North Tees Hospital
Matt Vickers Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to the House for the opportunity to hold this important and urgent debate, and to the Minister for his attention this evening. After much time spent securing the debate, I am delighted to have the chance to make the case for much-needed and urgent improvements to North Tees Hospital.
I pay tribute to all the amazing healthcare workers—the doctors, nurses, technicians, cleaners, and anyone who had a hand in making sure that our hospitals, including North Tees, stayed afloat during the pandemic. While many retreated to the safety of their own homes, they got on with the job, putting themselves at risk, to help keep us safe. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude. I was recently fortunate enough to undertake a shift alongside the doctors, nurses and surgeons at North Tees Hospital, and I saw for myself the challenges that they are facing and the sheer scale of the elective surgery backlog created by the pandemic. Doctors and surgeons are being forced to make decisions on who gets their treatment first: the elderly lady who needs a hip replacement to deal with her arthritis or the youngster who needs surgery after a sporting accident.
Dealing with this backlog involves us all making the difficult decisions that are required to get our NHS back to full health. While none of us on the Conservative Benches wanted to increase national insurance or create the health and social care levy, having seen the waiting lists, and seen the work our surgeons are doing, I am confident it was the right thing to do. This funding is what our constituents need and what our hospitals so desperately need. Of course, this money comes on top of the record investment that the Conservative Government are placing in the NHS, with 50,000 more nurses, 50 million more GP appointments a year, and, as announced yesterday, an additional £5.9 billion, taking the total investment to date to £176.5 billion—a 27% increase since the Conservatives came into government in 2010. In the past year, we have welcomed £6.5 million invested in North Tees, including huge improvements to our now award-winning urgent care centre.
Seeing the hard work and commitment of all the people who work and volunteer at North Tees Hospital is inspirational, and the people there really are award-winning. Dr Iain Loughran, one of the physiotherapy consultants, won an award at the chief allied health professions officer awards for creating an app for physiotherapists who were deployed during the pandemic; nursing associate Lisa Tomlinson was shortlisted for the rising star award for her work as an ambassador for cervical cancer after beating the illness herself; and volunteer Stephen Pratt was awarded the British Empire Medal as part of the Queen’s new year honours. These incredible people deserve the facilities and resources they need to go about their great work.
Built in 1968, the hospital serves a population of 400,000 people—a population with some of the highest health inequalities and highest rates of deprivation in the country. It is a heartbreaking and outrageous fact that, according to Public Health England, Stockton has the nation’s biggest gaps in life expectancy. In central Stockton, male life expectancy is just 64 years, while just a few miles up the road a man can expect to live to 85. This cannot go on; it has to change. When it comes to levelling up, people’s life expectancy must surely be a priority, and delivering good health services is the key to that.
Unfortunately, the North Tees Hospital building does not live up to the standard fit for the great people who work there and the patients treated there. During my shift, I got to see the challenges of the estate and the staff’s frustrations. The building was constructed in the 1960s. It is a concrete building constructed at a time when medical needs and processes were very different, and the architects had no foresight when it came to design. As a result, the hospital is in a state of poor repair and is pulling resources from frontline services to address its issues. Structural and engineering elements of the major buildings are now well beyond their life expectancy. The NHS workers in my patch, who have worked with determination and perseverance to make the best of the facilities they have, have said that this is putting the trust’s ability to provide good care at risk.
It is time to replace this hospital, which is far past its sell-by date. The fact that the hospital is comprised of two towers, which host both wards and theatres, means that piecemeal improvement or ongoing gradual investments will struggle to ever make the change needed. It is not practical and barely possible to extend a ward or theatre above the ground floor. The building has a flat roof, and as a result the building suffers hugely during adverse weather conditions. Nobody should be greeted by buckets catching water from leaky roofs when sat in A&E, in a ward or when in theatre or losing a loved one. At those tough times, we need to do better than that.
The hospital is no longer fit for purpose. By national health building note standards, our wards are way too small, with too many shared rooms. HNB guidance suggests that 85% of rooms should be single occupancy. In our trust, the proportion of single rooms is just 16%. Our theatres are also far too small. HNB standards suggest that theatres should be 55 square metres, while some theatres at North Tees are just 28 square metres. That has a huge impact on what can be done in them. There is not the space for modern technology and robotics. Not being able to have that equipment means that some patients must go elsewhere for certain surgery. Moreover, it results in some surgery taking longer to perform and it extends recovery times, so longer surgery slots are filled more quickly and more time is spent in hospital beds.
Improving isolation facilities on wards, improving clinical adjacencies and increasing the number of single-bed rooms are all options that would improve health outcomes in Stockton South, but they can only be achieved if we invest now. No amount of paint slapped on the hospital and no amount of plastering over the cracks could hide the fact that it is no longer fit for purpose. A six-facet survey was recently conducted, and it concluded that demolition and replacement was by far the best option. The costs are only one of the factors that justify that approach.
The trust continues to invest significant capital in maintaining the facilities in a safe and operational condition, but the six-facet survey indicates a steep increase in the backlog, with more than £250 million-worth of maintenance to be undertaken in the next 10 years as a “do minimum” option. On the other hand, the consolidation of services on to a new hospital site would have estimated savings of between £5 million and £6 million a year. My trust does not want to spend millions each year maintaining a crumbling building; it wants to spend the money on doctors and nurses and improving health outcomes.
By far the most important justification for this proposal is the improved care it would provide for my constituents and others. A new modernised estate could support a health management programme that would address some of the health inequalities that exist in communities such as mine, because, sadly, we are still more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or heart conditions or die earlier than the average citizen. Those problems are set only to get worse as our population ages.
Aside from that investment, there are so many other opportunities up for grabs that could revolutionise healthcare in North Tees. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the future of retail, I am a huge advocate of the “Health on the High Street” initiative, which I have been championing locally. By decentralising NHS estates and putting diagnostic centres in empty buildings on our high streets, we can bring healthcare closer to people’s doorsteps and bring some desperately needed footfall to our town centres. During the last year, I have taken that idea to my local NHS trust, and there is now a strong possibility of developing a hospital with diagnostic facilities in our town centres, but it all costs money, and we need cash in Stockton.
If there is one other thing we can do that would make the NHS fit for the future, it is getting rid of Labour’s crippling private finance initiative deals. The James Cook University Hospital, which is not in my patch, but serves many of my constituents, has a PFI scheme that costs £57 million a year. That is more than £1 million every single week and £18 million more than an equivalent hospital trust would ever have to pay. It is ridiculous. That £18 million could pay for 530 nurses in our hospitals.
I was delighted that the Conservative Chancellor announced in 2018 that those dodgy debt-loading schemes would no longer be used, but if we want to put the NHS on a surer footing, we need to get rid of the schemes that remain and hold it back. I ask the Minister to look again at what can be done to end Labour’s debt legacy on the James Cook University Hospital, so that that money can be spent on nurses, doctors and improving the health outcomes of people from our part of the world.
I will return to my main ask before I finish. To eradicate the risks associated with an ageing estate that is no longer up to the job, a new 21st-century hospital for Stockton is a must do. Now is not the time for sticking plaster. We cannot go on throwing good money after bad to maintain a building that is just not fit for purpose.
I hope that Ministers will back the bid that has been put forward by North Tees, so that we can build a new North Tees that is fit for the future, fit for patients, and fit for staff. I know that the Government are committed to modernising the NHS and have announced a massive investment that will fund healthcare across the region. The Minister is probably sick of hearing from me on the issue, but I will not give up until the amazing doctors, nurses and staff have the modern facilities and resources that they deserve.
In the light of that, I invite the Minister to the hospital to see the challenges and the improvements that must be made. If his diary does not allow that, however, North Tees will happily take a nice big cheque instead.
Dementia Action Week
Matt Vickers Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
It is a privilege to speak in this important debate and to hear the thoughtful and moving contributions from across the Chamber. Dementia is an awful, horrific disease, not only for those who have been diagnosed but for family members who are condemned to witness the slow decline of a loved one. With dementia expected to affect one in three people born in the UK today and numbers set to double within the next decade, few of us will not see or experience the horrors of dementia at first hand.
I am sure we have all heard from constituents struggling to provide care to an elderly partner—sometimes while being ill, frail or elderly themselves, or balancing support for a mother or father alongside their career—and from elderly people who are having to lose their homes to provide for residential care. In Stockton-on-Tees, there are currently an estimated 2,665 people over 65 with dementia, almost 60% of whom live with a severe form of dementia and, as a result, require comprehensive support and social care provision.
Dementia is a condition that many still see as taboo and that carries with it the stereotype of being invisible or frail. It is important that we all remember that people have had a life before dementia and will continue to have a life thereafter. People with dementia must be treated with dignity and afforded the autonomy to continue living good lives after diagnosis, but we must still ensure that we have the right support in place to help sufferers.
We are lucky in my part of the world to have fantastic organisations such as Teesside Dementia Link Services, which provides invaluable support to dementia sufferers, their carers and families through support groups, activities and social events. Its work is second to none, and I know that it has made a huge difference to so many people’s lives. I thank Gail, Mark and all their incredible volunteers for everything they do every day to support people through the toughest of times.
Finding a cure for dementia is a challenge that will define our generation. While we deal with the new pandemic of covid, we cannot forget that the pandemic of dementia has been around for generations. That is why I am delighted that the Government have made finding a cure one of their top priorities, committing to extra funding for research and speeding up trials for new treatments. Both the cure for dementia and reform of our social care system must be national priorities, so that we can provide light at the end of the tunnel for those who are suffering and those who work so hard to support them.
Covid-19 Update
Matt Vickers Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
A huge debt of gratitude is owed to all those involved in our incredible, world-leading vaccination programme, including Teesside’s hospital, our primary care network and the Fairfield pharmacy, which was one of the first pharmacy-based vaccination hubs around. Can my right hon. Friend confirm when Teesside will benefit from a mass vaccination site, so that we can get more jabs into the arms of Teessiders as soon as possible?
Matt Hancock
The performance of people on Teesside in getting the jab rolled out so fast has been absolutely magnificent—particularly, but not only, in Stockton-on-Tees, and I am not just saying that because it was my hon. Friend who asked me that question. It has been a really impressive performance and I am very happy to look into when we might be able to open a Teesside mass vaccination centre, but what I can say is that across Teesside the roll-out is going well and I am grateful to everybody who is coming forward so enthusiastically to get the jab.
Vaccine Roll-out
Matt Vickers Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady raises an incredibly important point: someone who has been vaccinated can still catch coronavirus for several weeks. It is really important that people know that. When people are vaccinated, they are told the time that it takes and the limit of the effectiveness, especially in that early period, and they are told very clearly that they still have to follow the rules. That is an important part, especially until we can measure the effectiveness of the vaccination programme on transmission. Only yesterday, I reviewed the communications that go to people when they have been vaccinated, and they are very clear and robust, but it is important that everybody, post-vaccination, continues to follow those rules, both to bring the number of cases down because of the impact on transmission and to protect themselves. The vaccine is the way out, but it does not work immediately, and people still need to be cautious.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
From policemen to teachers and shop workers to bus drivers, our key workers have been on the frontline in this pandemic, and we owe them so much. Once the most vulnerable in society have been vaccinated, will my right hon. Friend look to prioritise those who put themselves in harm’s way to help others?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically astute point. The priority, of course, has to be those who are clinically most vulnerable, and after that we will make a decision. I have called for a national debate on who should go next. We will look at the data on transmission and who transmits most, and we will also consider key workers, who are often on the frontline, whether that is teachers, bus drivers or others. That is something that we are actively considering, and I will take his suggestion on board.
Covid-19 Update
Matt Vickers Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes. Our principle is to roll out the vaccine across the whole of the UK according to clinical need, and that is what we should do.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
Teesside Dementia Link Services is an amazing charity run by some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. It delivers support to families and individuals dealing with dementia. It has told me of some of the pain suffered by many in our care homes who are unable to see loved ones. I welcome the recent guidance and I ask my right hon. Friend to continue to do everything he can to ensure that we safely and meaningfully reunite families.
Matt Hancock
I am a fan of new technology—I am not going to deny that—because it can help to improve people’s lives, and this is one example. New technology, such as testing technology and quite intricate biochemistry, will help to enable people to see their loved ones in care homes. I cannot think of a better example of how new technology can really help to improve people’s lives. I cannot wait to see that happen.
Covid-19 Restrictions: South Yorkshire
Matt Vickers Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes an important point about loneliness and its impact on mental health. She will know that support bubbles still exist, but she alludes to a broader point about long-term mental health support. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), we have invested heavily in the NHS, which includes funding for mental health support services. The hon. Lady is right: this is not just about funding during this pandemic; this is about being aware of people’s long-term needs and the impact on them. I am happy to commit to considering that issue carefully in the months and years ahead.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
These tough measures will have a huge impact on the lives of local people. Can my hon. Friend assure me that the Government will do everything they can to provide an extensive package of support to local people, businesses and councils and that his Department will continue to do everything it can to avoid the need for such a lockdown in Stockton South?
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Vickers Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
Matt Hancock
Yes, I would love to come up to Stockton and have a look round. I have enjoyed my many visits, especially the one in December, which went particularly well, just before the House reconvened after the general election.