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United Kingdom Membership of the European Union (Referendum)

Mrs. Teresa Gorman accordingly presented a Bill to provide for the holding of a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 31 January, and to be printed [Bill 73].

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Opposition Day

[3rd Allotted Day]

National Health Service

3.53 pm

Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury): I beg to move,

That this House expresses its deep concern at the grave situation now evident in the National Health Service in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; believes that anxiety about Her Majesty's Government's policy for this situation now transcends party lines; notes with alarm that throughout the United Kingdom beds have been cut, operations are being cancelled, intensive care beds are unavailable, and emergency services are under intolerable pressure; believes that the spiralling costs of the internal market--now totalling an extra £1.5 billion a year--and its diversion of resources away from front-line patient care have created these problems; salutes staff of all kinds and at all levels in the NHS who have worked hard to keep the service going; believes that government policy has left many people in urban and rural communities without the access to health care they need, especially in relation to services for the elderly and for those being discharged from hospital after surgery at an increasingly early stage; deplores the way in which many NHS decisions, especially on the future of hospitals and casualty services, are being taken in a manner that does not give due weight to the views of local people; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to set about restoring the NHS as a public service that puts patients first.

The starting point for the debate must be that the national health service is in a serious crisis. It is not just the Labour party which is saying that, but the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the report of the King's Fund on mental health services in London. The figures that we published this morning, to which I shall refer later and which were the subject of discussion in relation to the question on paediatric intensive care at Prime Minister's Question Time, also show it.

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me so early in the debate. On the subject of crisis, did he see the ITN news last night, when a member of Unison--a hospital worker--having heard the speech of the right hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), said that if Labour were elected there would be another winter of discontent and the national health service would be in crisis?

Mr. Smith: I like to think that we should be discussing, not one individual's views of what might happen in a year's time, but what is happening here and now. In wanting to address those issues, we share the Secretary of State's views.

A rather plaintive letter from the NHS executive of the South and West region, dated 28 November and sent out to all health authority chief executives, begins as follows:

"The Secretary of State has asked for regular fortnightly briefing on winter pressures. We understand that he wishes to have a full understanding of the pressures the acute services are under during the winter."

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The Secretary of State wants information, so let us give him some. Let us tell him, for example, about the waits being experienced in casualty units up and down the country. Let us tell him about Geoffrey Coppin, a stroke victim who spent two and a half days on a trolley in St. Helier hospital. His daughter had to go out and buy pillows at Woolworths to make him comfortable. Let us tell the Secretary of State about Stanley Coombs, a 69-year-old man from Mitcham with chronic lung disease who had a 20-hour wait in casualty at St. George's hospital in Tooting. Those are not isolated examples: they occur time after time around the country.

Let us tell the Secretary of State about those people who, owing to long casualty waits, eventually feel forced to opt for private medical treatment to shorten their wait. Let us tell him about Mary Vaughan, an elderly pneumonia sufferer. After she had spent 21 hours on a trolley in St. Helier hospital, her son paid for a private bed for her at St. Anthony's hospital, Cheam. Mildred Brown, a 77-year-old with a broken ankle, had an eight-hour wait at Wythenshawe hospital and finally went to the private Alexandra hospital in Cheadle. Why should people who have paid into the national service all their working life now have to use their last pennies to pay for private care?

Let us tell the Secretary of State about the new experience of people who are waiting not just on hospital trolleys in casualty departments, but on ambulance trolleys. At the end of December, patients at Llandough hospital near Penarth in south Wales had to wait 45 minutes on ambulance trolleys before being admitted because accident and emergency staff were swamped. As a result, ambulance crews had calls backing up because they were tied up at the hospital waiting for trolleys to become free.

Let us tell the Secretary of State about the patients being discharged too early--the patients being sent out from Bristol royal infirmary in the middle of the night to make way for emergencies that the hospital could not accommodate. Let us tell him about the search for intensive care beds around the country. A child was taken to Sunderland general hospital with breathing difficulties, but because no intensive care beds were available in Tyne and Wear he had to be driven 120 miles to Scotland to find a place to be treated. Edna Harrison was treated at St. James's hospital Leeds after suffering a heart attack. She was unable to be admitted because all 13 intensive care beds were taken. She was then taken 60 miles by ambulance to Hull after two hospitals were unable to find her a bed. Those are examples of the search around the country for beds in accident and emergency or intensive care units.

Let us tell the right hon. Gentleman about cancelled operations--about Queenie Harrild, the 69-year-old heart operation patient from Lewisham who died after her operation was cancelled four times in 11 days, or about the 3,000 non-urgent operations cancelled or postponed at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, including in some cases patients in severe pain. Four major hospitals in Wales are now closed to non-emergency cases. In Nottingham, the Queen's medical centre has said that only emergency and life-threatening cases will be admitted until further notice. The North Staffordshire Hospital NHS trust has said that all elective surgery has been cancelled until further notice.

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That is the reality of what is happening up and down the country, affecting patients and hospitals. For the Secretary of State and the Government to claim that everything is hunky-dory is to fly in the face of the real experience of real people and real patients.

Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak): Perhaps I may give the hon. Gentleman another example--that of my father, who was dying of cancer when the last Labour Government were in power. It was not a doctor who decided what he could be fed when in hospital, but a trade union official who decided that he could not be given soup, which he could swallow, but that he would have to be given hard-boiled eggs, which he could not swallow. He died. That is one of the reasons why people like me will never believe that the health service can be safe in Labour's hands.

Mr. Smith: Any such imposition by anyone on any patient is completely unacceptable and no one would argue to the contrary. We argue that the current state of the health service shows that it is not in good hands. The evidence of what is happening to patients clearly demonstrates that. The Secretary of State says that people have long memories, and that is true: they know what the Government have done to the national health service and they will remember it when they come to the ballot box.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Ms Jowell) painstakingly carried out a survey on the state of paediatric intensive care. We talked to hospital after hospital and established the precise figures in each case. The Government have said that the figures are complete nonsense and the Prime Minister airily dismissed them at Prime Minister's Question Time, but they are not complete nonsense: we have a recording of every telephone conversation with every one of the 19 hospitals that provided information and we know precisely how many children each of those hospitals has had to turn away.

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): The hon. Gentleman does not accept the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but does he disagree with the chairman of the British Paediatric Intensive Care Society, Dr. David Hallworth? My right hon. Friend quoted Dr. Hallworth, who said:

"Figures in isolation are pretty meaningless."

Mr. Smith: I disagree with the application of that point to Labour's figures.

Mr. Dorrell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Smith: In an act of unusual generosity, I will give way to the Secretary of State again.

Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman has made it clear that he rejects the advice of the chairman of the British Paediatric Intensive Care Society--a man who devotes his life to providing the sort of care that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whose advice he does take?

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