I have been contacted by constituents who are lobbying me to support the NHS Reinstatement Bill.
I note that the aim of the Bill is to ensure that the NHS should be an accountable public service which treats patients and staff well and that it should be available to everyone equally, free of charge, and not provided by commercial companies. With the exception of the debate about commercial companies, I believe that the NHS is already an accountable public service (being managed by the democratically-elected Government of the day). NHS services are available to those who are deemed to need it, free of charge. This is the underpinning principle of the NHS; that treatment should be available to those who need it without cost being a limiting factor.
Looking at the detail of the Bill, I believe that it would cause unnecessary upheaval and would be the wrong approach to improving the NHS. An authoritative comparative study of the performance of different national health systems recently concluded that the NHS, from 2010 to 2015 was the best health service in the world. The Coalition Government invested over £7 billion extra funding in real terms in the health service during the last Parliament. There are now 1.3 million more operations being delivered each year compared to 2010, 10,600 more doctors and almost 10,600 more nurses. The Prime Minister has promised to continue this investment during this Parliament with over £10 billion of additional NHS spending in real terms per annum by 2020/21. This will mean spending on the NHS will rise in every year in real-terms. I recognise that the NHS will also have to find large efficiency savings, in addition to the increased funding it will receive. All public sector departments are being charged with the task of finding efficiencies. The efficiencies and savings found by the NHS will ultimately help us to fund the new investment which we are making in the NHS.
With respect to the aim of the Bill ensuring that the NHS is an accountable public service, I believe that giving operational control for the day-to-day running of services to doctors was the right decision. I tend to the view that clinicians, rather than politicians, are best place to make decisions on the services for patients. However, the Government has always been clear that Ministers are responsible for the NHS, and I am proud of its performance in challenging circumstances. The Government's health reforms have focused on the role of the clinician, believing that they are best placed to commission local health services, as they have the best understanding of local needs.
With respect to the aim of the Bill to restrict the role of the commercial sector, the NHS and the independent sector have worked in partnership for many years, to provide good quality care to patients, which is the most important priority. The use of private providers in the NHS represents around six pence in every pound the NHS spends, an increase of just one penny in the pound since 2010. Charities and social enterprises, such as Macmillan Nurses play an important role in the NHS, as they have done for many years. What the Government's health reforms actually do is provide the framework to enable patients to be treated by the providers best able to meet their needs and give patients greater individual choice and control over their care. Competition in the NHS should act as a means to an end in improving services for patients, never as an end in itself. Ultimately, if a commercial organisation can be hired by the NHS and can deliver a better, more cost efficient and more timely service to the patient, this has left a patient better treated and the NHS with more resources. We should, in my view, never be afraid to look to the commercial sector to help us innovate and improve.
I believe firmly in the NHS as an institution. I feel proud to use it and will campaign wholeheartedly on its behalf. Since my election, I have spent time with local clinicians in their surgeries and in our hospitals and was particularly keen to visit the Conquest Hospital and show my support for our local NHS staff when East Sussex Healthcare Trust received its recent CQC rating. Unfortunately, my night shadowing the team in A&E had to be postponed upon rupturing my Achilles tendon. I have, instead, invited both the CCG and the ESHT leaders in to Parliament to meet with me, and my fellow East Sussex MPs, to ensure that they are supported with the improvements which they are making and with the implementation of our County’s ‘Better Together’ health reforms. I have also spent time with the Junior Doctors who live, work or serve in the constituency and have also met twice with the Chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee to assess how I can assist in supporting a resolution to the Junior Doctors’ contract dispute. You can find more detail in my website in the ‘Campaigns’ section.
The Conservative coalition of 2010, and Government of 2015, pledged to outspend the opposition on NHS spending and we have delivered on these promises upon our election. Whilst there is always more to do, thanks to the advances of medical science and the increases in life expectancy, record sums are being spent on the NHS by my Government. Nonetheless, there are certainly areas which the NHS can improve on and therefore I will continue to ask difficult questions and demand explanations from local NHS Trusts when services are not performing at an acceptable level. Reorganising the NHS, again, as advocated in this Bill does not look to me to be a good use of NHS resources so I will not be supporting its progression through Parliament.