National Health Service — House of Commons, 2015-01-21
Topic: Health
Andrew Murray Burnham (Labour, Centre-left): I have said that I will not give way again All those measures could help in the short term, but the truth is that all parties must recognise that there will not be a long-term solution to the A and E crisis until we face up to the crisis in social care, and rethink how we care for the most vulnerable older people. It is not just about money; we need radical changes in the way we use existing budgets for health and care. We need to merge them so that we can change the way in which we care for older people. We need a model of care that starts in the home and supports people there, so that we can drastically reduce the numbers unnecessarily ending up in hospital and becoming trapped there Although that model is not just about money, it is partly about money: if such a transformation is to happen, extra investment will be needed to stimulate it. The Secretary of State likes to hold up the better care fund, but I am afraid that councils and the NHS simply do not share his optimism. It robs Peter to pay Paul: the money transferred to councils is nowhere near enough to backfill the cuts to social care, and it leaves a deepening hole in NHS finances. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State asks where I would get the money from, and I will tell him. The Opposition have committed to provide extra money for an integrated NHS—£2.5 billion a year over and above what he has committed—with social care as part of a single service for the whole person. By contrast, under the public spending plans the Government have set out for the next Parliament, it is clear not only that the A and E crisis will deepen every year, but that it will soon become a full-blown NHS crisis The NHS used to be the Prime Minister’s priority; now it does not feature in his top six election themes. We know that there will be no money for it beyond what the Government have promised, because the priority is tax cuts for higher rate taxpayers, although they have not yet identified where the money for that will come from. If the outlook for the NHS is grim, it is utterly dire for local government and social care. Taking public spending back to 1930s levels will absolutely decimate what is left of our social care system, and if the system goes into freefall today’s problems in the NHS will become entrenched. Will the Secretary of State go back to the Chancellor, argue for a better deal for the NHS and social care, and match Labour’s pledge to prevent a permanent care crisis in the next Parliament The NHS is now at the crossroads, and the coming election presents an enormous choice between Labour’s plan to lift the NHS out of its current crisis by investing £2.5 billion in the NHS of the future, and the coalition approach under which—with the Government unable to face up to the mess of their own making in A and E or to produce a plan to turn it around, and unwilling to find the extra money it needs—the NHS is dragged down by a toxic mix of cuts and privatisation. The stakes could not be higher. This crisis cannot go on: patients have suffered enough. They need an election, a change of direction and a Labour Government to secure the NHS.