NHS and Social Care Funding

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Here we are again debating the NHS. [Interruption.] I am all on my own because obviously this is predominantly a crisis in NHS England, not a crisis in NHS Scotland, as I will discuss as we go on.

The problem is that we are talking about patients who are suffering—who may suffer from more infections, as we have heard. We are talking about staff who are in tears and who are desperate, and who feel that they cannot deliver the care they would expect to deliver. This is not just a matter of isolated stories of “Joe from Wiltshire” and “Mike from Leeds”: it is happening on a major scale. We hear from NHS Improvement that only one trust out of 152 met the four-hour target in December, and only nine made it to over 90%. Fifty out of 152 trusts declared a black or red situation over December, and there were 158 diversions of ambulances over that time. This is not just about normal winter pressures. It is not what the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who is an A&E nurse, and people like me and other medics in the Chamber have seen in our careers—it is a really bad winter. Yet we have not had bitter weather and we have not had a flu epidemic.

The most recent four-hour data were published in October, when NHS England managed to achieve the four-hour target for 83.7% of the time. That is 5% down on the same time in the previous year, and it compares with 93.9% in Scotland. Scotland managed 93.5% in Christmas week. We have our challenges in Scotland, but the crisis is not the same as what is being discussed here.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady confirm, though, that throughout the whole of 2016, which includes winter, summer, autumn and spring, the Scottish Government’s A&E target was met in only seven out of the 52 weeks?

[Dr Whitford]

I would be delighted to agree with that, but NHS England did not make it over 90% at any point in 2016, so perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might want to check the NHS England figures before having a punt at me.

NHS England is performing 8% to 10% lower than NHS Scotland, which has been the top performing of the nations for the past 19 months. We have not done that by magic. We face exactly the same ageing population, exactly the same increased demand and complexity, and exactly the same—indeed, often worse—shortages of doctors as NHS England does, because of our rurality. We are not using a different measure—we use exactly the same measure—but the data show that there is a significant difference, and it is being maintained.

The Secretary of State is right: winter is always challenging. Summer is often busier for attendances at A&E, because the kids are on the trampolines and people go out and do silly things, but hospitals are under pressure in winter because of the nature of admissions—the people who go to A&E are sicker, older and more complicated. However, we have not seen any summer respite in NHS England. The worst performance in the summer was 80.8%; the best was 86.4%. NHS England is under pressure in the summer, and when winter is added on top of that, it is no wonder that we are talking about the situations that doctors, nurses, patients and relatives are describing to us.

My first health debate after my maiden speech in this House was an Opposition day debate on the four-hour target. At the time, I commented, and still maintain, that this target is not a stick for each party to hit each other over the head with, but it is a thermometer to take the temperature of the acute service, and it does that really well, because it measures not just people coming in through the front door but how they are moving through the hospital and out the other end. At the moment, the system is completely overheated. The comments about this not being anything unusual but just a normal winter, and everyone whingeing, show that the Government are not recognising the problem. The first step to dealing with any problem is to recognise it, because then we can look at how we want to tackle it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I certainly welcome today’s debate and the opportunity to discuss an issue that is extremely important to all hon. Members in all parts of the House. During recent weeks, there has been a significant problem because of the increasing number of people needing services at A&E and from local health services. I would like to pay tribute to the magnificent work, often in very difficult circumstances, that doctors, nurses, consultants, ancillary staff and people in general practice carry out on a day-to-day basis—not simply during a winter crisis period, but throughout the year—looking after people to the best of their abilities.

My own hospital, Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford, is doing a fantastic job, in difficult circumstances, to provide the best possible care in good times and in more difficult times. As a constituency MP, I am certainly aware that there have been some problems for some of my constituents over the last week or so, because of the demand and the pressure.

We have to look at what we can do to move forward in a positive—not a partisan, politicised—way to make sure that our constituents get the best treatments possible. There is no point in just shouting. As the Chair of the Health Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), said, it is no good engaging in yah-boo politics. We have to be mature and come up with sensible suggestions.

Funding is, of course, a key issue. I am extremely proud of this Government’s record and commitment to funding the NHS over the last seven years and their commitments for the next three to four years. We made sure when we came into office, at a time of austerity when Departments’ budgets were cut, that the Health Department’s budget was one of the few to be protected, so that we got a real-terms increase in funding every year we were in power—albeit, I accept, a modest real-terms increase. It nevertheless showed our commitment and our intent to invest in improving the national health service.

I am also proud of the fact that I and all my right hon. and hon. Friends fought the last general election on a commitment that over the five-year period of this Parliament, we were going to increase NHS funding substantially—to what has turned out to be to the tune of £10 billion. That is more, I say in a very gentle way, than was on offer to the country from certain other parties. I am pleased, too, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have been planning for any potential strains of demand during this winter period with the provision of £400 million to local health economies and other measures such as the vaccination programme, a preventive health measure that has got a record number of 13 million people vaccinated to try to offset some of the potential health problems that can flow during a winter period. That is using foresight and planning to try to minimise problems, while at the same time providing funding to back up their actions. That is what a responsible Department of Health should do and has done.

Now, people can demand as much money as they like for the health service, but my argument is this. Yes, the health service does need extra money—year in, year out—but it should not just be thrown at an issue. A far bigger part of the equation is building on the performance, standards and quality of care that the health service will provide to our constituents.

[Dr Mathias]

I entirely agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying about the increased resources, but does he not agree with me that we now need more resources for integrated health and social care and that this is the time to stop using the NHS as a political football and engage in a cross-party review?

[Sir Simon Burns]

I certainly agree that, under the leadership of the Department of Health, we should work with anyone and everyone to come up with a solution.

I was the Social Care Minister in the late 1990s, before we left office. Integrating health and social care was then at a very early, formative stage, and the ambitions were immense and tremendous. I am afraid that the reality has not matched the ambitious nature of what was being said in the 1990s, which is why I was particularly interested by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes. Yes, we must think about that, but what we must also think about—let me push the funding element to one side for the moment—is building on the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, particularly his investment in patient safety, the raising of standards, dignity for patients in our hospitals and throughout the health system, and the cutting out of waste and inefficiencies.

In 2010, when I was at the Department of Health for the second time, we had the Nicholson challenge, which was to save £20 billion over three or four years by cutting out waste and sharing best practice to improve the quality of care. I know from a debate that we had just before Christmas that the NHS achieved £19.4 billion of those savings. The beauty of that was not just that it created greater effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of healthcare and the sharing of best practice, but that the Treasury did not receive £19.4 billion with which it could do as it wished. The £19.4 billion was reinvested in patient care.

[Dr Whitford]

Was not a significant proportion of that saving due to wage freezes for NHS medical and nursing staff? That is not something that can easily be repeated.

[Sir Simon Burns]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There was a wage freeze for those who were earning more than £20,000 a year, but that was in keeping with the policy throughout the public sector, which included Ministers and other Members of Parliament.

The important point is that it was possible to achieve that saving by a variety of means. One of them was a pay freeze, but others were improving the delivery of service, cutting out inefficiencies and ineffective ways of operating and getting rid of nearly 20,000 surplus managers, so that the NHS could concentrate on enabling clinicians, nurses, ancillary workers and everyone else to work on patient care. That is the right way forward, and we cannot give up on it. We must continue to think about where we can make savings.

[Dr Murrison]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Simon Burns]

I am afraid not, because I am about to finish.

Much has been said about the STP programme. We have an STP in Mid and South Essex, and I strongly support it, because it is completely focused on improving and enhancing the quality of accident and emergency care. What annoys me is that people wish to politicise it for grubby political reasons. [Interruption.] Funnily enough, I am not talking about Opposition Members.

Our STP involves three hospitals with three A&E departments. Not one of those departments is to be closed under the proposals, yet as soon as they were published, and on the assumption—correct, I suspect—that most people had not read them, word went out that my local A&E department was to be closed down by the Department of Health because of this nasty Government’s proposals to save money. The exact opposite was the case. If one read the document, one could see that all three A&Es are remaining open.

What will happen is building on what happens now. If someone has a heart attack, they are immediately taken to Basildon hospital, because that is the specialist for cardiothoracic treatment. If someone needs treatment for burns or plastic surgery, they come to Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford, because it has one of the finest units in the whole of Europe. If someone has a head injury, they will go down to Romford in the east of London, because that is the specialist area for people with head injuries. If I had any of those conditions, I would want—and I would want for my constituents—the best possible treatment from the best experts available. That is what is happening and that is going to be built on, enhanced and improved. That is an improvement. That is not a cut; that is not taking away services from local communities. Those people who have an agenda and want to play politics will tell people anything in the hope that they believe it, or to frighten them by trying to discredit the work of the NHS.

I am pleased we have had the opportunity to discuss this matter. It is very tricky, and there is no simple answer—what is happening is not unique; we frequently have winter crises, particularly because of the ageing population and the increasing demands on health services in recent years—but we must not lose sight of the fact that we have an NHS and a Government who are determined to improve further and enhance the quality of care and the safety and standards of care for all our constituents, aided and abetted by a first-class workforce who are often working under very difficult circumstances.