NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): I have a great deal of affection for the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), but I have to say to him that the only people who are using that word are those on the Government Benches, because they apparently have nothing to say about the future of the NHS under the stewardship of a Conservative Government—God forbid—or about the real crisis that our accident and emergency services are suffering across the country. I should like to hear a little more from them about what they actually plan to do, rather than hearing this ridiculous nonsense We all know that the national health service faces major funding challenges in the years to come. NHS England has set that out clearly, and we have put forward concrete proposals to raise the extra money that our NHS needs. That will involve increased funding and, I have to say, radical reform. The merging of health and social care is a major undertaking that will unlock huge efficiencies and deal with one of the major pinch points of inefficiency that is wasting billions of pounds as well as creating great difficulties in people’s lives. Families simply do not know where to turn at the moment That scale of ambition has not been matched by the Government. In fact, at the very moment that they should be encouraging front-line workers to innovate and work together from the bottom up to come up with the new ideas necessary to take the NHS to a new level, they are tying them up with the red tape of compulsory competitive tendering. That is the last thing those people need at a time when a radical new approach to delivering services is needed I want to focus on the specific funding situation in the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. It is regrettable that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who is a doctor, refused to take my intervention on the subject of maternity services. He must know, given that we have been talking about my maternity unit and maternity services across the Morecambe Bay area for some years now, that the situation is now critical. It will be the subject of a major report in the next couple of weeks, and there are real funding issues involved I shall run briefly through the trust’s recent funding history. In 2011, the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust announced that it was facing a cut of £15 million—around 4% of its annual budget—as a result of the efficiencies and cuts to hospital funding being required by the Government. At that stage, it managed to avoid reductions in front-line staffing and facilities. The required additional spending resulting from the clinical and staffing failures found by the serious Care Quality Commission reports led to the trust’s finances falling into deficit by about £25 million annually. Ministers are still insisting that that must be eliminated The Better Care Together reconfiguration plan was submitted to NHS England and Monitor by the trust last July. It set out a scheme that would allow for up to £18 million of annual savings achieved over a five-year period. The trust, NHS England and the Department have been going backwards and forwards on the details of this plan, but it has boiled down to this basic point: innovative changes in approach and some difficult decisions mean that local health care experts are proposing to reduce the trust’s deficit by a full 70%, but—this is the key point—our whole area is clear that the unique combination of geographical isolation, poor transport links and severe health needs in pockets of some of the worst urban deprivation in the country in Barrow make this a unique case, meaning we cannot go further than that 70% proposed reduction without cutting deeply into vital services across our hospitals It is a shame that the hon. Members who represent the Royal Lancaster infirmary, which is part of Morecambe Bay’s trust, are again not here to make this case. However, I want to ask the Minister something, and she can rise now or deal with this in her summing up. Will she follow the lead of the shadow Secretary of State, recognise our unique case and pledge to bridge the gap? Until we get that promise I will keep working with anyone in our community across Morecambe Bay who will join us in demanding the funding deal our hospitals desperately need The hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) are not here to stand up for their hospital today, so I will be out at the weekend with the people who will replace them as MPs: our brilliant candidates Amina Lone and Cat Smith. We will not stop until our hospitals are secure. The Government are proving themselves to be not up to this job, so they should get out of the way