NHS: Winter Preparedness

Chris Vince Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

We do flex beds depending on needs. For example, there were just over 101,000 beds open on average per day in the past week, which was up on the previous week and broadly the same as it was this time last year. We are investing in the NHS, and we have to ensure that people get the right care, in the right place at the right time. That means not just investing in secondary care; if anything, it means investing in the front and back doors of the hospital—primary care, community services and social care—to deal with the flow of patients through hospitals.

I do not pretend that these are easy issues or that everything is going swimmingly in the NHS—quite the opposite. I have seen conditions on our screens in the past week or two that I would not want to be treated in, someone I love to be treated in, or anyone to be treated in. It is a reflection of that fact that we inherited an NHS that was in enormous crisis. It will take time to recover. The key for me is achieving year-on-year improvements to get the NHS back on its feet and to ensure it is fit for the future.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I put on record my thanks to the staff at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow for their work to support residents in my constituency not just at Christmas but all year round.

Clearly, the BMA’s decision to take strike action over Christmas is hugely disappointing. As a former teacher, I remember that if we took industrial action, we always tried to avoid taking it over exam season, for similar reasons. Will the Secretary of State reiterate his point about the deal he put forward to the BMA? In particular, reducing the number of applicants per job is hugely important and should be welcomed by resident doctors, or potential resident doctors.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Responsible trade unions think about the wider workforce and the impact on service users, whether they are children or other users of public services. Crucially, for most trade unions in this country strike action is a last resort. It is astonishing that the BMA chose to go on strike after a 28.9% pay rise, well ahead of the Government making any decisions on future years’ pay and with the Government willing to discuss future years’ pay with the BMA.

It is extraordinary that the BMA has chosen to go on strike after we proposed to take action on jobs, including by bringing forward legislation at an expedited pace. By the way, that involved ensuring that the legal advice was watertight and that, operationally, we could deliver a new application round. It involved working trust by trust to secure the extra training places, and working with my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Even after all that effort was strained to bring forward something quickly for this application round, the BMA rejected it. It is unreasonable, and to have rejected the offer of postponing strikes until the new year on the grounds of patient safety and doing the decent thing by their colleagues was unconscionable.