Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust — House of Commons, 2016-03-21
Topic: Health
Benedict Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for bringing this matter to the House and for her powerful introduction to her constituents’ concerns. I also thank the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox), who intervened. They make a powerful double act for Mid Yorkshire. I have felt the pressure of the concerns they have quite rightly raised with me privately, and I hope that they will be able to do so again in the next couple of weeks I very much like the fact that the hon. Member for Dewsbury ended by mentioning this important anniversary. We are a few weeks away from the 70th anniversary of the Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill, as it then was, on 30 April. At that time, Nye Bevan made two points about the introduction of the NHS. The first is the one we all know, and of which we are equally proud, which is that it should be a service free at the point of need However, Nye Bevan made another point, which for him was as important in the establishment of a national health service—it has been forgotten by politicians on both sides during the past 70 years—which is the principle of universalising the best. He made a very powerful argument at the time, which was that the reason for a universal NHS was to ensure not just that people could approach the service without having to worry about money, but that someone from a part of the country that traditionally did not have good hospital care could rely on the same quality of service that they would expect in a wealthier or better served part of the country. In establishing the first part of Nye Bevan’s dream, we have done well, but in establishing the second part, we have not yet succeeded. The hon. Lady’s constituents have, in part, been at the rough end of that. For years, under Governments of all kinds, we have not done well enough in universalising the best across the service. As we discussed when we had our meeting, there are hospitals not far from hers that are delivering exceptionally good and consistent levels of nursing care. They have been able to do so while under similar pressures to those in her own hospital—as she has correctly identified, similar pressures apply across the service Clearly, there are historical problems in Mid Yorkshire, and they will be difficult to grapple with. I completely understand why the hon. Lady feels that commissioners might not yet have a full enough grasp of the problems in her area. That is why she questions the basis of the reconfiguration. I understand that the assurance exercise into the reconfiguration is nearing its end, and we will publish that at some point in the near future. I hope that that will provide assurance that the accelerated reconfiguration can take place. I take into account the completely legitimate points that the hon. Lady made about the readiness of the reconfiguration of social care services in the area, but I think we should cross that bridge when we get to it. I am mindful of the fact that I have no power to change reconfiguration decisions—and neither does the Secretary State.