It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Bardell. I commend the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on a remarkably important debate, not just in terms of timing, but in everything the four nations have gone through in the past 18 months, which has underlined for all of us how crucial the NHS is. It is there at our time of need and it is there in our time of crisis as well. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the NHS and its staff. Members from all parties must prioritise and defend the NHS and ensure that those staff have our support moving forward, just as they supported us in our time of crisis.
The hon. Member for Leeds East spoke eloquently about the dangers of privatisation creeping into the NHS and about accountability reducing for local patients. He used the phrase that I used to hear as a union rep in the NHS and which created great fear: the NHS was no longer the preferred provider. That is extremely important because, as other Members have said, it means corporations can bid for NHS services and contracts and cherry-pick the most cost-effective ones, leaving the most complex and vulnerable patients to the NHS and placing it under even greater strain. I thank him for setting that out as the crux of today’s debate.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) thanked all of our NHS staff and heard the clapping for them and those on the frontline during the pandemic. He also made an excellent point about the fact that available medications in Northern Ireland are sometimes not equal to those available on the mainland. That is not what should be at the heart of the NHS system; it should be about equality of access, and I would be pleased if the Minister responded to that point about Northern Ireland.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) spoke about the impact of covid-19, and, once again, about privatisation. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about how equality of service at the point of access is not just about treating illness; it is about wellbeing and dealing with life’s inequalities and day-to-day inequalities in our system and our country as a whole. She spoke about the backlog in the system due to covid-19 and how this has led not just to a staffing and workforce crisis, but to many people who need urgent treatment perhaps falling through the gaps. We must plug those gaps urgently for anyone who may be affected.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who always speaks eloquently about brain injury, did not mention acquired brain injuries today. I must confess that my husband has suffered a brain injury, so I am always grateful to the hon. Member for bringing it to the fore. It is often overlooked, and is one aspect of the NHS that we must seek to fund. It is also much wider
than that; it is part of our armed forces covenant and affects our veterans and those in criminal justice services. The hon. Member gave very practical solutions today, which I think is always helpful, on staffing retention and recruitment. Those are the very practical aspects of care and treatment that the Minister will have to grapple with and take forward. I thank him once again for that today.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) spoke about the potential for interference in contracts due to the Secretary of State’s additional powers. Given some of the decisions made during covid, and some of the funding that was perhaps not best utilised, I think that is something that concerns us all across the House. We must focus on that, to ensure that the NHS provides good value for money, and that there is not any interference with the making of clinical best-practice decisions.
The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) spoke about a postcode lottery in NHS England, and really set it out with her example of life and death before our NHS and what that meant for most people across the United Kingdom. We should never lose sight of that, because that is the crux of why our NHS is so important, so special, and why we must protect it with everything that we have.
The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) spoke about rare conditions and the importance of international trials and collaborations, which is an extremely important point. Yes, we must protect our NHS, but we must also incorporate innovation, in a safe way, into our NHS structures, to ensure that our patients have the best treatments possible, and a choice in the types of treatment that they believe would be effective for them. We must, of course, undertake drug trials and, particularly for rare conditions, those must involve international collaborations. Otherwise, we would not have enough participants in the United Kingdom alone.
It has been an excellent debate. In the few minutes that I have left, I will say that the NHS is about health and clinical care, but it is also about mental health. It is important that we come out of this pandemic knowing that it is about wellbeing—it is a wellbeing recovery, and we must focus very much on mental health. I therefore hope that the Government will bring forward an announcement on the new mental health spokesperson in the near future. That is something that should be prioritised. I am sorry that it has not happened before now.
I would also like to mention a bit about what is happening in Scotland. The Scottish Government will increase NHS frontline spending by at least 20% to support the recovery and renew Scotland’s NHS. That builds on the Scottish Budget of 2021, which took the total health portfolio spend to £16 billion, in an increase of more than £800 million. The Scottish Government have also developed the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland scheme, placing local pharmacies at the heart of frontline provision. I went to visit Abbeygreen, a local pharmacy in my constituency, which is doing a lot of excellent work on the frontline, protecting resources for GP services and ensuring that people can access medications extremely rapidly.
I am always keen that we support best practice across the four nations and I do not think the NHS should be a political football. When I worked there, we always dreaded
changes because they meant more admin and sometimes did not change the service but just gave more work to those who were already stretched. I would like to see things such as Pharmacy First, which is working extremely well in Scotland, being something that the Minister might consider and discuss with colleagues there. There are best practice examples right across the United Kingdom that we can all seek to replicate, which is extremely important.
NHS Scotland staff remain the best paid anywhere in the UK and this year “Agenda for Change” staff, including nurseries, ancillary administration and allied health professionals, received a 2.95% pay rise as part of a three-year pay deal offering a minimum 9% pay increase for more staff and more than 27% for some still moving up their pay scale. That was in excess of a 2.8% uplift. The Scottish Government are also seeking to abolish NHS dentistry charges, eye examination costs and non-residential social care charges for those in need of support. There is great progress being made.
I think everyone has come to the debate with the real value of the NHS in their heart and in their speeches. Collaborating, working together and sharing best practice right across the board, and making sure we protect our NHS, that the NHS is the preferred provider in the future and that we seek to protect it from private contracts, is going to be extremely important in supporting the staff who have given their all. We need to do that and we need to work together and collaborate to do that. I know that people across the House want to champion the NHS into the future. I look forward to the responses from the shadow Minister and the Minister.
3.43 pm