The National Health Service Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Vicky Ford
Main Page: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)Department Debates - View all Vicky Ford's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jonathan Ashworth
I am going to make some progress.
We need clarification from the Secretary of State on whether he will exempt all NHS staff and all care staff from the shortage occupation list in the immigration Bill.
Safe care also depends on safe facilities, but after years of cuts in capital budgets, hospitals are crumbling and equipment is out of date.
Jonathan Ashworth
In a few moments.
The repair bill facing the NHS has now risen to £6.5 billion, more than half of which relates to what is considered to be serious risk. NHS capital investment has fallen by 17% per healthcare worker since 2010. Across the NHS, the estate relies on old, outdated equipment, which is having an effect on, for instance, diagnostics. The number of patients waiting longer than six weeks for diagnostic tests and scans has increased from 3,500 under Labour to more than 43,000 under this Government.
Jonathan Ashworth
I will give way in a few moments.
Even if the Secretary of State replaces all the MRI scanners that are more than 10 years old—he has adopted our policy on that—we will still be struggling with the lowest numbers of MRI and CT scanners per head of population in Europe. Is it not time for a proper strategic health review?
Jonathan Ashworth
In a few moments.
The Secretary of State will say that he has announced plans for six new hospital reconfigurations and seed funding for other acute trusts to prepare bids, but there is no guarantee that that funding is in place and that the Department will give trusts the go- ahead. “Seed funding” is a curious phrase. Can the Secretary of State confirm that there will be no role for private capital in that seed funding? In their 2017 manifesto, the Government promised £3 billion of capital funding from the private sector. Does that still hold? They claim to have abandoned the private finance initiative. We need clarity today.
Jonathan Ashworth
Of course I welcome that £450 million. [Interruption.] It just shows what an effective Member of Parliament for Leicester South I am.
I know that the Secretary of State gets very excitable about this Leicester point, rather like a semi-house-trained pet rabbit. Let me tell him about Leicester. I did not see him on “Question Time” in Oadby the other evening—I do not often watch “Question Time”. I do not want to be disorderly, so I shall be careful about how I read out the transcript. The audience started shouting—well, it is unparliamentary, but essentially they started shouting that the Secretary of State was not being entirely truthful in what he was saying. I do not want to fall out with him, or to be disorderly, but according to the transcript, there were “jeers” from the audience.
One audience member said that hospitals in Leicester were “falling apart”. Another said, “It’s shameful.” A third said,
“It’s not a case of throwing money at it.”
A fourth said that the Secretary of State was
“saying you will invest loads…into Leicester Royal Infirmary, what about…the General?”
What, that audience member continued, about
“the benefit in terms of beds…as a whole?”
The Secretary of State replied:
“We will do all of those things and we’ve guaranteed the money to Leicester and it’s coming in the next couple of years.”
There was then audience “laughter”.
Jonathan Ashworth
Let me deal with this point first.
The people of Leicester can see what is happening. Although the Secretary of State is putting money into Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester General Hospital in the constituency next door loses maternity services, loses the hydrotherapy pool, loses renal services, loses—[Interruption.]
Matt Hancock
I will take two more interventions and then I must get through dealing with the rest of the Queen’s Speech.
Vicky Ford
Just in mid-Essex we have 300 new nurse recruits, new specialist services cutting waiting times, amazing new mental health provision for women with post-natal depression, an amazing new A&E emergency village at Broomfield Hospital and the brand-new medical school, training the GPs of the future. I declare an interest, because I have joined the board since visiting it with the Secretary of State. I am shocked by this amendment today if it would stop us from being able to access new medicines. Will he look at a new approach to make sure that those medicines get to children with very rare diseases?
Matt Hancock
Yes. My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for her local community, and I visited the new medical school with her. She makes an incredibly important point about access to new medicines. We want to bring more access to new medicines, rather than saying that if it is not made by the state, people should not have it, which is the approach outlined in the amendment.
Let me turn to the medicines and medical devices Bill, which was in the Queen’s Speech. The intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was precisely on this point: the potential of technology to bring forward new treatments and new devices is more exciting now than at any point in generations. The new medicines and medical devices Bill will allow our world-beating life sciences industry to be world leaders.
I do not think that we should insist on a state-run medicine company and I do not think we should be requisitioning intellectual property. We should leave that aside, not least because we already have some of the cheapest medical drugs in Europe. The Opposition seem to want to create a British Rail-style drugs system—inefficient, always breaking down and arriving too late. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said that under Labour’s plans, $183 billion that the industry spends annually on research and development for new drugs would “disappear”. The ABPI is a sober and respected organisation. The proposals would cost taxpayers billions and risk all the work that goes into saving lives. The industry knows they are nonsense, we know they are nonsense, and in his heart the shadow Secretary of State knows they are nonsense. The country will see straight through him.