PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 24 February 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Today we are publishing a new GP contract. Backed by new funding, it will recruit more GPs and cut waiting times for appointments. The changes and modernisation will diagnose thousands more cases of lung cancer, protect children by boosting vaccination rates, and provide more people with weight-loss jabs on the NHS. That follows an extra £1.1 billion that we have invested in general practice this year, and builds on the 2,000 more GPs that we have recruited since the general election. After 14 years of decline, the Government are fixing the front door to the NHS, bringing back the family doctor, and ending the 8am scramble. Lots done, lots more to do.

Inverurie medical practice in my constituency saw its national insurance bill rise by £75,000 thanks to this Government. That has put huge pressure on the practice, which was already operating with one GP for 3,000 patients, which is three times higher than the British Medical Association recommends. When did the Secretary of State last meet the Chancellor to discuss the impact of the NICs rise on GP practices, and what are he and his Department doing about the pressure—

Order. We are on topicals.

I see the Chancellor most weeks. That is why record investment is going into our NHS, which is improving patient satisfaction with access to general practice, cutting waiting lists, and improving ambulance response times—all to fix the mess that the Conservatives left behind. And people should be in no doubt: given the chance, they would do it again. They opposed the investment, they opposed the reform, and they can never be trusted with our NHS.

We acknowledge the important issue of the potential negative impact that gambling advertising may have on children and young people’s health. My officials continue to work closely with officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and I will be discussing the issue with the Minister for Gambling, who is responsible for gambling advertising policy. We continue to keep the public health evidence under review, and to consider suitable action to protect individuals and communities from gambling harms.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

In the plan for change, the Government committed to meet the 18-week standard for routine operations, but the latest data suggests that the Government are not on track to meet that commitment by the end of the Parliament. In December, fewer people were treated within 18 weeks than in the previous month. Will the Secretary of State now accept the reality that patients are experiencing and, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned, that the Government will not deliver their commitment on their key milestone to deliver the 18-week standard?

I will never surrender to the tyranny of the low expectations of the Conservative party. We have cut waiting lists by 330,000 since we came to office; they are now at their lowest level in three years. We made progress despite strikes, we made progress despite winter pressures, and we have made progress despite every bit of investment and modernisation being opposed by the Conservatives. Instead of criticising our record, the shadow Secretary of State should apologise for his.

Another leadership ambition, I see.

On 29 September, I wrote to the Secretary of State regarding the late Dr Susan Michaelis’s campaign for better research into lobular breast cancer, but sadly I still have not had a reply. She established the Lobular Moon Shot Project and the last Government committed to support its aims. However, despite meeting the Secretary of State, representatives from the project say that they still have no clarity on how the project and research will be expedited. Will the Secretary of State confirm now Government approval for the funding required for this research, which is critical for so many women in this country?

I apologise to the shadow Secretary of State for not having replied to his letter—let me make sure that I do that. There is no disagreement across the House on the substance of the issue. I am absolutely supportive of the project and I want to fund the research, but we have to make sure that the research proposal meets the standards and has the confidence of our funders. We are working with the team to try to get the proposal over the line, but that is the only obstacle here—it is certainly not a political decision.

This UK Labour Government, at least, are spending billions of pounds upgrading the digital architecture of the NHS in England. That means that over 90% of GPs now offer appointments online, and by 2029 we will have a single patient record for patients and their clinicians to access all their information. That is in contrast with the digital desert that exists in Scotland, which is why it is time for Analogue John to move over and make way for Anas Sarwar as First Minster to save Scotland’s NHS.

The hon. Member highlights a real challenge that we have inherited: the disconnection between undergraduate education and training, and the jobs that are available. We are addressing that through our workforce plan. I want to place on the record my thanks to South Western Ambulance Service, which in December improved ambulance response times by just under 30 minutes for category 2 calls. There are still big challenges in the south-west, but the team deserve real credit for the improvement they have led.

My hon. Friend highlights an important point about the need to have further roll-outs of CDCs, particularly for communities such as hers. We are expanding those and expanding the time available for them. We are also expanding access through the front door through the NHS app and digital. Our new online hospital service will improve the sorts of issues that she mentions so that we bring services closer to her patients and do not expect them to have to travel.

I understand the issues that the hon. Gentleman and many other Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), have raised in Grimsby and the Lincolnshire area. It is important that the clinical mapping for their new services is supported by clinicians and local people, and I am happy to continue to talk to the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) and others about progress with that. I am in touch with the NHS England team, and it assures me that it is continuing to do that. I also understand the additional difficulties—

Order. Speed it up.

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about how important DEXA scans are for osteoporosis, particularly for women. We have already expanded DEXA scans across the country this year; we have also allocated more capital funding for such capital investment, and we will announce the allocations in due course.

As the hon. Gentleman is probably aware, this Government’s cancer plan, which I launched just over a week ago, is the first ever cancer plan to have a section on children and young people with cancer and to commit to supporting children holistically throughout their cancer journey. I am more than happy to have a conversation with him about the issues that he has raised.

Glasgow is a great place to get medical care—I can attest to that—but people should not have to travel 200 miles to get medical care. My hon. Friend and I have had many discussions on this topic, and I am very glad to continue those discussions. She knows that treatment along the border is subject to service-level agreements in both English trusts and Scottish health boards, but it should be much more porous and accommodating than it is. I am happy to take these discussions with her further later.

Catherine from Redbourn has shared that she has to wait weeks for a GP appointment, yet her village faces an increase in residents of up to 70%, which means thousands of new patients. Some of that is through speculative developments. Does the Minister agree that councils should have the powers to ensure that planning approvals are dependent on first securing healthcare to serve those new residents? Will he commit to ensuring that NHS planning cycles are aligned with housing developments to ensure that communities do not have to wait for weeks, months or years?

On the subject of GP access, I am delighted that 75% of patients now say it is easy to contact their GP, which is a sizeable increase of 14 percentage points since July 2024—that is a really positive development that I am sure the hon. Lady welcomes. Turning to planning, it is very important that the integrated care board, the council and the developers are joined up together, and we need to ensure that happens. There is also the primary care utilisation and modernisation fund, which the hon. Lady’s constituents may be interested in.

Mental health support teams provide innovative early support for children and young people in schools and colleges, and I am pleased that these are working well in Bracknell Forest, too. Up to 900,000 additional pupils will have access to that support by the spring, and we are accelerating the roll-out to reach full national coverage by 2029.

Several weeks ago, I received a jaw-dropping email from a local Bromsgrove GP, who told me that a 10-month-old child nearly died after ambulance delays. Worse, the same day, another patient—a 66-year-old driving instructor—suffered a cardiac arrest during a driving lesson and died while being driven to the hospital by his wife. My constituents demand a better service and better response times. What are the Government going to do about this, and will the Secretary of State meet me and the concerned GP who wrote to me to address this issue?

Nothing is more sobering than hearing experiences of the life-and-death difference between the NHS being there for people when they need it and it not being there when they need it. People will be aware of a tragic case over the weekend involving a woman in her 90s in the Isle of Wight, which we are looking into. Ambulance response times are improving, but I do not pretend that they are good enough; we have done a lot, but there is a lot more to do, and the hon. Gentleman has painfully and powerfully underscored what happens when the NHS is not there for people when they need it. That is the NHS we inherited, and it is the NHS I am determined to change.

Crawley A&E’s closure was accompanied by a commitment to a 24-hour urgent treatment centre, a commitment that the trust is now breaking. Can the Minister meet me to discuss how local services can be preserved and improved?

I am happy to discuss that issue with my hon. Friend. We are determined to have co-located UTCs; I know that that is a matter for the local commissioner, but I am happy to talk about it further.

Vista is a 160-year-old charity serving people in Leicester and Leicestershire who are suffering from visual disabilities. Last year alone, it served 21,000 people, but sadly, it faces imminent closure if it cannot raise £2 million by the end of March. If that happens, the devastating effect on the national health service and the social care service will be unimaginable, so will the Minister meet me and other local MPs, as well as representatives of University Hospitals of Leicester, to discuss what we can do to save Vista?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, and pay tribute to Vista for the outstanding work it is doing. Improving IT connectivity is a vital part of what we are doing, and the single point of access project is of relevance in that context. I would be more than happy if the hon. Gentleman wrote to me so that we can look at the issue he has raised.

In Rochdale, we need more midwives to provide the safe staffing levels that our mums-to-be rightly expect, but newly qualified student midwives often find it difficult to find jobs when they qualify. Can the Minister explain exactly when the NHS workforce plan is due so that they can give reassurance to those newly qualified midwives that they will have a career in the NHS?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. The NHS workforce plan will be published in the spring. I recognise the challenge he has set out, and we are determined to address it—we desperately need more midwives, and we certainly need good clinical leadership in this area. That is what the Government are working towards.

Minor injuries units are being phased out as are urgent treatment centres such as the brilliant one at West Cornwall hospital in my constituency—its hours were cut under the Conservatives, and have not been restored. Those units clearly help to take the pressure off ambulance and emergency services, so what will Ministers do to ensure that those services are reinforced rather than reduced?

One rationale for both the 10-year plan and the medium-term planning we are doing across the NHS is to ensure better integration, with the principle of people receiving the right care in the right place at the right time. Decisions about local configurations are matters for local leaders, but we keep these things under review, and if the hon. Gentleman has concerns, he should certainly write to us.

As the Secretary of State knows, Darlington Memorial hospital is part of the County Durham and Darlington NHS foundation trust, which has recently been marred by the scandal of over-operation in breast services. We know that many women came to harm as a result of those failures, but we are yet to find out how many and the full extent of the harm because the trust has not completed the comprehensive look-back. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that our trust has all the resources it needs to learn the lessons necessary to ensure that no women—whether in my area or across the country—have invasive and painful clinical procedures that they do not need?

My hon. Friend and I have had discussions regarding this matter before. Patient safety is of paramount importance, especially when it comes to surgery, including breast surgery. I am happy to meet her to discuss this further at a ministerial surgery.