National Health Service Funding — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Health
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): The funding crisis in the NHS is no accident. It is a political choice made by the Tories for which patients and NHS staff are paying the price in longer waiting times, delayed operations, and increasingly stressful working conditions. It is a crisis driven by the Government’s demand that the NHS make £22 billion-worth of efficiency savings—or cuts. This is impossible without huge damage to our national health service An analysis by The Guardian of 24 of the 44 STPs stated: "Thousands of hospital beds are set to disappear, pregnant women will face long trips to give birth and a string of A&E units will be downgraded or even closed altogether as part of controversial NHS plans to reorganise healthcare in England…Dozens of England’s 163 acute hospitals look likely to have services, including cancer, trauma and stroke care, removed as a result of the plans". In the 2015-16 financial year, the NHS reported a record net deficit of £2.45 billion—nearly three times higher than in 2014—and so we see the crisis in services accelerating. Last week, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Dr Chris Hopson, said: "The NHS simply cannot do all that it is currently doing and is being asked to do in future on these funding levels." STPs are supposed to facilitate the integration of health and social care, for which they require the support of council leaders, yet the leader of Wirral Council has said in the past 24 hours that he has not been given the opportunity to feed into the development of the local plan. The STP for Cheshire and Merseyside is of great concern to my constituents because it requires nearly £1 billion to be taken out of local health services. If this goes ahead, the impact on the NHS will be devastating; it is impossible that it would be otherwise There was recently a proposal to close Arrowe Park hospital, Clatterbridge hospital and Countess of Chester hospital and build a new hospital in Ellesmere Port, and there has been no denial that such a conversation has taken place. The annual report of the foundation trust that runs Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge says: "The Trust will explore with Countess of Chester Hospital the potential for the development of a single acute general hospital covering Wirral and west Cheshire within the next 10-15 years …Another option is to move all planned surgery and procedures to Clatterbridge, while Arrowe Park will become a ‘hot site’ dealing mainly with emergencies." It is not clear what a "hot site" is if it is not a hospital. Surely the point about an A&E is that it needs to be in a place where there is a very wide range of expertise on how to deal with any emergency. I have very real concerns about the future of Arrowe Park hospital, which is a major hospital highly valued by my constituents who use its services and who work there; indeed, it is a major employer in my constituency. The STP talks of "hospital reconfiguration". It is no wonder that local people are up in arms about the plans The STP for Cheshire and Merseyside appears to set a great deal of store by the development of ACOs, or accountable care organisations. These are an idea brought from America, where of course there is no national health service. They integrate health and social care, and have a strong emphasis on cost reduction. The core issue is that people in England often pay for social care, but certainly do not expect to pay for healthcare, other than through direct taxation. There is real concern that the introduction of ACOs through STPs is part of a desire on the part of the Government to introduce a private insurance-based healthcare system in England instead of our national health service. I would be grateful if the Minister could give some clarification on that point It is my belief that the Government are cutting the supply of healthcare in the public sector to create demand for a private health insurance marketplace like the one in America, and there is nothing in the STP to reassure me that that is not the case. The document is riddled with the language of the market, talking of increased customer satisfaction, better user experience and "commercially sustainable" clinical support services. If the STPs go ahead across England, we can expect to see A&E closures, hospital closures, downgrading of services, patients waiting longer for treatment, and deterioration in the pay and conditions of staff as the drive to cut costs takes its toll. I urge the Government to use the autumn statement to address the underfunding of the NHS and to give it the funds it needs.