NHS Workforce

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

That was a reprehensible thing to say and it shows how desperately the Government are scraping the barrel to make excuses for their negligence and mismanagement of the NHS.

As I said, I found it astonishing that this summer, in the middle of the biggest crisis in the history of the NHS, the Government took the infuriating decision to cut a third of medical school places. Thousands more straight-A students in Britain who want to help have been turned away from training to become doctors. It is like the clip of the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg saying in 2010 that there was no point in building new nuclear power stations because they would not come online until 2022. This country needs Governments who think beyond short-term electoral cycles and put the long-term interests of the country first. That is the approach that Labour would take, but it has been sadly missing for the past 12 years.

Just as the Government failed to build our energy security, leaving us exposed to Putin’s war in Ukraine, they failed to train the staff the NHS need, leaving us exposed as the pandemic struck. Their failure to prepare has left us in the ludicrous situation in which UK universities are now offering medical degrees only to overseas students. That’s right: the Government are refusing to allow bright British students to achieve their dreams of becoming doctors, so Brunel University is forced to take exclusively students from overseas. The Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has warned that there is a real risk that medical schools will

“only train overseas students who go off and get jobs elsewhere”.

What a criminal mismanagement of our higher education system. What a failure to plan to meet our staffing needs with our own home-grown talent.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Given that there were nearly 30,000 medical school applications last year from British students who really want to study medicine, does he agree that it is absolutely disgraceful that the Government have a cap of 7,500? That shows that we are not investing in our workforce or in home-grown British doctors. It is appalling that the Government cannot see the importance of that.

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. To deal with that problem—and, indeed, to satisfy the demands of the Conservative party, which looks to Labour for answers—we are putting forward a plan today to solve the crisis, to bring down waiting times, to get patients the treatment they need and to build a healthy society.

Where the Conservatives are holding the best and brightest students back from playing their part in the health of our nation, Labour will unleash their talent in the NHS: we will double medical school places, training 15,000 doctors a year so that patients can see a doctor when they need to. Where the Conservatives have left nurses working unsafe hours, unable to spend the time they need with patients to provide good care—where the Conservatives have left the NHS so short of midwives that expectant mothers are turned away from maternity units that do not have the capacity to deliver their child—Labour will act: we will train 10,000 more nurses and midwives every year.

We will go further. The way we deliver healthcare has to change. For many patients, a hospital is not the best place to be, yet in the past 12 years all the other parts of our health and care service have been eroded by underinvestment. When our society is ageing and people increasingly want to be cared for in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by their loved ones, why have four in 10 district nursing posts been cut? Labour is proud to have district nursing at the heart of our plans to modernise the NHS, and we will double the number of district nurses qualifying every year.

Many colleagues across the House have campaigned for years on the importance of the early years of a child’s development. All the evidence says that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are vital to their development and life chances, yet the number of health visitors has been cut in half since 2015. Labour will ensure that every child has a healthy start to life, training 5,000 more health visitors. That is what our motion would deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Many Members will remember that the Health and Social Care Committee recently published a report on the NHS workforce—a report that the Government frustratingly chose to ignore. As workforce shortages stand at unprecedented levels right across the NHS, with the latest figures revealing that there are more than 133,000 vacancies in England alone, I thought it might be useful to remind the Government of some of the report’s key recommendations.

First, the Government are failing to provide our NHS nurses with the essentials that anyone would need to do their job properly. In short, they are serving up poor working conditions, year in, year out. At the bare minimum, all nurses across the NHS should have easy access to hot food and drink, free parking or easy access to work and spaces to rest, shower and change, but the Government cannot even get that right.

I have repeatedly raised with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Prime Minister the fact that NHS staff at Coventry’s University Hospital are paying an astronomical £600 per year simply to park at work. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, it is outrageous that Coventry’s NHS heroes are out of pocket because the Government choose to do vanishingly little to improve their situation. I again call upon the Department of Health and Social Care to look closely at this situation and scrap these unfair parking charges for good.

Is it really any surprise that the Government’s current target of recruiting 50,000 nurses has been woefully missed when they are treated so poorly? It is unacceptable that many NHS nurses are struggling to feed their families, pay their rent and heat their homes. Some nurses are even resorting to using food banks this winter. I urge the Government to look closely at how they can better pay and treat NHS staff this year and next, so that we can finally reverse this worrying trend.

Our beloved NHS, which I had the honour of working for as a senior cancer pharmacist before being elected, is on its knees as a result of 12 years of Conservative neglect and mismanagement. Many services are crumbling. Pay has failed to keep up for years, and morale among nurses is in a truly terrible place. That is exactly why the Royal College of Nursing has been pushed into taking industrial action this month and why the Government must stop the mud-slinging and instead work with nurses to resolve this crisis.

Secondly, the Government must take urgent action to improve maternity care. For over a decade, the Conservatives have failed midwives across my community, and now we are all paying the price. We need a robust, fully funded maternity workforce plan, and the Government must commit to recruiting and retaining the workforce at the level set out in the forthcoming report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Labour has made it crystal clear that we would train at least 10,000 additional nurses and midwives each year to tackle the crisis that currently exists in maternity care. Labour has also committed to a historic expansion of the NHS workforce, to plug the gaps created by this Government.

The Government must also improve diversity in the recruitment of midwives, to improve the standard of care that black, Asian, mixed-race and minority ethnic women receive throughout pregnancy, birth and the post-natal period. By increasing diversity across the NHS, we can guarantee better standards of care for everyone, regardless of their background or ethnicity. Labour’s women and equalities team has routinely pushed for reforms that would improve how everyone experiences healthcare in this country, so when will the Government catch up?

Lastly, as the newly elected chair of the all-party parliamentary pharmacy group, I want to highlight an opportunity that the Government have failed to grasp: better use of community pharmacists. As a trained pharmacist, I know that the sector is crying out for more responsibilities to become the first port of call for patients who need advice and treatment. That would help to rebalance the workload across primary care, bring healthcare back into the community, reduce the pressures on GPs and hospitals and deliver healthcare that is much more prevention focused.

Any plan for the future of pharmacy must ensure that all pharmacists have adequate access to supervision and training, along with clear structures for professional career development into advanced and consultant-level practice to help to deliver this. That way, community pharmacists can play a much larger and more effective role in delivering healthcare. Until this Government properly mobilise pharmacies, we will struggle to reduce waiting times, clear NHS backlogs or improve patient access to GPs, so I desperately want to see action here. Every Member here today understands that our NHS workforce faces a range of big challenges. Whether it is nurses, midwives or pharmacists, our NHS workforce are at breaking point.

[Paul Bristow]

I completely share the hon. Lady’s sentiments about making better use of community pharmacists. She talked about better support and resources being available for pharmacists to do just that, but what specific things does she think need to happen to get the ball rolling?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

That is an excellent question. I could be here for hours explaining what I would like to see, but essentially, what I and many in the profession would like to see is an understanding and full use of the various skills that pharmacists have. We talked about this in the Health and Social Care Committee today: I would like pharmacists to be involved in providing clinical care—for example, a diabetes workshop or a cardio blood pressure workshop. We have seen other countries do that. In Alberta, Canada, community pharmacists are involved in the whole of the hypertension management; it is taken away from GPs and brought into the community, because it is more accessible in a community pharmacy.

Whether it is nurses, midwives or pharmacists, our NHS workforce are at breaking point, but the Government are seemingly ignoring that. I hope that the Government urgently sit up, take note and look at how they plan to address our workforce needs, to ensure that our beloved NHS staff are no longer ignored.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Tarry]

I do not think a single person sitting on the Opposition Benches has a second job.

The truth is that NHS staff pay demands are reasonable and fair. Nurses’ pay is down by £4,300 and paramedics’ pay is down by £5,600. One in three nurses cannot afford to heat their homes or feed their families. NHS staff are at breaking point. When I met NHS Unite members from Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals—I welcome any hon. Member to come with me and speak to them, because they are just across the river from this House—they were justifiably furious about the way that for too long, they and their colleagues have been exploited and abused by the Government, as they see it.

Staff are the backbone of the NHS, and if they break, so does the NHS. As the RCN general secretary said:

“Nursing staff have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give our patients the care they deserve.”

Allowing the NHS to collapse will cost the country considerably more, financially and in national wellbeing—as we are already seeing on the Government’s watch—than the rightful pay demands of NHS staff. If our NHS is not providing the care that we need, the costs are far greater, as is economically demonstrable.

Many hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that the NHS is our greatest institution. We cannot take it for granted and it is well worth fighting for. Conservative Members have the power to stop this dispute; to sit down with the trade unions; to face the nurses and NHS staff; and to negotiate a fair deal to prevent misery, ensure patient safety and save the NHS. If the Government will not do it, they should resign now, because a Labour Government will save the NHS and support NHS staff.

[Taiwo Owatemi]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to put on the record that my mum is a practising nurse.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I think we would all be proud to make that declaration, which stands on the record. We must now look to a speaking time of six minutes or thereabouts, or less if you can, to give everybody fair time. Please focus and, if you take interventions, do not add time on mentally.

NHS Staffing Levels

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for securing this important debate.

As the newly elected chair of the all-party parliamentary pharmacy group, I want to take this opportunity to outline some of the main concerns facing staff in that sector. Before being elected to this House, I worked in the NHS as a senior cancer pharmacist, and I still regularly volunteer at my local hospital, Coventry and Warwickshire hospital, in cancer care. The opportunity to serve on the frontline of our health service was and continues to be a privilege that I feel every time I set foot in the hospital. There are very few more rewarding things in life than being able to help those in need and provide care for patients at what are often very difficult moments of their lives.

Because of that, I know first hand how important pharmacists are to the provision of healthcare across the country, yet the Government continue to fail those key workers. A recent study published by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association revealed that almost a quarter of pharmacists want to leave their current sector and move to another part of pharmacy and, of those, almost a third are considering leaving pharmacy altogether. As with most healthcare professionals, low and stagnating pay and working conditions are the main reason for seeking a change. With just one in 10 pharmacists feeling that they get adequate breaks, it is no wonder that so many are looking to leave. The longer the Government ignore the exodus of pharmacists to other industries, the more money it will cost to recruit and train new staff.

As a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, I was part of a team who put together earlier this year a workforce report that recommended that the Government better utilise the pharmacy workforce and, in doing so, optimise workload across primary care, reduce pressures on general practice and hospitals, and support integrated care systems. Community pharmacists are willing and eager to take on more responsibilities in order to become the first port of call for patients and take the pressure off overburdened GP surgeries. The Government talk the talk about investing in our NHS, but if they are unwilling to take the necessary steps, waiting times and patient dissatisfaction will continue to grow.

As part of our report, the Select Committee recommended that pharmacists must have clear structures for professional career development into advanced practice. The Government have completely ignored that call; and I know, from my own experience, that far too many in the industry feel that those opportunities are sparse at the best of times. Like everyone else, pharmacists need to know that there are chances for growth and the acquisition of new skills in different areas. If the Government are serious about supporting pharmacists, as they have said repeatedly, that must be a priority.

Retaining pharmacists is also vital to the long-term health of the NHS as a whole. Until the Government tackle the issues of low pay, poor working conditions and a lack of opportunities for career progression, I fear that we will see a weaker and weaker pharmacy sector, which none of us can afford. Sadly, the issue that I have outlined is not specific to pharmacists but applies to all healthcare professionals.

I turn to cancer waiting times in my constituency of Coventry North West. In August, only 57% of patients at University Hospital Coventry, where I volunteer, began their treatment within two months of being referred by their GP, but the NHS target is that the trust should aim to see 85% of patients within 62 days. That simply is not good enough. Cancer patients in Coventry were put on the backburner during the pandemic, and as a result we see more and more cases of late-stage cancer. Those patients need to be seen urgently, and simply cannot wait. Many pancreatic cancer patients in Coventry have been in touch to let me know of their anger at being forced to wait so long. They are being let down.

I know how hard NHS staff work. Despite their efforts, cancer waiting time targets continue to be missed. Unless the Government invest in our beloved institution, we will continue to see more of the same. We need to strengthen our NHS workforce. We need to be able to invest in retaining the staff that we currently have. We also need to pay our nurses, and all healthcare professionals, adequately and appropriately for their hard work and dedication.

I thank all the NHS staff in Coventry, and across the country, for their dedication and hard work, and for all that they do to look after our loved ones. Lastly, I ask the Minister to meet me to discuss the future of pharmacies and the workforce.

Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I am pleased that my hon. and learned Friend is already seeing the benefits of the A&E in Cheltenham staying open. He is very modest—I am sure he played a significant part in ensuring that it stayed open. This is absolutely about capacity and there is no magic bullet that will make the pressures on the ambulance and emergency services any easier. This is multi-faceted and capacity at A&E is crucial. I am meeting the ambulance trusts to find out where good practice is making a difference, so we can help to share that across the country.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

In June, a 59-year-old man collapsed in the west midlands, going into cardiac arrest. Neighbours called an ambulance, but it took 90 minutes for one to arrive—six times longer than it should have taken. Sadly, the man soon passed away. We see this time and again across my region, where ambulance waiting times are among the worst in the country. When will the Government provide the much needed extra support to stop horrific incidents such as that reoccurring?

[Maria Caulfield]

I am sorry to hear about the sad death of the hon. Member’s constituent. Her region is one of the six areas that have the worst handover times and at which we are targeting support. I would be happy to meet her and update her on the specific support that we are offering her region.

Community Pharmacies

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for securing this important debate. He gave a detailed opening speech, so I will aim not to repeat the points that he has made.

I thank all pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and assistants for their hard work and dedication, and for their contribution to delivering first-class patient care in the community. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, community pharmacists are not just an integral part of our healthcare system; they are at the heart of our communities. After all, 1.6 million people visit around 11,400 pharmacies in England every day.

I would like to take the time to make two brief points on the future of community pharmacists. Before being elected as the Member of Parliament for Coventry North West, I worked in the NHS as a full-time cancer pharmacist, and I still regularly volunteer locally at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire as a pharmacist in cancer care. In my role, I have seen and experienced at first hand the vital role that pharmacists play in their communities.

Community pharmacists can dispense medication, deliver vaccinations, write prescriptions and consult on medication, to name just a few responsibilities. Above all, they are dependable and dedicated individuals who are excellent at providing medical knowledge and support for the communities that they work in. It is therefore deeply frustrating to hear about the steady erosion in the availability of community pharmacies.

Data from the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, which will be providing constituency-based information at a drop-in event in Parliament on Tuesday 5 July, paints a very grim picture. Since 2016, 639 pharmacies have closed across England, and nine of them were lost in my city of Coventry. All the while, communities have needed quick medical support more than ever. We have heard in today’s Opposition day debate, and time and again from our constituents, about the crippling difficulties facing GP services.

The Government claim that they are doing all they can about the rising crisis in accessing GP appointments. However, that cannot be the case, as they have been ignoring the roles that community pharmacists can play in combatting this escalating crisis. Those were evident throughout the covid-19 pandemic, when pharmacists played a substantial role in the vaccine roll-out and in providing advice and support to patients during the three lockdowns. The pharmacy sector boasts a highly trained and clinically skilled workforce, who, according to the PSNC, could free up up to 40 million GP appointments each year. The Government need to make full use of that potential. Ministers should take another look at the role that pharmacists can play in supporting our GP services, rather than simply allowing pharmacies across the country to close for good. Smarter thinking here has the potential to make a massive difference; it could help to reduce waiting times, clear backlogs in the NHS and improve the availability of GPs. It would certainly make a big difference in my constituency of Coventry North West.

My second point, which has been raised briefly, is that we must put in place stronger protections for pharmacists in the workplace. Community pharmacists have reported that they do not feel safe in their workplace because of increasing levels of violence and abuse. A survey conducted by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association demonstrated the scale of the problem, with only two in 10 pharmacists reporting that they feel safe all the time at work. A follow-up survey in April showed that 44% of responding pharmacists have experienced physical or violent abuse in the past month, and that 85% have experienced verbal or racial abuse in the past month. That is disgraceful. Nobody should face that level of abuse in their place of work. Pharmacists and pharmacy teams need to feel safe. The Government must do all they can to ensure that adequate risk assessments and preventative safety measures are put in place, as well as taking a zero-tolerance approach when incidents occur.

I hope that the Minister takes into consideration the points I have raised today. The maintenance of community pharmacies and the wellbeing of pharmacists and their staff must be top priorities for this Government. Pharmacists play a crucial role in keeping their communities healthy, and the Government must do everything they can to ensure that they are protected and supported. I therefore hope that the Minister will look at how to better utilise community pharmacists to address the wider problems facing the NHS, and take immediate steps to protect pharmacists who are facing unacceptable abuse in the workplace.

Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It goes without saying that GP surgeries play an essential role in our communities and in our NHS. They are often the first port of call for anyone in need of medical help, and it is the hard work of GPs that ensures we can all obtain advice, medicine and referral to other services. However, like much of the NHS, GP surgeries are overstretched, under-resourced and understaffed, due to more than a decade of Tory mismanagement.

Frustratingly, my constituents in Coventry North West are suffering the consequences of that. Constituents contact me every week, telling me about the difficulties they face in trying to access their GP. Like so many of the GP surgeries discussed today, surgeries in my constituency are made up of dedicated health and administrative staff who have been stretched often to breaking point and simply do not have the capacity, resources or staff they need to serve their patients.

I will focus on one example—a constituent who reached out to me about their 2-year-old daughter. Their daughter is non-verbal, has recently been having nosebleeds and is exhibiting symptoms of head trauma. Each day, my constituent wakes up and joins a queue to try to access a GP appointment. Even though they are often on the phone for hours, they are still not able to book an appointment. In fact, they have not been able to speak to anybody at all at the surgery. My constituent is understandably concerned for their child’s health and, like many others, is desperate to see their GP.

The difficulties facing our GP services are having a knock-on impact on the rest of the NHS. Patients unable to see their GP are more likely to request an ambulance or visit A&E. In the west midlands, we have seen ambulance waiting times skyrocket to more than 8 hours for some people. Another constituent raised a case where the patient had to wait more than two hours for an ambulance to arrive, even though they were experiencing a heart attack. If the Government do not get to grips with the scale of this problem, the entire NHS will have to pay the price.

Before being elected as the Member of Parliament, I worked in the NHS as a full-time cancer pharmacist, and I still regularly volunteer as a pharmacist at my local hospital, Coventry University Hospital in Warwickshire. That has provided me with first-hand experience of the dedication and hard work of everyone who works in our fantastic NHS.

It is important that the Government finally deliver a plan that lives up to the dedication of NHS staff, providing GPs and others with the resources they need to do their job. That is what our GPs deserve and it is what my constituents in Coventry are desperately asking for.

Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and the Backbench Business Committee for bringing forward this important debate. I am so grateful to contribute following so many powerful and moving speeches today.

As a trained cancer pharmacist, I am only too aware of the issues associated with childhood cancer, which is why I want to use my time here to raise awareness concerning a key issue that specifically affects childhood cancer outcomes. Outside infancy, cancer remains the most common cause of death in children and the most common disease-related cause of death in teenagers, yet less than 4% of all cancer research funding is spent on cancer that primarily affects children. Childhood cancer research has been underfunded and neglected for decades in comparison with investment in researching cancers that affect adults. That unacceptable inequality of resources has fatal consequences for children in the United Kingdom.

This was the case for Ben Crowther, a seven-year-old boy from my constituency of Coventry North West, who tragically died in 2019 due to the aggressive form of childhood cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. Though RMS can occur at any age, it most often affects children, as we have heard from many Members in the House, and therein lies the crucial distinction. Ben’s type of cancer most often affects children, yet research into that type of cancer has largely plateaued in recent years. Ben was treated with the best medicine available to him at the time. However, much of the treatment was decades old, and Ben’s doctor could not recommend that he join any clinical trials to give him a better chance of survival because there were simply no ongoing clinical trials for that form of cancer that he could join.

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an extremely powerful speech in memory of her constituent Ben. One of my constituents died at the age of only five years old from a brain tumour, and tragically he is far from alone. While 80% of children survive childhood cancer as a whole—still far too low—80% of children with brain tumours die within five years of diagnosis. It is the biggest cancer killer of those under the age of 40, yet brain tumours receive less than 1% of the national spend on cancer research. Does she agree that funding must be increased in order to improve outcomes for children and adults with brain tumours?

[Taiwo Owatemi]

I agree. My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need more funding for cancer research across all cancers.

His medical team did everything they could to save Ben but, in the end, decades of circumstantial neglect of RMS patients failed him. With Ben in mind, I just wish to make two brief points today. The first is that this Government must do better to encourage research into cancers that primarily affect children, not just adults. Parent-led charities and special named funds such as Pass the Smile are fundraising at grassroots level, but it is not right that the burden of raising funds should fall on the shoulders of bereaved parents. Secondly, we must treat the issue of childhood cancer outcomes with more urgency. We regularly call childhood cancers “rare”, but we must not lose sight of the fact that cancer is the disease that most commonly kills children.

Finally, I wish to thank Ben’s parents, Sarah and Scott, for allowing me to share Ben’s story, for their bravery and, above all, for their desire to ensure that no other family goes through what they have been through. I hope that the Government will listen to the stories that Members have shared today, and take the necessary steps to encourage greater awareness and improve research into cancers affecting children.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you. There is now a three-minute time limit.

Ockenden Report

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the way in which he has worked with the Department and with my predecessor in representing his constituents throughout this investigation. He referred to “so-called normal birth” in his question, and he was right to do so: the only normal birth is a safe birth, which is what the NHS should be working towards, but that did not happen in this trust. The report has made that absolutely clear. Just as important are its recommendations, including some for my right hon. Friend’s local NHS trust. I can reassure him—partly as a result of my conversation earlier today with the current chief executive—that all the recommendations in the interim report have been implemented by his local trust, and all those in this report have been accepted.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Let me start by paying tribute to all the families affected, and thanking Donna Ockenden and her team for their recommendations.

More midwives are leaving the profession than are joining it. We cannot run equally safe services in all NHS trusts without appropriate staffing levels. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State will be able to give further details of what the Government are doing to ensure that there are safe staffing levels in all trusts to provide care for pregnant women.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is right to talk about the importance of having the right workforce, and certainly more midwives. I can tell her than last year there were 30,185 acceptances for nursing and midwifery courses, the highest number in a decade. Recruitment is being supported by some of the extra funding that I have talked about today. The Government have established grants enabling students to take courses, and, where appropriate, are also focusing on international recruitment.

Health Inequalities: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) on his excellent speech and on securing this important debate. As we know, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities was officially launched in October as part of a wider Government restructuring of public health bodies in England. Back in September, the Health Secretary announced his vision for what the OHID would prioritise. He listed three goals: preventing poor mental and physical health; addressing health inequalities and improving access to health services; and working with partners within and outside of Government to respond to wider health determinates.

It is welcome that the Government have set out to alleviate health inequality. However, in order to truly tackle the disparities in health outcomes, the Government must change course and more closely consider the health outcomes for illnesses associated with stigma, misunderstanding or insufficient public awareness. I am speaking specifically about those living with HIV in this country. Despite accounting for less than 2% of the British population, people of black African heritage accounted for 13% of new HIV diagnoses among heterosexuals in 2020, and 64% of these diagnoses were of women. People of black African heritage are also significantly impacted by late HIV diagnosis, which is particularly frustrating, considering that those who are diagnosed late are much more likely to die from the disease.

I am increasingly concerned by the state of HIV testing in this country, given that the proportion of people who are eligible for a test but are not offered one more than doubled in 2020. That is completely unacceptable, and it is a systemic problem that falls under the remit of the OHID. I want to use this debate to urge the OHID to monitor the provision of commissioned services for people who are disproportionately likely to be diagnosed with HIV, and to consider how they could be improved. In particular, I want it to look closely at the availability of testing, both at home and in A&E departments, especially in areas of high HIV prevalence, and to consider the extent to which that might be acting as a barrier to achieving its aim of ending HIV transmission by 2030.

If the Government truly want the OHID to tackle health inequalities, then its work needs to have a laser-like focus on improving health outcomes for those living with stigmatised illnesses, such as HIV. It goes without saying that the Government cannot fulfil their pledge to end HIV transmission by 2030 without taking the measures that I have outlined today.

Midwives in the NHS

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I will be very brief. I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for securing this important debate and wish her well with her pregnancy.

We in Parliament have been talking about the issues that midwives face and their working conditions for quite a while now, and they were discussed just last year in a Health and Social Care Committee report on maternity health. As a member of that Committee, I have two simple points to make.

The first is about NHS staff shortages, which have affected many midwives in this country and which our Committee has been looking at for a while. Our report last year clearly shows the severe staff and resource shortages that have affected the NHS and midwives specifically. According to the Royal College of Midwives, just 4,773 midwives have joined the register since 2019. The number of midwives working for the NHS in England has actually reduced: the full-time equivalent numbers have gone down by 125. The demand for midwives has not decreased, and nor has the supply of registered midwives, but the number of midwives in the NHS has done so. As many hon. Members have said, it is important that the Government do more to ensure that fully certified midwives get the much-needed jobs and fill up the spaces in the NHS.

I will move on to my second point, because I am aware of time. As a result of the lack of resources and staff, midwives are suffering under terrible working conditions. Midwives across the country have stated that they are not getting loo breaks, that they do not have time to eat lunch and that they are working on minimal sleep. That is really concerning, particularly because it can affect patient care. It is common sense that mothers and their babies in my constituency of Coventry North West will suffer if midwives are being overworked and under-resourced. It is vital that the Government do as much as possible to ensure that midwives are not placed in that situation or in impossible working conditions. It is time that we fixed these burdensome circumstances and that the Government provided resources for midwives.

Finally, I thank all the wonderful, hard-working midwives at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust for all the work that they do despite the current working conditions.

Access to GP Appointments

Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers]

That is of course correct. Phone calls are important in triaging and assessing the extent to which a face-to-face meeting with a doctor is appropriate, but it is essential that those who need face-to-face appointments are given them.

We are seeing some progress, and this has been delivered at the same time as millions of booster jabs. I give credit to GPs, NHS England and Ministers for that recovery in general practice, but it remains the case that many of us will have heard from constituents about problems in getting in to see their GP. I thank the 19,302 people who signed the online petition on Parliament’s website expressing concern about this.

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady makes a really important point about constituents trying to get in contact with GP surgeries. I have the same issue with one of my constituents who tried to get in contact with her surgery and had to call every day for three weeks in order to get an appointment. By the time she did get an appointment, she experienced delays in accessing the treatment she needed. Does the right hon. Lady agree that further action is desperately needed to ensure that we have a plan in place to address staff shortages and resource shortages across our NHS and across our GP surgeries so that our GPs can continue to provide the healthcare that is needed?

[Theresa Villiers]

I agree that we need more general practice capacity and I will come on to explain how we could do that.

There can be no doubt that GP surgeries are under immense pressure. The Royal College of General Practitioners says that the workload has never been greater. A GP in my constituency told me that as well as colleagues leaving the profession, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit new doctors. He said:

“Those of us left behind feel that we are holding up a broken system.”

In GP surgeries, as is the case across the NHS, demand has spiralled partly because, as we grow older as a population, we have greater healthcare need, partly because of pent-up demand from people who felt reluctant to seek help during the pandemic, but also partly because the decision by NHS leaders to push a range of treatments out from secondary to primary care has left GPs dealing with more serious and complex cases than in the past. As a result, one High Barnet GP told me that primary care was in a precarious position even before the pandemic. Of course, delays in accessing GP appointments have been an issue for some years in many areas, including my Chipping Barnet constituency. My concern has been intensified by the predatory demands of developers seeking to build blocks of flats in multiple locations in my constituency. The Mayor of London wants to see over 23,500 new homes built in Barnet over 10 years. That is a massive increase in population, yet GPs are struggling to serve the population we already have.

We have seen the number of doctors in hospitals increase to record levels—and that is a great achievement—but the same cannot yet be said of GPs. I have been campaigning to expand GP capacity in Barnet as part of the Government’s wider commitment to boost primary care. I very much welcome the £250 million announced in October to tackle immediate pressures on the system. This promised new cloud-based phone systems, a reduction in routine paperwork such as sick notes and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency checks, and additional staff to support GPs. Well, I think we probably all know that better phone systems are urgently needed in many practices, but the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy is also pretty obvious.