NHS (Government Spending) — House of Commons, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Daniel Leonard James Poulter (Conservative, Centre-right): No, on this occasion, the hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me Our capital investment in maternity services, which, as I said, is the biggest for decades, is making a big difference to mums, dads and new families. Thanks to our investment in the midwifery work force, we now have the highest ever number of midwives working in our NHS—about 2,000 more than in 2010—providing more personalised care and support for women and new mums. However, we must all recognise the challenges facing our health and care system in the months and years ahead. NHS England’s "Five Year Forward View" argued that we needed to do more to tackle the root causes of ill health through a radical upgrade in prevention and public health; to give patients more control over their own care, including through the option of combining health and social care, and new support for carers and volunteers; to ensure the NHS changes to meet the needs of a population that lives longer; and to develop and deliver new models of care, local flexibility and more investment in our work force, technology and innovation, some of which I have already outlined That is why the Government have provided additional funding for NHS front-line services in 2015-16, including £200 million to pilot new care models and £250 million for the first tranche of the new £1 billion fund, spread over the next four years, for investment in new primary and community care facilities to support our GPs and primary and community care work force in the important work they do. In community care, we are committed to undoing the terrible mistake that was Labour’s 2004 GP contract, which left so many people, particularly the frail elderly, without the GP care they needed at evenings and weekends. Our investment will support GPs to provide care for patients seven days a week so that patients will once more be properly supported during evenings and weekends. We are also training an extra 5,000 GPs, in addition to the 5,000 extra we have already seen under this Government, to provide that care We are clear, however, that if the NHS is to meet the challenge of increasing patient demand and expectations, it cannot stand still. By 2018, 3 million people in our country will have three or more long-term conditions, so we must continually adapt and change how we deliver care to support patients, families and carers, and deliver more care in people’s homes and communities. For our part, and as part of our plan for our NHS, not only are we delivering a strong economy so that we can protect our NHS budget, but we will continue to be ruthless in delivering greater efficiencies in estate management and procurement and in reducing back-office costs so that we can reinvest that money in front-line patient care. Furthermore, we will continue to back front-line staff with the training, equipment and new technology they need to do their job and provide high-quality patient care, which is why we have already made available an additional £2 billion down payment to deliver NHS England’s "Five Year Forward View" and why the Prime Minister has committed to continuing to protect our NHS and ensuring that it has the additional money it needs to deliver first-class patient care in the months and years ahead In conclusion, I would like to thank the dedicated NHS staff working incredibly hard to keep us well looked after and safe in this busy winter period. As a practising doctor—I know Labour does not like it, given its dearth of real-life experience and the number of former special advisers on its Front Bench—I know how hard our NHS staff work and how dedicated they are to delivering the highest-quality patient care. I remind the House that we have been able to increase the money available to our NHS only because we have the growing economy to pay for it; because our long-term economic plan is working; and because, under this Conservative-led Government, there are more people in work than there were under Labour. Anybody who does not have an economic plan for the economy—and Labour has no plan for our economy, as has certainly been clear in today’s debate—does not have a plan for the future of our NHS. Through economic policies and by creating growth and jobs, we have been able to announce additional NHS funding for 2015-16 without having to raise taxes, including on people’s homes, as Labour would like to. This gives our NHS the funding it needs to begin implementing the plan set out in NHS England’s "Five Year Forward View", so that it can continue to be a world-class, sustainable health service, delivered free at the point of need When we came into power, we took two big strategic decisions with our NHS: to increase funding and to cut bureaucracy and waste, and to reinvest that money in more doctors, nurses and front-line staff and to improve front-line patient care. That is exactly what we have done, so the choice on 7 May will be clear: between a Labour party that bankrupted Britain and would do so again, at the same time bankrupting our NHS, and a Conservative Government, committed to securing our NHS by delivering a strong, stable and growing economy.