NHS Funding: South-west

Steve Darling Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered NHS funding in the South West.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. For me, the NHS is a family affair, as my wife has served it for more decades than she would want me to admit and my son is a registrar at Torbay hospital.

This time last year, many of us were out pounding the streets at the general election, and the NHS was a big plank of what many of us talked about. It was one of the key themes on which the Liberal Democrats fought the election. We knew the NHS was a shambles, but we did not know the challenge that would face the new Government when they came to power. The Minister for Care highlighted that the money for the new hospital programme ran out in the March just gone, and there was a £6.6 billion hole in the programme’s budget. It was a real challenge for the new Government, but equally, their “waves” approach has caused real concerns in hospitals across the south-west and in our communities. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister for Secondary Care could address that today.

I will focus on Torbay hospital as a useful example of the challenges we face across the south-west. It is the third oldest hospital in the UK, with only 6% of the estate up to standard. Some bits are very good, such as the endoscopy and out-patient units, but those constitute an extremely small proportion. Someone suffering from cancer has to go to a number of locations across the hospital where there are real challenges. That is not the offer we want for those suffering from that disease. There have been almost 700 sewage leaks on the site, often infecting clinical areas, resulting in closures and delays of service to our community. The tower block of the hospital is swathed in scaffolding—not for a rebuild, but to stop clumps of it falling off and braining passers-by. There are some massive challenges, which have impacted our world.

Wave 2 mitigation bids went in in February from affected trusts. Torbay bid for £183 million to collapse the tower block and ensure that we have four fit-for-purpose wards built. I understand that the white smoke from the Government is yet to appear. So far, we have had only £7 million to help tackle some of the challenges, which hardly touches the sides.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing the NHS in the south-west into the spotlight. Does he agree that the pressures on Musgrove Park hospital, due to the closure of the Yeovil maternity unit, put staff in an almost impossible position, with 30° heat in summer and leaking roofs and walls with holes in them in winter?

[Steve Darling]

I agree that staff are the NHS’s most important asset and what makes it tick, which my hon. Friend is right to highlight.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am here to support the hon. Gentleman; I congratulate him on bringing this subject forward for debate. He is right to highlight issues with cancer care. It is the same for us back home: only a third of those referred by GPs begin treatment within the target time. Does he feel that there is money to be saved through the administration in the south-west trust area? If there is, perhaps that could help.

[Steve Darling]

That is very insightful. After being around medics for many years, I know the concern about the increase in managers. Equally, I know that integrated care boards, which I will come on to now, have real challenges with the savings that they are making. There is talk of merging ICBs, including, in the far south-west, a merger in Cornwall and Devon. Both ICBs are relatively challenged, and I fear that it could be a marriage of two bankrupts. Perhaps it would be better to look at a bigger footprint, including Somerset.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

I welcome and echo the hon. Member’s comment about an inappropriate marriage in respect of the Devon and Cornwall ICBs. They have quite different issues. I commend the work of Cornwall’s ICB, of course, but we have to recognise the specificities of the peninsula penalty and the unique challenges facing both our areas.

[Steve Darling]

That is also very insightful. There are lots of good staff throughout the NHS, including in ICBs. It is about unlocking their potential, which I hope the Minister can do.

I was suggesting a bigger footprint, which could include Somerset and maybe even Dorset, as well as Devon and Cornwall, to give greater corporate capacity. I hope the Minister will reflect on that. Perhaps she will give some guidance on when we will hear about the ICB merger. A larger ICB could reflect the footprint of a mayoral authority; I fear that we could be poorer country cousins if we have only two county mayors in the west of England.

The real challenge with our ICB is that we are looking at a quarter of a billion pounds in cuts to services for Devon. The Exeter trust faces £69 million in cuts. The way to save money is mostly by not filling posts, so that is a real challenge. In Torbay, the figure is £42 million. We have an integrated care organisation, as a result of the merger of NHS acute and social care services, and people often say that is the direction in which we should be going. It saves 60 beds in the hospital by ensuring that we get people out of hospital sooner and into their own homes, where they want to be. However, I worry that the organisation is threatened by the quarter of a billion pounds-worth of cuts to services in Devon coming down the line; I fear for its future. I know that the Government actually want to move in the direction of services working together—it is so important.

The last area I want to touch on is Getting It Right First Time. I have heard from a number of professional sources that they feel that is a metropolitan approach that does not always work well in areas with significant rurality, such as Devon, mostly because it does not take into account some of the deprivation we have, our coastal communities, rural communities and the need for travel, or the fact that our population is older than those in metropolitan areas. We have older folk who are perhaps more digitally excluded. The approach does not always work.

We have seen that in respect of a procedure called PPCI—I will not share what that stands for, but it is an intervention used when someone is having a heart attack. They have a balloon inserted through their groin that goes up to the artery, and a stent is inserted to prevent a blockage in the system. A proposed merger in the offer will see people from south Devon drive past Torbay hospital and go 24 miles up the road to Exeter. That was originally the out-of-hours service, but it is now the emergency service, so when someone is thrown in the back of an ambulance, assessed and told, “You need this intervention,” they will go up to Exeter.

As my son says to me, “Time is tissue.” A consultant told me that if we push forward with this approach, it could result in greater debilitation and deaths. As a result of campaigning, the can has been kicked down the road on two occasions, and the ICB is due to return to the issue again at the end of July. I thank the medics who stood up and shared their concerns about the issue, as well as the thousands of people who signed our petitions on it. This situation shows how, because of the challenges in more rural areas, Getting It Right First Time does not always lead to the right solutions.

I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on wave 2 mitigation, on the challenges in relation to ICBs and, finally, on coronary care issues in south Devon and how we can ensure that we are providing an appropriate service for our communities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Darling]

I thank all colleagues for coming and joining this debate, however short people’s interventions may have been. I also thank the Minister for casting at least some light on this subject, but what we have heard from other colleagues from all over the south-west has been very enlightening. I am sure that there is much more for us to go away and campaign on, but this has been truly debated.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered NHS funding in the South West.