PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Urgent and Emergency Care - 5 March 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

A year ago we set out a plan to improve urgent and emergency care, and the plan is working. Performance this winter has been better, with ambulance waits down by nearly a third, and we are learning the lessons from this year to make further improvements in the year ahead.

It is welcome news that the brand-new £30 million A&E campus at Stepping Hill Hospital is nearing completion. However, other buildings on this ageing site are failing and urgently need replacing. Will my hon. Friend ensure that Stepping Hill remains at the heart of hospital facilities in Stockport with rebuilt units, and support new hospital investment and specialist diagnostic hubs across Stockport?

I am delighted that Stepping Hill Hospital will soon have a new emergency care campus, with all the benefits that that will bring to my hon. Friend’s constituents. I know that she is a great campaigner for her local NHS and has already met the Secretary of State about the concern she raises. As well as making her argument so clearly in Westminster, I would encourage her to continue discussions with her local NHS integrated care board, which is responsible for local decisions on capital investment.

Up to £900 million for a brand-new acute hospital is coming to mid-Hampshire and health experts are making the case that it will make huge improvements in care, despite some politically inspired and misinformed opposition. Can my hon. Friend reassure my constituents that those running our local NHS should be listened to, and also that the doctor-led urgent treatment centre in Winchester will continue to provide for three quarters of urgent cases including X-rays, MRI scans and other tests after the new acute hospital is built, which we hope will be at junction 7?

I commend my hon. Friend for her hard work on supporting the new hospital, for the leadership she is providing and for her work on encouraging residents to have their say in the consultation. I cannot prejudge the outcome of the consultation but I agree with her that the new hospital will be great for patients, with its modern facilities. She is right to say that an urgent treatment centre can provide excellent emergency care for the majority of people who attend A&E.

Northampton has been the beneficiary of many welcome new or improved facilities in recent years, including a children’s A&E, a main A&E and the announcement of a community diagnostic centre. However, the missing piece of the jigsaw is an urgent treatment centre, for which I have been campaigning for many years now. Will the Minister inform me on the progress on that centre?

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his successful campaigning for healthcare in Northampton, which is, as he says, benefiting from upgrades to the children’s A&E and the main emergency department and will soon have one of our 160 new clinical diagnostic centres. He will know that his local NHS integrated care board will decide whether to fund a new urgent treatment centre, and I have every confidence in his ability to persuade it of doing so.

It is one of the great successes of the past few years that we now save the lives of a lot more people with an acquired brain injury. Although we might save them in acute and emergency care, however, a national strategy for acquired brain injury is a really important part of ensuring that people have the proper care thereafter. The Government appointed me and the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, the right hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson)—he is just passing the hon. Lady a note to inspire her on the subject—to try to publish one. When does she hope that there will be money available to ensure that that strategy is one worth having?

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a great campaigner on this issue; he has worked very hard on it with me in the past, and he now does so with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health and Secondary Care. I assure him that we are in the process of revising the draft strategy, taking on board feedback from patients, their families, charities and the NHS, and we will publish the strategy in due course. I thank all stakeholders for their continued efforts.

In January, the average category 2 response time for west midlands ambulance service was over 43 minutes. We know that the problems are worse in Shropshire, following stories such as that of a lady who waited 18 hours before seeing a doctor, having contracted an infection following radiation therapy for her cancer treatment. The situation in Shropshire does not seem to be improving as fast as we would like. What steps is the Minister taking to resolve the problem?

Across the country, ambulance response times have come down by a third. We have worked very hard, particularly with areas that face greater challenges, including Shropshire. I have spoken to leaders in the local health system about the ongoing challenges. We are learning lessons about what has worked over the past year, and from where we have not made so much progress, to ensure that we do better in areas such as the hon. Lady’s over the year ahead.

I thank the Minister for her positive answers; they are really appreciated. Bearing in mind the pressure that GPs are under, which is leading to more pressure on emergency provision, what steps are being taken to provide greater incentives for medical students to take on positions in GP surgeries? That would make a big difference.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about the whole health system. One thing we are doing as part of our work on urgent and emergency care is preventing people from being admitted to hospital unnecessarily, or from being brought to A&E in the first place. Primary care is part of that. In our investment in expanding medical school places, we are particularly encouraging medical schools, such as the new Kent and Canterbury Medical School near me, to train students to work more outside hospitals, including in primary care.

I call the shadow Minister.

Despite watering down the targets for ambulance response times and the A&E four-hour wait, the Government still cannot meet them. We have heard from Members across the House this morning how patients are waiting longer. The new targets say that there will be further improvements in 2024-25, and the Minister has said that again this morning. Can she let us in on what exactly they will be?

I am not going to pre-empt the publication of targets for the coming year, but, as I have said, we will continue to learn lessons from the progress that we have made this year, including on ambulance response times, which are down by over a third. Anyway, I will take no lessons from Labour, because we know the state of the NHS in Wales.