Health Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Debate between Natasha Irons and Sojan Joseph

Committee stage
Thursday 9th July 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Sojan Joseph]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. I strongly believe that public health is very important to our health system because it focuses on prevention, so that people do not end up in A&E or in hospital beds. Unfortunately, over the last 10 or 15 years we have seen the opposite. If we are serious about improving the nation’s health, prevention must sit at the heart of every decision we make.

Public health professionals bring a vital perspective—one that looks beyond treating illness to understanding and tackling its root causes. They consider the wider determinants of health, from housing and education to inequality and the environment, and they help us design services that keep people well, rather than responding only when they become unwell. We need to identify our priorities, ensure resources are allocated appropriately and develop a long-term strategy.

New clause 79 proposes to create a new committee. As somebody who worked in the NHS for many years, I have seen that there is no shortage of committees, senior leaders, management or meetings in our healthcare system. In fact, there are too many. What is missing are people to work on the frontline; that is what we saw over the 14 years under the Conservatives—and the Lib Dems were part of that.

One reason why I became active in politics was that I saw the frontline struggling. I worked as a nurse on the frontline in mental health services, and what we saw was money being diverted to create more senior leadership, more groups, more meetings and more management, while we were missing the people who actually did the work on the frontline. The new clause asks us to create a new committee, but we have enough committees and managers. In fact, through the Bill, we are trying to modernise the system by getting rid of some of those managers—that is the most important thing I can identify in the Bill. However, lots of the new clauses I have seen today and in the last Committee sitting have proposed creating more committees and directors. We are missing a point here. The Committee has an opportunity to reform our health system. If Members speak to a nurse or doctor who works in a hospital in our system, they will say, “We need more nurses, healthcare assistants and doctors, not more managers or directors.”

Not only in this new clause, but in many of the new clauses we are talking about, we need to think about embedding the public health voice within integrated care boards. Stronger integrated care boards will enable us to act early, reduce health inequalities and deliver care closer to home.

[Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making powerful comments. I was struck by his argument that we need to focus more on what we do in communities. In Croydon East, a community diagnostic centre has opened, which is important because people in my community have a healthy life expectancy 10 years lower than that of people living a mile down the road. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be focusing on those real, tangible interventions at the heart of the communities that need help the most? That is what this Government are trying to do.

[Sojan Joseph]

I absolutely agree, and I can give an example. Last week, as part of the ICB’s new independent neighbourhood health centre, one of the GP practices in my constituency started to proactively go and see all elderly patients. It is not just giving those patients appointments when they fall ill; it is proactively visiting them. We need that kind of support so that we can prevent illnesses and prevent people from needing to go to hospital.