receive dental treatment when they need it; is concerned by the Government’s failure to remain on track to deliver 6,000 additional GPs by 2024-25; and therefore calls on the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to urgently bring forward a plan to fix the crisis in primary care, meet the Government’s GP target and ensure everyone who needs an NHS dentist can access one.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to open this debate on the future of primary care, access to GPs and access to dentists. It is a particular delight to see the Secretary of State here. I so enjoyed our exchange of letters last week that I cannot wait to repeat the exchange in real life.

Primary care is the front door to our NHS—for most of us, the general practitioner is the first port of call when we are worried about our health—but after 12 years of Conservative mismanagement and underfunding of our health service, the front door is jammed. Patients are finding it impossible to book GP appointments, serious conditions are going undiagnosed, patients are waiting longer than is safe for treatment, with backlogs building up and greater pressure placed on the rest of the health service, and millions of people are waiting more than a month to be seen, often in pain and discomfort.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent beginning to his speech. What is his view of my local hospital, where, instead of 350 people daily, we have 710 people coming into accident and emergency at the North Middlesex Hospital? What response does he have to that kind of demand? Where is it going to lead if people cannot see a GP? They are going to end up in A&E.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that problem. If the front door of the NHS in primary care is jammed, people end up presenting in A&E. As I shall outline in my speech, this is not only a great inconvenience and burden to patients; it comes at an additional cost to the NHS and we all pay the price for that in every respect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I will take some interventions in a moment.

The hon. Gentleman has had every opportunity to do the right thing, to put patients first and to condemn these unjustified and reckless transport strikes, yet at every turn he has chosen to back his union paymasters.

[Catherine West]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

I hope the hon. Lady will condemn the strikes.

[Catherine West]

The Secretary of State speaks about opportunities. In this House, we had a number of opportunities to get workforce reform, workforce numbers and a plan for our health service into the Health and Care Act 2022. Why did he miss those opportunities?

[Sajid Javid]

We are seeing record investment in the workforce, and we are seeing record increases. For the first time ever, the NHS is also coming up with a 15-year long-term workforce strategy, which I hope the hon. Lady welcomes.

The Government have always been on the side of patients and the people who care for them. I pay tribute to everyone working in primary care and dentistry for the difference they make day in, day out to their patients’ lives. I know that the pandemic has brought some unimaginable pressures, and equally I know that many of those pressures have not gone away now we are living with covid.

The hon. Member for Ilford North talks as though he does not know where the pressures have come from—as though he has had his head under a rock for two years. The NHS has said it believes that between 11 million and 13 million people stayed away from the NHS, including their GPs and dentists. Rightly, many of those people are now coming forward for the treatment they need—and I want them to come forward.