PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Urgent and Emergency Care - 23 July 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her election, and I also pass on my best wishes to her and her husband, who I know recently suffered a stroke. We hope he makes a speedy recovery. We recognise the great work of NHS staff for them, and indeed for all our constituents every day, but we do know that the NHS is broken. The latest data confirms the terrible state in which the Conservatives left urgent and emergency care services, with one in four patients waiting longer than four hours in A&E. That is why Professor Lord Darzi will lead an investigation into NHS performance, and the findings will inform our 10-year reform of the NHS.

I thank the Minister for her kind words today, and I also thank my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary for his wishes on the day. Mr Speaker, may I also take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for the care and kindness you showed me?

Residents in my constituency of Stratford and Bow are served by Barts health NHS trust, which includes Newham University, Royal London and Whipps Cross hospitals. In May, their A&E departments had the second highest volume of any trust in England and the highest in London. Overcrowding and capacity constraints mean that the staff at those hospitals are having to treat some patients in corridors rather than on wards. This is the broken NHS that we have inherited from the Conservatives. Will the Minister ask her Department to look at capacity issues at those hospitals and at how community pharmacy prescribing services may be used to alleviate some of the pressures?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point highlighting the challenges particularly around hospital capacity, something well-known on the Front Bench with my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary representing a nearby area. This type of patient experience is unacceptable, but it sadly became normal under the last Government of 14 years. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about pharmacies: they will have a central role in our future system, and I would of course be happy to undertake a visit with her.

I welcome the new Front-Bench Members to their new portfolios and responsibilities. Essex has actually seen some improvements in emergency care services over the past 14 years, particularly in our ambulance trust, and that should be commended. One way in which pressure on emergency services can be reduced is by having community facilities in our towns and across our districts. Will the Minister commit to meeting me and working with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) on looking at ways in which we can safeguard community services at St Peter’s hospital in Maldon, which our communities absolutely need?

I thank the right hon. Lady because she again makes for us the excellent point about what has happened in the last 14 years under her Government: these situations have been allowed to get so much worse both in Essex and across the country. She should also welcome our mission to rebuild the broken front door to the NHS and have more neighbourhood services based in communities, bringing those services together where patients are; that is absolutely what we all want and I am very happy to discuss this with her.

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. He knows what we all know, and what we know the entire country knows because we spent the past six weeks campaigning: it is the same story across the country. That is why we are committed to restoring standards and why we will fix this broken NHS, and of course I am happy to meet with him.

A decision by the Conservatives two years ago means that the urgent treatment centre at the West Cornwall hospital in Penzance is now closed at night, and that has put pressure on the only emergency department in Cornwall—a long peninsula—at Treliske, where routinely 20 ambulances are parked outside creating a new metallic ward at the front of the hospital. That situation has had a detrimental impact, of course including avoidable deaths. Will the Minister meet me and colleagues and the local NHS to discuss this issue, to see how we can restore our emergency services?

Again, across the country we see the damage done over the last 14 years, and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight that the situation in one part of the system knocks on to other parts. That is why we want a 10-year plan to look at this, an immediate look with Lord Darzi, and, critically, to understand which community and primary care services can be supported to support the rest of the system. I am very happy to meet with colleagues across Cornwall, where we now have many Labour MPs.