National Health Service Funding — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Health
Angela Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): The NHS in Wirral is facing its gravest crisis, which is why I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Cheshire and Merseyside’s so-called sustainability and transformation plan was published last Wednesday, and it is a piece of work that is shocking in its complacency, Orwellian in its use of language and potentially devastating in its consequences The Secretary of State has described these plans as open and transparent, but Wirral borough council has had zero involvement in the development of this plan. The first it knew about it was when it was posted on the NHS website last Wednesday I want to make three quick observations about the flaws in the STP process, which have become increasingly apparent as it has developed. The first concern is that the NHS has been starved of money and these plans are more about cutting the finances than reconfiguring the services. The second concern is that this has been a top-down process organised in a secretive way by the NHS. The third concern is that the extremely tight deadlines imposed on the process make it impossible to achieve any meaningful consultation or public buy-in The plans developed for Merseyside and Cheshire will affect services in Wirral. The plan was published on Wednesday. It confirmed that our local health services have been massively underfunded by this Government to the tune of £1 billion. But rather than providing the necessary resources to meet patient needs, the plan sets out massive cuts. It confirms the existence of entirely new meanings for some familiar words and phrases in the English language as well as elevating management gobbledygook to a form of high art In NHS-speak we now know that "sustainability" really means closing all deficits, and in Merseyside and Cheshire this means £1 billion of cuts; "openness and transparency" actually means developing these plans in secret and in total isolation from local partners; and "the current acute configuration within this footprint is unsustainable" is gobbledegook for mass hospital closures, mergers and the downgrading of accident and emergency services The report aims to make these huge savings by merging existing hospitals across the region, downgrading accident and emergency services and cutting access to maternity provision. It makes the heroic assumption that if care is provided closer to home, services will become cheaper and demand will go down. The report is silent on the future for Wirral acute services, despite its ominous observation that there needs to be a review to "determine future options for hospital reconfiguration" Wirral health trust’s annual report has let the cat out of the bag, however, by confirming that the merger of Arrowe Park hospital, the Countess of Chester hospital and parts of Clatterbridge hospital are being considered. This threatens to leave Wirral devoid of any acute services and to leave my constituents with increasingly difficult journeys if they are to access any acute care at all. It is a fact that Wirral local authority has had zero opportunity to be involved in the development of the plans despite the NHS planning guidelines for STPs asking those NHS managers developing them to "engage with local authorities and other partners in their development" It is a fact that this process has been the opposite of transparent. It is also a fact that the proposals contained within it are unacceptable The NHS needs more funding urgently. The STP process must be slowed down so that there can be meaningful consultation. The Government should end the top-down planning in secret and open up the process to involve the public and patients in their local communities, as well as other statutory authorities and staff. That is why I have launched a petition to ask the Government to press the pause button on these plans so that they can be properly considered by patients, the public and staff. It can be found at www.savewirralnhs.com. Please visit and sign the petition. Together we have to fight to save Wirral NHS.