Topical Questions

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

I am honoured to have taken on the role of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and to have responsibility for incredibly important services that touch all our lives. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), for everything he achieved in this role, and for the dedication he showed. I also welcome my new ministerial team.

Since my appointment, I have been relentlessly focused on the urgent pressures facing health and care, including this week’s extreme weather. Yesterday I updated the House on the strong support we are giving, including extra ambulance capacity and more call handlers, and we will stay vigilant so that we can make sure our health and care system is there for those who need it.

Today marks one year since we lifted covid restrictions. While the virus has not gone away, we are able to enjoy our freedoms, thanks to the incredible vaccine roll-out. I have accepted the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s advice for a covid and flu autumn and winter booster campaign, in which we will roll out that vaccine further.

I have been contacted by many constituents working in the NHS who are struggling to cope with financial pressures, exhaustion and stress. I recently spoke to a district nurse using our food pantry in West Derby, and it was a heartbreaking example of how the cost of living crisis is impacting people across our communities. That nurse was going to lose their home and was struggling to feed their children. How does the Secretary of State plan to address the dire situation that the very people he applauded as heroes during the pandemic now face? Maybe a start would be giving NHS workers an inflation-proof rise.

On NHS pay, I expect to announce a response to the integrated pay review bodies shortly. We are putting more funding into the NHS, as I signalled in my statement yesterday.

T2. Making a diagnosis of dementia is important to allow appropriate treatment, support and time to plan for the future. Pre-pandemic, the diagnosis rate for dementia in England was meeting the two thirds target, but today it is 61.9%. In Wales, data capture and quality is poor, but the equivalent rate is thought to be just 50%. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps he is taking to improve the situation?

My hon. Friend will be aware that the matter is devolved to the Welsh NHS, but I can say that in the last financial year, the Government allocated £70 million to NHS England to specifically address dementia waiting lists and increase the number of diagnoses. To further support recovery of the dementia diagnosis rate and access to post-diagnostic support, NHS England is funding two trusts in each region to pilot the diagnosing advanced dementia mandate tool, which will improve access to diagnosis.

I call shadow Secretary of State, Wes Streeting.

I welcome the Secretary of State to his first oral questions and, as this is likely to be his last oral questions, also wish him the best for the future. I associate myself with his remarks about his predecessor, who of course resigned from the Government on a point of principle as others chose to remain loyal; on that note, I also pay tribute to the former Minister, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), for the diligent approach he took to his work and the spirit in which he engaged with the Opposition. One of the contenders for the Conservative leadership says that public services are in a state of disrepair. Another describes the NHS backlog as frightening. A third called ambulance waiting times appalling, and of course the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that the former Health Secretary’s preparation for a pandemic was “found wanting and inadequate”. They are right, aren’t they?

The Government are committed to putting increased funding into our NHS. I set out yesterday the position on the resource departmental expenditure limit. Just to remind the House of the capital departmental expenditure limit, capital investment in the spending review was £32.2 billion between this year and 2024-25. The Government are committed to putting record funding into our NHS. We are also committed to funding 40 new hospitals and have allocated £3.7 billion to that programme.

I cannot believe that the Government are still talking about 40 new hospitals with a straight face. Nobody believes that it is true. As for capital investment, we have the lowest in the OECD and we lag significantly behind.

We have the longest waiting lists in NHS history and record waits for ambulances. People are finding it impossible to book a GP appointment. There are 400,000 delayed discharges each month because the social care support is not there. The Government are finally acknowledging that covid is still a challenge, and that the hot weather is a challenge, but they do not want to talk about their record, which is, I am afraid, at the heart of the challenge. Does the Secretary of State really believe that it is reasonable to expect NHS employers to meet the pay rise for NHS staff from existing budgets?

We will respond shortly to the independent pay review body, which, as part of its recommendations, weighs up the pressures on the cost of living and the other factors within its remit. The Government are delivering more doctors, more nurses, more appointments and more treatments, investing in our estate and planning for the future. That includes investment in research and development, and in future technology through our life sciences. That not only delivered the vaccine that allowed us to lift the covid restrictions that the Opposition wanted to retain, but will unlock the technologies of the future.

I call the Chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee, Jeremy Hunt.

May I recommend some scintillating summer reading to the Secretary of State: the study of 4.5 million patients that showed that people who see the same GP over a long period are 30% less likely to go to hospital and 25% less likely to die? Will he, after reading that, consider changing the GP contract to get rid of the micromanagement, and replace it with what doctors and patients want, which is the ability to have a long-term relationship?

I think my right hon. Friend knows me well enough to know that I will have a close interest in reading anything over the summer that is data driven. He highlights an extremely important issue. Just yesterday, I met with Andrea and Simon Brady, whose daughter tragically died of cancer at the age of 27. One of the key concerns that they raised with me was the lack of consistency when it came to the GP that Jessica went to see, and the fact that she kept seeing different people, and there was not continuity of care. Specific cases that I am looking into speak to this issue, and I am happy to look at the data that my right hon. Friend can share.

T3. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sickle cell and thalassaemia, I and the chief executive officer of the Sickle Cell Society were due to meet the Secretary of State’s predecessor to discuss the experiences of and health failings for people living with sickle cell and, indeed, sickle cell patients. Will the Secretary of State meet me—if he is still in post in September—or urge his predecessor to meet me and the CEO of the Sickle Cell Society?

I am not sure that I will urge my predecessor to do so, but if indeed there is a successor, I will be happy to share that with them. The hon. Lady raises an important point, and I am happy to look into it.

We are becoming more aware of how poor lifestyles, including with respect to diet, physical activity and stress, can contribute to an increase in the risk of cancer. Research is also highlighting that exercise, particularly moderate-intensity aerobic training, reduces side effects from treatment, anxiety, depression and recurrence rates. With that in mind, will the Secretary of State ensure that alongside diagnostics and treatment, exercise forms a fundamental part of the forthcoming 10-year cancer strategy, not only for preventing cancer but for reducing its recurrence?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As part of our public health messaging and so on, exercise as a preventive mechanism against cancer is extremely important. We have had a call for evidence; we will consider the evidence that has been provided when we look at the 10-year plan, of which exercise will be an important component.

T4. Despite repeated questions from me and other hon. Members, immunocompromised people still do not have access to the prophylactic drug Evusheld. It appears that some heads might need knocking together, so will the Secretary of State convene an urgent meeting with AstraZeneca and the UK Health Security Agency to ensure that test results can be released? If the results are positive, will he get on with ordering supplies and rolling them out, so that immunocompromised people can finally get on with living their lives?