NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer). Last Saturday, I sat with my constituent Joanna Redfearn, who is a mother of four. Her 11-year-old daughter, Kelsie, has complex medical needs, including epilepsy. Joanna was telling me about the increasing difficulty she experiences in getting an ambulance to come when her child has a fit. She has been subject to waits of between an hour and two hours—clearly, that is totally unacceptable, because it is extremely dangerous for her child A recent low point was when a paramedic turned up, who was told that a St John ambulance—not an NHS ambulance—was about to come. The paramedic rang the North East Ambulance Service to say, "Sorry, that will not do. They are not equipped to deal with this child’s needs. We need a proper ambulance." My constituent is so desperate that she is considering moving house to be nearer to the hospital This is part of a pattern in my constituency. When an elderly woman fell out of her wheelchair outdoors last summer, her husband, whose hearing is very bad, rang the ambulance service. The people on the other end of the phone began to challenge him and ask him a series of questions, but he could not answer them because he could not hear them. He could phone up and say, "I need an ambulance now", but he could not hear well enough to engage in a long conversation with the ambulance service After three phone calls a paramedic turned up, who then called a proper ambulance. The old man had to stand, propping his wife up for over an hour while the paramedics gave her the medical support she needed. It was fully two and a half hours before the proper ambulance came to collect her and take her to A and E. The worst case, however, is the one I raised with the Secretary of State a few days ago: that of Violet Alliston. Her partner rang 999 several times, but the ambulance arrived so late that she died Everyone knows that the North East Ambulance Service is in crisis. The patients know, the GPs know and the paramedics know. The only people who do not seem to know are the Ministers. It is a shame that the doctor is no longer with us, because he made a number of comments, and it is unfortunate that he will not hear my response to them. He challenged what had been written by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which was set up by the Government to audit their public spending plans. It was the OBR that said that the Government’s plans would reduce spending to 1930s levels, and reduce by 1 million the number of public service jobs. It would be nice if the Minister responding to the debate told us which NHS staff will be included in that 1 million Government Members seem to think that this is just a rhetorical device, and that none of us on the Opposition Benches have any such personal experience. That is not true. In the 1930s, my grandmother used to collect for an ambulance friendly society. What happened in the 1930s, under a 1930s system, was that if people did not pay, they did not get an ambulance. No one wants to return to that system The problems I have described obviously have knock-on effects in hospital A and E departments. County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust met the four-hour waiting time standard on only 74% of occasions. Furthermore, services are constantly being removed from Bishop Auckland general hospital. The latest service the trust wants to remove is the maternity unit. Again, I am sorry that the doctor is not here to respond to my account of the problems we are experiencing. We have been told that maternity services are not safe because if something goes wrong during labour, the trust cannot guarantee that an ambulance will arrive to transfer the patient, even though the ambulance station is right next to the hospital. Of course the ambulance service is not working I said to representatives of the hospital trust, "You are still dealing with home births. Surely the problems involved in collecting people from Bishop Auckland hospital by ambulance are exactly the same as those involved in collecting people if a home birth goes wrong." They replied, "It is true that home births are risky, but people expect to be safer in a hospital." In other words, what they are really bothered about is not health outcomes, but the risk of litigation. That is no way to run the health service What the health service needs is a proper, well-funded plan, and that is what Labour’s motion sets out. We need to see changes in the culture, in the resources and in the management. Labour’s plan is honest, truthful, transparent and clear, and it is what the British people want.