NHS England Update

Debate between Danny Beales and Wes Streeting

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

And my friends at DCMS with their considerable spending power. No, I will stick with the Treasury in my order of favourites, thank you very much. I know where my bread is buttered.

To return to the point made by the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), I thank Dame Jenny Harries for her leadership of UKHSA. We are recruiting for an outstanding replacement and successor, and that is an opportunity to look in the wider context at some of the first principles. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the specific, traditional Porton Down versus Harlow decision, which has been running around the system so long that is now used in a case study for senior civil servant recruitment. The worst decision is indecision. It has plagued us for too long and I hope we can soon report back to the House with a decision on that for everyone’s benefit.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement today from the Secretary of State. Clearly, there is massive duplication of functions across the many regulatory, national, local and regional NHS bodies and huge room for efficiency.

I want to press the Secretary of State on two points. First, will he assure me that the bonfire of bureaucracy will not stop effective local management of NHS trusts and community settings, as IPPR has found that locally the NHS is poorly and under-managed and clinical staff are backfilling admin and management roles? Secondly, as he mentioned, the roll-out of digital technology has been far too slow, with NHS Digital’s move into NHS England not directing change fast enough, so how will the change ensure that the Department of Health and Social Care grips the digital roll-out, accelerates it and ensures the proper integration of NHS digital functions?

[Wes Streeting]

That is a great question from my hon. Friend. We have to give people the tools to do the job. The Prime Minister set me and my hon. Friends in the Department an enormous challenge on behalf of the public. In turn, I am setting an enormous challenge for NHS leaders at every level, but particularly for frontline NHS leaders. We have to give them the tools to do the job in terms of data platforms and the technology that they are given to work with, ensuring that they have access not just to cutting-edge treatments and medical technology, but to the back-office productivity support that can drive efficiency and improvement and, frankly, liberate managers and frontline staff from the arcane systems they are working with.

Some of the very best people I have met in the last few years, shadowing this portfolio and now holding it in government, are NHS leaders, especially on the frontline. It is my responsibility to give them the tools to do the job. That is not just about financial resources; it means bulldozing through some of the regulatory barriers and overcentralised instructions that stop them making decisions in the best interests of patients, in terms of clinical pathways and value for taxpayers. I have given them an undertaking that I will have their backs, both on the decisions that they will have to take on the frontline and on bulldozing through the national bureaucracy that is tying them up in knots when we need to set them free.

New Hospital Programme Review

Debate between Danny Beales and Wes Streeting

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

Today’s announcement is welcome for my constituents. It confirms that we are keeping the promises we made in 2023 to deliver Hillingdon hospital in the first term of a Labour Government. I thank my right hon. Friend for that commitment. We also know that, shamefully, my predecessor and his predecessor misled my constituents. My predecessor stood here, almost where I am standing today, and told my constituents that Hillingdon hospital was fully funded and that construction had started. We now know that that simply was not true. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital that today’s statement outlines a fully funded programme that is deliverable and an honest assessment of when hospitals will be delivered? Can he confirm that that is the case?

[Wes Streeting]

First, I thank my hon. Friend for his strong representations on behalf of his constituents, not just since his election, but before it. Between the by-election and his election to this place, he did not give up; he continued to fight for his community.

I stood outside Hillingdon hospital, having had a good look around at the state of the hospital and the plans for the reconstruction of the site. I am delighted to have kept my promise and this Government’s promise, so that construction at Hillingdon hospital will begin in 2027-28. My hon. Friend is quite right to say that his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor made claims about Hillingdon hospital that were not true. This Government will not make those mistakes. We will keep our promise. What we have set out for all schemes in the new hospital programme is a credible, realistic, funded timetable that this Government, for as long as there is a Labour Government, will actually deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Danny Beales and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

Despite my best efforts, the hon. Gentleman is back. I congratulate him through gritted teeth.

I was very impressed by what I saw at King’s Mill hospital, and I am proud of the last Labour Government’s record of delivering the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history. As I said during the election campaign, we will build on that success and learn from some of our shortcomings, too.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

T9. I welcome the honesty and urgency of reviewing the new-build hospitals programme. Residents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip are sick and tired after 14 years of broken promises on a new hospital. Board minutes have revealed that no business case was agreed under the last Government. No funding was released for a new hospital, and not a brick has been laid. Does my right hon. Friend agree that urgent investment is needed at Hillingdon hospital? Will he come back to the hospital, a year later, to visit staff and discuss their plans?