To provide the best care, the NHS needs the best technology, and we are therefore bringing together leaders of the digital agenda across the NHS under a new organisation called NHSX. We are also publishing a new code of conduct for the use of artificial intelligence in the NHS. NHSX will report jointly to the NHS and to me, and it will lead this vital agenda so that the NHS can be a world leader in emerging technologies that help to cut costs and save lives.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Scottish Care reports that 30% of social care staff in the highlands are nationals from other European countries. They are paid the real living wage of £9 an hour as a matter of public policy, but that is well short of the Government’s proposed limit of £30,000 for new immigrants in the future. Will the Secretary of State fight in the Cabinet to change that policy, or is he content to let these new immigration policies choke off the supply of labour to our social care sector?
We welcome people working in social care from the EU and from the rest of the world, and we need to ensure that that can continue, but we also need to ensure that we can train people locally to work in social care. That is incredibly important.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
T2. GP surgeries across the Wells constituency are innovating with the employment of nurse practitioners, paramedics and other types of clinician to fill vacancies when recruitment of GPs has not been possible. While this often works well, we still have too many vacancies for doctors. What steps will my right hon. Friend be taking to encourage the thousands of GPs in training to consider practice in rural and coastal areas like mine in Somerset?
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. As important as new technology is and new ways of working and nurse practitioners are, we still need more GPs, and we need more GPs especially in rural and coastal areas. The targeted enhanced recruitment scheme offers a £20,000 salary supplement to attract GPs to parts of the country where there are serious shortages, including in Somerset.
T5. The Terrence Higgins Trust has made it clear that men are being diagnosed with HIV as a direct result of the limited number of places on the current PrEP trial. The Secretary of State has already said this morning that the doubling of the places on that trial is being implemented now, but that commitment was made over three weeks ago; when will implementation be completed across all trial sites including Burrell Street in my constituency?
I want to see this being implemented as soon as possible. It has already started, but we need commitment from local authorities as well as the NHS to deliver. I am very happy to work with the hon. Gentleman and all other interested Members to see it happen.
T3. Key parts of our NHS workforce are registered and regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Does the Minister share their concern about the steep rise in professional fees that they face—in particular, the loss of the 50% discount that applied to graduates within two years of qualifying—and will she look again at whether anything can be done to assist this key group of our workforce?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the need to support and enhance the protections for allied health professionals. One of the recent planned HCPC increases was to raise its annual fees by £16, but it would still remain one of the lowest of any of the UK-wide health and care regulators. It is also important to remember that regulation fees are tax deductible.
T6. The head of NHS Improvement, who is also a Tory peer, has said the biggest problem facing the NHS is that not enough people want to work in it. How did the Secretary of State take Britain’s best-loved institution and turn it into something nobody wants to work for?
Thankfully, the recruitment both of nurses and doctors is going up, which demonstrates that people do want to work in the NHS, and so they should because it is an amazing place to work and it has a great mission, which is to improve the lives of everyone.
T4. Last September, the number of medical school places increased by a quarter, as we have just heard. That is great news, but apart from offering premiums, how can we incentivise newly qualified GPs to come to places like Clacton where we have an acute shortage?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the £20,000 bonus is an important part of the solution, but so is having more GPs, and the fact that we have a record number of people going into GP training at the moment is great news that Members in all parts of this House should welcome.
T7. A huge number of GP surgeries are struggling to recruit, and meanwhile lots of locums are making a lot more money being locums than working on permanent GP contracts. Will the Secretary of State consider offering his state-backed indemnity to those who commit to being on a permanent contract with a GP surgery?
Of course the nature of being in a GP practice is changing. For a long time practices, which are essentially private businesses, also had the benefit of rising property prices that brought additional income on top of their income from the NHS. That is no longer the case because property is so expensive, so many people are changing the way that GPs are employed, so they are directly employed rather than through practices. That move is happening, but it is just one of the many changes we are seeing to try to make sure that being a GP is sustainable, and clearly things are starting to improve because a record number of people are choosing to become GPs.
T8. Mr Speaker, you will be aware of the fantastic work by the Edenbridge War Memorial Hospital in the town just near me, and you will also be aware of the fantastic news that we are having a new clinic built there. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that the money from the initial site, which was given by public subscription 100 years ago in memory of the young men who died in the first world war, should now be spent on medical facilities in the town?
My hon. Friend has been absolutely passionate about securing the best possible outcome for his constituents. As he knows, the Edenbridge War Memorial Hospital is held by NHS Property Services on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Local NHS bodies in Kent are considering the future of services in the Sevenoaks area, including their nature and possible funding. I am sure that my hon. Friend will recognise that I cannot intervene directly, but I would be happy to meet him to discuss this further.
T9. The Central and East London breast screening service was performing well until last April, when it was transferred from Barts Health NHS Trust to the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, even though the Royal Free and did not have enough staff. The number of women invited plummeted from 3,000 a month to 1,000 a month. Why was that transfer allowed to go ahead, given the clear warnings about what the consequences would be? Who is responsible for this failure?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
The award of the contract for the Central and East London screening service to the Royal Free was approved by both NHS England’s London region and NHS England’s commercial executive group. An agreed recovery plan was put into place to address the various issues. While the service did plummet to 1,100 in April 2018, it is currently inviting 3,000 women per month, which has been the normal monthly invitation rate for the service for the past three years. Women are currently being offered appointments in line with the agreed recovery plan and with the national breast screening standard, with 90% or more being invited within 36 months of their previous screening by October 2019.