Kent & Canterbury Hospital — House of Commons, 2017-06-22
Topic: Health
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to start by welcoming Ken Rogers and campaigners from Concern for Health in East Kent, who have come here today to hear this debate. Ken was born in 1948, the same year as the NHS. He was diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukaemia when his daughter was 15 months old and told that he would not live to see her fifth birthday. That was in 1981. Thanks to Kent & Canterbury hospital, he is here today, listening to this debate. There are thousands of people with similar stories—people who would not be here today if it were not for Kent & Canterbury hospital, a treasured hospital with a history going back over two centuries, and for many years a top destination for junior doctors and aspiring consultants The hospital has an outstanding reputation in specialties such as urology, providing dialysis for patients across east and west Kent, neurology, neuro-rehabilitation and surgery, with surgeons using a state-of-the-art robot to carry out manoeuvres impossible with human hands. Last week, the Taylor ward was providing fantastic specialist care for cardiac patients and the hospital serves around 200,000 people in Canterbury, Faversham and surrounding villages, but people across that area are worried—very worried—because there is a big question mark over the future of the hospital The building is out of date—frankly, it is crumbling—and the hospital is struggling to recruit staff. I said that last week the Taylor ward was providing specialist cardiac care because, this week, that is no longer the case. On Monday, junior doctors were withdrawn from Canterbury and relocated to neighbouring hospitals, after Health Education England said that there were not enough consultants to oversee their training and there was too much reliance on locums. The shift of junior doctors means the shift of emergency care. Heart attack patients in my constituency, who previously faced a journey of under 20 minutes to get to the hospital in Canterbury from Faversham, will now have to travel to Ashford—a longer drive on winding roads, one of which will be closed all summer—or Margate, 40 minutes away. In rush hour or by public transport, these journeys are far, far longer. People are scared that they or a loved one will not make it in time, and that visiting will be harder, or impossible for some. Added to that is the confusion about the transfer of services, and the risk that the pressure to free up acute beds will mean patients being transferred between hospitals before they are ready or ending up in corridors. Nurses, some of whom are here today, are desperately worried about the risk for patients Then there is the impact on the staff. Some are now making longer journeys to work. Others are staying at Kent & Canterbury but are at risk of losing their specialist skills. No commitment has been made on when acute services will return to Canterbury. There is great scepticism about the efforts being made to recruit consultants. Public trust has been lost. The point is that these temporary changes must not become permanent. We must not allow the hospital to crumble further and drift towards a downgrade, when there is a real opportunity to seize this moment of change to form an ambitious long-term vision for healthcare in Kent. What patients really need is a new acute hospital providing world-class care and a medical school attracting the brightest and best doctors and nurses, making east Kent a centre of excellence in healthcare. As a university city and a major population centre with good transport links, Canterbury is the right place for a major hospital and a medical school. The Kent and Medway sustainability and transformation plan is proposing to reconfigure acute services across east Kent’s three major hospitals into one emergency hub with specialist care and a trauma unit, a second emergency hospital also carrying out planned care and, at the third site, a rehabilitation hospital and a primary care-led urgent care centre. The STP is not specific about what will happen where, but all the signs are that Canterbury is the most likely to lose acute services, despite it being the obvious place to centralise specialist services We are at a crunch point, but this should not, and must not, be treated as a foregone conclusion. This is not the time for another short-term compromise. It is time to reverse the direction of travel and make the case for a long-term, visionary answer to the challenges of healthcare in Kent. A new hospital is not a panacea; it is not the answer to all Kent’s healthcare problems. We still need to invest in primary care and bring more services out of hospitals and into places such as the Encompass Vanguard in Whitstable and Faversham cottage hospital.