Kent & Canterbury Hospital — House of Commons, 2017-06-22
Topic: Health
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as Deputy Speaker, Sir David. I hope that that will not necessarily be as temporary as suggested by Mr Speaker when he sought the leave of the House to appoint you. It is also a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), who has been on her toes in securing Mr Speaker’s consent to have this debate so early in the parliamentary Session. I am pleased that she has secured the support of many of her constituents, some of whom have come to witness her championing their interests in relation to Kent & Canterbury hospital. She has done that not just this evening, but consistently over the past few months with our mutual friend Sir Julian Brazier, who is sadly no longer with us in the House. However, I congratulate his replacement, the new hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) I worked closely with Sir Julian when we were Ministers in the Ministry of Defence, and both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent have been doughty champions of the population of mid- Kent, particularly those in the areas surrounding Canterbury, in fighting for healthcare services given the challenges that she quite properly describes at Canterbury hospital. I pay tribute to them for that, and they are doing the right thing in ensuring that such issues are brought to Ministers’ attention. I know that she wrote to the Secretary of State only last week, and I am pleased to hear her arguments, which were so eloquently put today. I will say what I can in response to the questions and challenges that she posed, but I must say at the outset that I do not stand here tonight with all the answers to all the questions because, as she will appreciate, many of the things that she is calling for are decisions that will be taken and led by clinicians in Kent. It is not for Ministers to prescribe the provision of services in Kent. Many such decisions will take place over a period of time; it will not be instant decision making I will start my response by providing a little context for what has happened over the past few years, and this week in particular. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the board of East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust agreed to relocate some services from its Canterbury site, Kent & Canterbury Hospital, this Monday. The change happened overnight from Sunday into Monday and came in response to legitimate concerns raised by both the General Medical Council and Health Education England over a period stretching back to as early as 2014, when they raised concerns about the standard of training available at the Canterbury site, in particular the quality and safety of junior doctor training The situation was brought to a head following a visit in March this year. The recruitment and retention of key medical staff has been an ongoing challenge for the trust, and there is a shortage of consultants to provide the required training and supervision of junior doctors posted to Kent & Canterbury hospital. On Sunday 18 June, 38 junior doctors were reallocated from Kent & Canterbury to other sites operated by the trust. The removal of these junior doctors has required the trust to relocate some of the services it provides, to ensure safe and sustainably staffed services for patients My hon. Friend’s constituents will still receive good service provision. The clinical commissioning group has facilitated this development by acquiring some 40 additional care packages to support effective discharge from the Ashford and Margate sites, to free up some 75 beds to allow for this temporary service change to take place, along with an additional 20 ambulances, supplied through SECAmb—the South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust—to cover the additional journey times from the Canterbury area. Replacement services at nearby hospitals in Ashford and Margate are being monitored to ensure that they are safe and effective, given the additional pressure on those hospitals from the move Unfortunately, I cannot say today how long this temporary closure will last. The GMC has made it clear that "if there is evidence that appropriate and sustainable action has been taken to make the Urgent Care Centre a safe environment for doctors in training once more, HEE will review reallocating trainees to the site" No decision has been made about the long-term future of the service and no decision will be made without full public consultation. I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance.