Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

Debate between Wes Streeting and Danny Chambers

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. People will be hugely alarmed at the threat of more industrial action right before Christmas, and we cannot forget how we got here. We know that the previous Government under-resourced the NHS. It was overburdened, people felt underappreciated, and the whole system was being held together by the good will of the staff.

Having said that, the timing is terrible, because we have the worst winter flu outbreak in decades, right before Christmas. We have to urge the BMA to work constructively to resolve this dispute in a way that is fair for both patients and taxpayers. Given that resident doctors received a 29% pay rise last year, I think most of the public feel that pushing for another 28.9% this year is unaffordable and unreasonable.

The Secretary of State touched on resident doctors’ legitimate concerns. The previous Government increased medical school places without increasing the facilities to deliver the necessary specialist training placements, so this was a predictable bottleneck that we are now up against. Waiting lists are long, we need more doctors, and we have doctors who have been trained largely at the taxpayer’s expense struggling to find work. We very much welcome the extra 4,000 placements that were announced today, which are hugely necessary. Can we ensure that they will address the acute shortages in general practice and psychiatry? To put those 4,000 places in context, 10,000 doctors applied for 500 psychiatric training places last year, and the Secretary of State said that about 40,000 doctors have applied for 10,000 places this year. Is there work to try to increase places as quickly as possible in the next few months and years?

At Winchester hospital, one in five beds is taken up by people who do not have any social care packages. That is not good for them, because they are stuck in the hospital, and we want to get them home for Christmas, but it will also affect the flow through the hospital right now, during a winter flu crisis.

We welcome this action and urge the BMA to call off the strikes, but can we address the legitimate grievances that the Secretary of State has mentioned?

[Wes Streeting]

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his support, as well as for the constructive challenge. He is absolutely right to describe the challenge that we inherited, and we are seeking to deal with it. We have taken a number of steps along the way. For example, we promised to recruit an additional 1,000 GPs to the frontline in our first year. We expanded the additional roles reimbursement scheme in order to do that, and we were actually able to recruit an extra 2,500. The international medical graduate dimension of the deal means that the extra speciality training places go even further.

Although I would never pretend that the steps we have taken in our first 18 months in office have solved everything all at once—there is no shortage of things to solve—I say to those BMA members considering how to cast their vote that we have delivered a 28.9% pay rise, have taken action on international medical graduates through urgent legislation, and have expanded speciality training places. This is real progress. It is meaningful change in people’s pockets and to their lives, working conditions, career progression and prospects. 

The BMA should please not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have a lot of fires to put out on a lot of fronts as a Government, and that does take time. We are committed—and I am personally committed—to working constructively with the BMA on things like workforce planning to address those issues, if it is willing to work with us. That is all I ask. It is all I ask from any part of the NHS workforce. It should work with us constructively, understand our constraints, work through the challenges with us, and we will all get to a better place and create a rising tide in the NHS that lifts all ships.

New Hospital Programme Review

Debate between Wes Streeting and Danny Chambers

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

In Hampshire and across the country in 2019 and 2024, Conservative MPs stood on the promise of delivering new hospitals, including one for Hampshire. However, it turned out that there was never any funding for that, and that those were just false promises to try to get votes. I have fought tirelessly to save and improve Winchester’s A&E and consultant-led maternity unit. With the announcement that construction of a proposed new hospital in Hampshire will not even start until between 2037 and 2039, we absolutely need to ensure that the current services are invested in and improved so that they remain fit for purpose.

Given that the new hospital programme is delayed, it is more urgent than ever to increase capacity by fixing social care, so that those who are well enough to leave hospital can be cared for in the community, thus freeing up beds immediately. We cannot endure both insufficient social care packages and crumbling hospitals. Given this delay to the new hospital programme, will the Secretary of State commit to prioritising more social care packages now, rather than waiting three years for a review to be complete?

Although the Health Secretary is not responsible for the state of the NHS or the state of the economy, which the Government inherited, the new hospital programme was seen as part of the solution to the crisis in the NHS, and people across the sector have warned that delaying the programme will only mean more treatments cancelled and more money wasted plugging holes in hospital buildings that are no longer fit for purpose. We are therefore concerned that one of the biggest announcements to affect the NHS over the next few years is coming out right now, during Donald Trump’s inauguration, because it will not get the media attention it deserves. Liberal Democrats therefore urge the Health Secretary to promise to release a full impact assessment on how the delays to the new hospital programme will affect patients and NHS staff.

[Wes Streeting]

I will take those points in turn. With enormous respect for the momentous democratic event taking place in Washington today, I do not think that the new President, last time I checked, had declared an interest in any of our hospital schemes. I am sure he will forgive us for getting on with the job of British government, even as the American handover takes place.

I committed some time ago to coming to the House in the new year. I have kept that promise and I dare say that the decisions that we are taking and setting out today will receive good coverage. I reassure the hon. Gentleman, and other Members across the House with an interest in particular schemes, that my hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care and officials from the programme team will be happy to meet as early as tomorrow to take questions on individual schemes.

The hon. Gentleman raises broader challenges for the NHS and social care pressures in our country. That is why the Chancellor prioritised investment in our NHS and social care services in the Budget, with £26 billion of additional funding for my Department of Health and Social Care. On social care specifically, we have taken a number of actions in our first six months: fair pay agreements for care professionals, the biggest expansion of the carer’s allowance since the 1970s and an uplift in funding for local authorities, including specific ringfenced funding for social care. We will be setting out further reforms throughout this year, as well as phase 1 of the Casey commission reporting next year for the duration for this Parliament.

Opposition Members cannot have it both ways. They cannot keep on welcoming the investment and opposing the means of raising it. If they do not support the Chancellor’s Budget, which is their democratic right, they have to say which services they would cut or which alternative taxes they would raise. Welcome to opposition, folks. We’ve been there. Enjoy the ride: you’ll be there for some time.

Finally, let me just say this to the Liberal Democrats, who have constructively raised a range of challenges. This is at the heart of the challenge facing this Government. The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the capital challenges facing the secondary care estate. The same is true of the primary care estate and of the community and mental health estates. As I have spelled out, every single one of my Cabinet colleagues also has significant capital pressures. That is the consequence of 14 years of under-investment in our public infrastructure and in our public services, which means that we are paying a hell of a lot more for the Conservatives’ failure than we would have if they had built on, rather than demolished, Labour’s record of the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history.