Josh Babarinde
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Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
It is a delight to speak under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for securing this important debate.
Many of those living with long-term conditions are people who live happy and enriched lives. They are supported not only by wonders in medical advancements, but by the communities of people—friends, family or incredible NHS and care staff—who support them week in, week out, day in, day out. But for some, the consequences when those support networks fail can be catastrophic. I would like to use this opportunity to raise awareness of the plight of my constituent, Andy.
Andy has been living with a benign brain tumour and functional neurological disorder for nearly a decade. In that time he has been treated in various medical settings. By 2022, he had been transferred from the care of London hospitals to medical facilities closer to home in my constituency of Eastbourne. Following an initial appointment there in April 2022, he was told that there would be a follow-up six months later. Outrageously, due to human error, the follow-up was not held until November 2024, a staggering two and a half years after his initial appointment. I hear of cases like that again and again, disproportionately from patients experiencing long-term health conditions. It seems there is no parity of esteem between people suffering from these kinds of conditions and people suffering from shorter-term, more emergency-based conditions.
If that was not bad enough, Andy was subsequently informed that the services and expertise needed to treat his condition, which he had been referred to Eastbourne for, were not available locally, so one has to ask why that transfer happened in the first place. But the wider question, which goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, is why towns like Eastbourne are denied such important services locally. It cannot be right that people living with long-term conditions sometimes have to travel dozens or in some cases hundreds of miles to access the care that they deserve and rightly expect.
We have seen in the likes of my town and across the country, following years of underfunding by the last Government, centres like the Eastbourne district general hospital losing core services to other towns and cities nearby, forcing residents to trek even further to get the treatment they need. The life of my constituent, Andy, has been hugely impacted by this woeful state of affairs—a broken system and broken administration within it. Both his personal and professional lives have been significantly compromised. He can, of course, take his case to the ombudsman, which he plans to do, but that process can take months if not years to conclude, and he needs answers now.
I ask the Government: what steps are being taken to address and rectify the issues, not only with the funding but with the administration of our NHS, caused by some of these things that create such grief and hardship for residents like Andy? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that local hospitals like mine are equipped to treat a broad range of long-term conditions? Most importantly, for Andy, can I get a categoric reassurance from the Government that his case will be looked into and resolved as a matter of urgency, so that neither he nor anyone else in his position has to experience this gross injustice on top of the hardship of living with a long-term condition?