Kettering General Hospital — House of Commons, 2017-06-29
Topic: Health
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for giving me permission to hold this important debate on the Floor of the House, because Kettering general hospital is perhaps the No. 1 issue for local people in Kettering This year, Kettering general hospital celebrates its 120th anniversary. It is one of the few hospitals that has been on the same site for 120 years. It is a much-loved local hospital. Thousands of local people have been born there, repaired there and, sadly, died there. Everyone has a special place in their heart for the hospital Some serious issues, however, need to be addressed. I welcome the Minister of State to his place to hear those concerns and respond. I am very grateful to him for making a personal visit to the hospital in April to meet the staff, including doctors and nurses, and also to my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Corby (Tom Pursglove), whom I also welcome to their places in the Chamber. The Minister’s personal attention to Kettering general hospital is noted and much appreciated I thank all the staff at the hospital—the nurses, the doctors, the ancillary staff, the managers and the directors—for the wonderful work that they do. It is a massive team effort, with almost 4,000 people working on the site. There are just short of 600 beds in the hospital, and tens of thousands of patients go through the doors every year. Indeed, that is one of the issues that I want to remind the Minister about. Kettering general hospital is located in one of the fastest-growing parts of the country. In the last census, Kettering was sixth out of 348 districts for growth in the number of households and 31st for population increase. Just down the road, I believe Corby has the highest birth rate in the whole country. Thousands of houses are being built each year in Kettering, Corby and Wellingborough, in east Northamptonshire and over the border in Market Harborough, which means that there is growing pressure on the hospital The local population is not only growing in size but ageing rapidly. It is wonderful that we are all living longer, but the number of people over 75 in Northamptonshire is likely to go up by 33% in the next five years from 54,000 to 72,000. People over 75 bring with them a wealth of experience, but I think most of them would admit that they are not as young and fit as they used to be, and they require increasingly detailed medical interventions, often for multiple issues rather than just one. That is a real challenge for the hospital to get to grips with In the past 10 years, the number of in-patient consultant episodes in the hospital has gone up by 27%. Attendances at the accident and emergency department have gone up by 23% in the past five years, and some 83,000 people a year are now coming through the A&E, which was built 20 years ago to cope with an influx of 40,000 people a year—less than half the number who currently visit. Out-patient attendances at the hospital have risen by almost two thirds in the past 10 years. Local people increasingly say to all three hon. Members from the area, "We love our local hospital, but what new investment and new facilities are being provided so that it can cope with the growth in the local population?" I ask the Minister that question directly this evening on behalf of those residents Our clinical commissioning group is still one of the most underfunded in the country. This year it crept up to 5% below the target funding. It has been worse in the past, but it is still pretty bad. Will the Minister urge those responsible to ensure that health funding is prioritised in areas of rapid population growth such as north Northamptonshire? Without that, we simply will not be able to cope The car parking situation at Kettering general hospital is critical, as the Minister experienced at first hand when he was caught in the traffic jam outside the hospital on his visit. It is good news that there will be 240 new spaces in the car park by the end of this November, and although that problem is difficult to fix, it is relatively straightforward compared with meeting the medical needs of the growing local population I must stress that, as the Minister will know, the hospital is now in special measures, which is not a happy situation. It is the result of a Care Quality Commission inspection in October, after which the CQC gave the hospital an "inadequate" rating in November, triggering the special measures. There have been a series of unannounced and focused inspections since—I think the last one was yesterday—and we await further news on when the CQC anticipates the hospital might come out of special measures. I welcome the special measures provisions provided by the Department. It is absolutely right to make sure that a hospital in some difficulty receives special attention. If that requires it being labelled "special measures" then so be it, but we must provide the help and assistance that such hospitals need It is not all bad news at Kettering general hospital. We must remember that it is treating a record number of local people with increasingly world-class treatments. It is hitting all its cancer targets. Its infection control, having some years ago been the very worst in the country, is now extremely good. The A&E target, which has been among the bottom 10 in the country, is now rapidly improving. I hope that figures to be announced soon will show that it is in the top third of type A A&Es My hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Corby would agree with me that one of the key priorities at the hospital is the provision of an urgent care hub. This is a fairly simple concept that requires funding of £20 million to £30 million. The idea is this: to have on one site, at Kettering general hospital, a one-stop shop for GP services and out-of-hours care, an on-site pharmacy, a minor injuries unit, facilities for social services and mental health care, access to community care services for the frail elderly, and a replacement for the A&E department, which, as I have said, is now more than 20 years old. Those services in a one-stop shop urgent care hub on site would enable the rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment by appropriate health and social care professionals. Patients would be streamed into appropriate treatment areas to minimise delays and reduce the need for admissions. This is an example of best practice across the NHS and it is what we would like to see introduced at Kettering to relieve pressure on clinicians in the A&E department.