- 11:46 am
- With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on this Government’s work in the national health service.First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay)—I have warned him that I am going to refer to him—and welcome him back to this place. His magnificent question at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday was an absolute tribute to him and to his family, but also to the national health service, which has done so much to put him back together. My hon. Friend’s commitment to public service and dignity in the face of adversity are not only inspiring, but an example to us all. I make this commitment to him: as Secretary of State, I am determined to change the prosthetics policy to support quadruple amputees such as him. He makes the point passionately, and I have heard him.I also want to reassure the victims of the infected blood scandal and their families that the general election that the Prime Minister called yesterday will in no way affect the process that is already under way. Throughout the election period, Government officials and I will continue to study the report, to make sure that the lessons of Sir Brian’s inquiry are learned and that the mistakes can never be repeated. We will work with the NHS Business Services Authority to make sure that everyone who is eligible receives the second interim payment of £210,000 over the summer. The report lays bare the many failings of successive Governments, including historic failings in my own Department. As Secretary of State, I apologise unreservedly for the actions that have hurt and harmed so many people, and I know there is consensus in this House that we will work together to ensure nothing like this scandal ever happens in our country again.I last updated the House in January, and I would like to use this opportunity to share the steps we have taken since then to make our NHS faster, simpler and fairer for patients and staff. In 2019, we promised 50 million more GP appointments a year, and thanks to the hard work of our GPs and their teams, we have delivered on that promise. In January, we went further by launching our Pharmacy First programme, which empowers pharmacists to prescribe medication for seven common conditions without the need to see a GP. The numbers of people using that programme are encouraging, and when it is at full power, 10 million GP appointments will be freed up.In the face of industrial action, we have reduced the NHS waiting list by more than 200,000 since September. Outside the pandemic, we have delivered the biggest six-month fall in the waiting list in more than a decade, with waiting lists falling for six months on the bounce. Through our new hospital programme, we have committed to delivering 40 new hospitals by 2030. I am pleased to tell the House that six hospitals are now open to patients, two more are expected to open by the end of the financial year and 18 more are in construction.We have launched a recovery plan for dentistry that will create 2.5 million new NHS appointments this year alone. That is being done by giving dental practices extra cash for new patients they see, introducing golden hellos and deploying dental vans to isolated rural and coastal communities. Since I launched our recovery plan, more than 500 additional practices have opened their doors to NHS patients. Today, we are going further by publishing a consultation on introducing a tie-in for graduate dentists, which will commit them to a period of NHS work when they can hone their skills, develop a breadth of experience and give back to the people who helped fund their training. It costs the taxpayer up to £200,000 to train a dentist, and we think it is right and fair to ask new graduates to use their new skills in the NHS.Ensuring that the NHS works for women is one of my priorities, and we have taken a number of steps to support them. We are opening women’s health hubs across England, we are helping 50,000 bereaved parents acknowledge their beloved baby with baby loss certificates, and we have helped half a million women to get cheaper hormone replacement therapy. We are also rolling out new maternal mental health services for new mums, which are already available in all but three local health systems.We are looking to tackle conditions that disproportionately affect the female population, such as osteoporosis. Every year in England, some 67,000 fractures are suffered by people of working age, the majority of whom are women, and many of them are entirely preventable. I have listened to the tireless campaigning of the Royal Osteoporosis Society and the campaigns of the Express and The Mail on Sunday, so today I want to confirm that this Government have the ambition to expand the use of fracture liaison services to every integrated care board in England and achieve 100% coverage by 2030.I have also made it my priority to protect our children, who have been questioning their identity in ever increasing numbers. The Cass review laid bare the damaging effect that social media and degrading pornography have had on young people’s sense of self. It also set out clearly the need for extreme caution in medical interventions. Today, I want to set out my clear intention to introduce a banning order on puberty blockers, with limited exceptions, under section 62 of the Medicines Act 1968. This is an extraordinary use of that power, but it is the right use of that power because we must protect our children and young people from this risk to their safety.We know that to make the NHS sustainable in the long term, we need to work on prevention, not just cure. To drive this progress, we need to embed prevention within the structures of the national health service and the Government. That is why we will be benchmarking, identifying and publishing health service prevention spending. To support investment in prevention, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will work closely with integrated care systems to develop practical information and evidence that will aid local investment decisions.As Secretary of State, I have seen how prevention tests across the NHS are not joined up, and I want to make the NHS app the front door for prevention as well as for cure. By 2026, people across England will be able to book vaccinations for 16 preventable diseases, including MMR—measles, mumps and rubella—and human papillomavirus, on our app. This move will make sure that millions more people receive the vital vaccines we all need, not just saving them from life-threatening conditions, but saving the NHS money and resources in the long term.We also have a duty to give families the information they need to make healthy choices. There has been a lot of talk about the potential damages of ultra-processed foods, including in the press recently. We want to cut through the noise and give people the facts. That is why I have asked our National Institute for Health and Care Research to gather evidence on the impacts of ultra-processed foods on health to help us support people to make informed and healthy choices.In conclusion, when it comes to the NHS, this Government have a record to be proud of. We have 50,000 more nurses, 60 million more GP appointments and 7 million tests, checks and scans at community diagnostic centres. We have waiting lists coming down, more dental appointments available, better care for women and more protection for vulnerable young people. We have the first ever long-term workforce plan, and more doctors, dentists and nurses than ever before. We have a clear plan and we are taking bold action to build a secure future for our national health service. I commend this statement to the House.
- 11:55 am
- Let me start with a few points of genuine consensus. First, I associate myself and my party wholeheartedly with the right hon. Lady’s remarks about the hon. Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) and the extraordinary courage and strength he has shown. I greatly welcome her reassurance to victims of the contaminated blood scandal and the emphasis she placed on the cross-party commitment to continue at pace to deliver justice, whatever the outcome of the general election. I also welcome what she said about the justifiably cautious and responsible approach she is taking in relation to puberty blockers in the light of the Cass review.That is the end of the consensus, however, because after 14 years of Conservative incompetence, neglect and vandalism, the national health service has never been in a worse state. The Government cut 2,000 GPs and now it is impossible to get an appointment. They wasted billions of pounds on top-down reorganisations, recruitment agencies and crony contracts for useless personal protective equipment instead of training the workforce the NHS needs. They forced nurses out on strike for the first time in history; and now the Prime Minister shamelessly tries to blame them for his own failures, sending the country into an election with strike action still looming. He promised to cut waiting lists; they are up to 7.5 million. Even their claim that waiting lists have fallen in the last six months has been achieved only by excluding the community figures—fiddling the figures. He promised to build 40 new hospitals and the Government have failed to build a single one. They hold people in this country in such contempt: the Conservatives think the public are so stupid that they will fall for the same recycled soggy promise all over again. Vast swathes of the country have been left without a single NHS dentist, forcing people in Britain, in 2024, to perform DIY dentistry on themselves.After 14 years, the fundamental promise of the NHS has been broken: people can no longer be sure the NHS will be there for them when they need it. Listening to the Prime Minister’s interviews this morning, it is clear he has given up on the NHS. He has called this election with no plan to cut waiting lists, no plan to end the strikes, and no plan to reform the service. The Conservatives have taken the NHS to breaking point; if they are given five more years, they will finish the job.
- I know that the hon. Gentleman has spent a lot of time in recent days studying that infamous pledge card. It has obviously taken up a lot of space in his brain, because he seems not to have understood that not only did we settle months ago with the consultants, so they are not on strike, but we have arrived at a settlement with the specialty and specialist doctors, which is going out to ballot. He asked about junior doctors, and he has obviously missed the news that we have just entered mediation with them. We are bringing together, with the workforce plan, the progress we are making on working conditions. The Labour party does not like conversations about mediation—no, no, no —because we all know that Labour MPs are beholden to their trade union masters and have never condemned a single strike that has affected our constituents and their access to healthcare.The hon. Gentleman asks about the new hospital programme, and I was wondering whether he would. It is, as some might say in politics, bold. I have taken the trouble—it was a lot of trouble—to read the Labour party’s health mission. One of its pledges is that one of the first steps of a Labour Government would be to pause all capital projects in the NHS. Our constituents should be clear: the Conservatives have a new hospital programme, which we are delivering; the Labour party has a no new hospital programme.The hon. Gentleman also talked about the ideas for the NHS—ones he could not quite remember over the weekend—and the number of appointments that Labour would bring. I think it was appointments, because when he was asked to clarify whether he meant appointment or treatments, he could not define it. I hate to break it to him, but there is a difference between an appointment and, for example, a triple heart bypass. I would love to know whether he is talking about appointments or treatments. Just to help him understand the scale of NHS England’s activities on a weekly basis, it provides 575,000 out-patient appointments a week. His pledge sounds like a big number, but the truth is that it will not even touch the sides, even when Labour has worked out where the sides are.
- How is that going?
- It is going better than it is in Wales. Under the Labour-run NHS in Wales, a quarter of people are on a waiting list in that part of the NHS. The number of patients waiting two years is higher in Wales than it is in England. Patients are waiting on average six weeks longer in Labour-run Wales than in England. If that performance were replicated here in England, waiting lists could be as much as six million higher. The choice is clear: unfunded Labour failure or a clear plan for a more secure future with the Conservatives.
- I call the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.
- Record funding, a long-term workforce plan finally in place and serious investment at last from the Chancellor on health tech in the spring Budget. That is really welcome and a record to be proud of, as the Secretary of State said, but she will be aware that if demand continues to exceed supply, we have a problem.My right hon. Friend told us that she does indeed believe that prevention is the new cure, so throughout the general election campaign and from here on as she continues as Health Secretary, will she please bang on remorselessly about the big drivers of ill health—smoking, alcohol addiction, obesity, poor housing and bad diet—because, remember, we can only protect the NHS if we are a healthier society?
- I thank my hon. Friend not just for his question, which was excellent as always, but for his long record in the House, particularly in the world of healthcare. He was a superb Minister in the Department of Health and has chaired the Select Committee with great skill. He has scrutinised many a Minister, which I promise him is not a relaxing experience. I really pay credit to him.May I also thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the importance of prevention? We want to bend the demand curve on the NHS. We know that demand has risen in recent years—we are seeing more people in A&E, we are seeing more cancer referrals and we are seeing more people accessing scans, checks and diagnostics—and we need to help people to understand that we can take responsibility for our own health. Through work such as that on using the NHS app as a gateway to prevention, I genuinely think that we will be helping not only our generations but, importantly, younger people, who sometimes get forgotten in our conversations about healthcare.
- I welcome the commitment from the Health Secretary to paying the £210,000 interim payment to those infected under the contaminated blood scandal. But can I say that there is no clarity at all from the Government about the payments that Sir Brian recommended in April 2023 to those who have received nothing so far—the parents who have lost children and the children who have lost parents?Can I seek a guarantee from the Health Secretary that we will see psychological support services put in place in England immediately? They are in place in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and in Wales. Since 2020, Ministers in the Department have been saying that those services would be made available. That is four years ago; it is not acceptable. After the statements earlier this week by the Prime Minister and the Paymaster General, that is something that the NHS could do quickly and which would have enormous impact, especially because, with the general election having been called, people do not quite know what will happen to the Government’s promises.
- I thank the right hon. Lady for all her work. She may recall that, when the inquiry was announced by the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), we had a debate on that matter where I spoke as a Back Bencher on behalf of a constituent; I very much hope that he and others gain some reassurance from the fact that I understand exactly the issues they have faced over many years. As Health Secretary, it is my responsibility, and indeed my privilege, to try to help them now.In relation to the compensation schemes for those who have not yet received payments, I know that the right hon. Lady will have carefully pored through the responses of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. We want to give the independent compensation authority—I underline independent because I am sympathetic to the sensitivities of families and victims around the role that the Department of Health and others played in their pain—and Sir Robert the chance to set up the scheme, assisted by the expert panel.I promise the right hon. Lady that I have been discussing psychological support with the chief executive of NHS England for some time. We want to recruit the right people to conduct that incredibly sensitive work. It will take us a little more time, but I assure her that NHS England is acting quickly to bring in those services, we hope, by the end of the summer.
- I call the Father of the House.
- I thank the Secretary of State for her answer to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). I hope that the letter that her Department received from us will get a full reply, and I thank her for her interim words.I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to come to the opening of the new integrated care centre by the town hall in Worthing—a local authority enterprise carried on by the present administration in Worthing. There has been great concern about dentistry in my constituency. The pressure is coming off, but not fast enough. Would she please encourage everyone in NHS England to ensure that dentists are encouraged to provide the kinds of service that all our constituents want?
- I congratulate my hon. Friend on the opening of those services. I look forward to attending that opening with him and colleagues across his area. In the dental recovery plan I set out a number of ways in which we will improve the delivery of dental care across England, including immediate, medium and long-term work. The immediate-term work is already seeing results. Having switched on the new patient premium, we are already seeing practices opening. We want to bring forward the golden hellos to encourage dentists into areas that do not have the services that we would like. There was a slightly misinformed Prime Minister’s question yesterday; we are in the middle of tendering our dental vans, because as a rural MP I want services as quickly as possible while we are building the foundations to ensure that people get the care they need.
- Let me say that it has always been a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall miss you terribly; your fairness, insight and wit has brought colour to this Chamber. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]Moment of consensus over, I stand here as the Member of Parliament for a constituency that will have listened to the Secretary of State with horror. For 14 years we have been desperately waiting for Whipps Cross Hospital to be redeveloped. The Minister for Social Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and I had a meeting about it this morning that she had to cancel, presumably because the general election has been called. The failed new hospital programme has cost my constituents dearly. We were told under that programme that works would be finished by 2025. They have not even started, because the Government still have not committed the funding. The board meeting notes admit that they will not even start next year, and they certainly will not be finished by 2030. What a damning indictment of this Conservative Government.My constituents have to be treated in corridors at Whipps Cross. The physical layout of the mangled, broken building is directly impacting on the quality of care that my constituents receive. There is an amazing team at Whipps Cross, doing incredible work, almost in tears that we still do not have our new hospital, because of the impact on patient care. Will the Secretary of State answer the question that I wanted to ask her colleague in that meeting this morning? We need urgent confirmation that we will get the funding to build the hospital at Whipps Cross, to finalise the plans and to start talking to a contractor so that works can begin in 2026. Conservative colleagues in my borough pledged to start works last year, but that was not true. Will the Minister at least confirm that under her plans we will finally get the funding? Walthamstow deserves better.
- Madam Deputy Speaker, I had not heard the news that you were stepping down. I share the House’s dismay, but also pass on our thanks to you for having been a Chair. It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, although it is a steely pleasure because you let us know, most of the time, when we speak for too long. [Interruption.]
- Answer the question.