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8.8 pm
Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak): My constituents would not recognise the picture of the health service painted by the Opposition, which was a travesty of what is happening on the ground. They would recognise that more patients are being treated more locally in more modern facilities, that waiting lists have been shortened and that they have the most outstanding general practitioners and other health service professionals that they have ever had.
I offer the House a balloon trip across my constituency so that we can look down on some of the health service changes on the ground. As we went over Glossop, we would see how two old hospitals have been transformed and given new lives. One is a centre for the elderly mentally ill; the other a homeward bound unit. In New Mills, a new future is being given to Ollersett View hospital. In Buxton, there is a debate about how the town's three historic hospitals can best meet its health needs into the next century.
A little way across the constituency border, Tameside general hospital has had massive new investment, much of it under the chairmanship of Tony Favell, whom many hon. Members will recall with affection from his time in the House. Stockport's Stepping Hill hospital has also had massive investment. That is the picture of what is happening in hospitals that my constituents appreciate.
If we were to go closer down, we would see what is happening in GPs' surgeries. New surgeries have been built in Glossop, Buxton, New Mills, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Whaley Bridge, Hayfield and Hope. Across the constituency, there is new investment in our health service, and services are being delivered in a way never seen before. That is the Government's record on health: a thriving partnership with GPs, investing for the future and delivering better services.
In case some people think that High Peak is the only place where the improvements are happening, right across the country better health services are being delivered. We are treating 3 million more people than when we came to power 17 years ago, and 1 million more than when the
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The most exciting aspect of what is happening in our health service is the way in which we are looking to the future and seeking reform so that proper attention is given to primary care. I welcome that because GPs know what is most needed and important in their localities and because the more that we can do locally, the less need there is for patients to travel long distances to faraway hospitals in communities that they do not know.
In High Peak, we were privileged to receive a visit from the Prime Minister recently. As more than 90 per cent. of my constituents are covered by fundholding practices, I thought it appropriate that he should be taken to see one for himself. As it happened, we took him to the one that had won the fundholding practice of the year award, but it could have been any of the outstanding practices in my constituency. They offer new surgeries and treatments to our community. It is important to recognise that that does not benefit only the patients of fundholding GPs but the community across the board.
In Glossop, the average waiting time for in-patient treatment has dropped from 18 months to three and a half months since fundholding was introduced. For out-patient services such as dermatology, the waiting period has fallen from two years to four weeks; for gynaecology, from more than 11 weeks to four; for ear, nose and throat treatment, from 20 weeks to four. Those dramatic reductions have been brought about by fundholding practices and they help people across the community, not only those who use fundholding doctors.
Fundholding practices have been examining new ideas. Part of a cottage hospital has been brought back into use and turned into a rehabilitation unit. That process was started by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State five years ago when he was a Health Minister. He stopped the closure of that hospital. Now, thanks to the way in which our GPs and health authority have considered the matter, it has been given new life, enabling people who leave hospital to spend time there to ensure that they are ready to return home.
New services have been introduced. I shall not mention them all but they include locally provided electrocardiography, audiology, dermatology, an additional district nurse, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, and new chiropody services. Complementary therapies such as acupuncture and the Alexander treatment are provided by one Glossop surgery. That is the difference that fundholding has made.
The motion states that the Opposition
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It is not only fundholding doctors who are making great strides. Last week, I met Dr. Richard Fitton, who has a small practice in Hadfield. He sends all his patients who go to hospital a survey form to find out what was good, bad or needed improvement. If there are problems, he asks them to come and discuss them to assess how they can be addressed. That information is fed back to hospitals so that they can improve services and ensure that problems do not recur. That is the sort of health service that we want--one that is listening, learning and improving. That is why I so passionately believe that GPs should be at the forefront of taking reforms forward.
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the way in which he has listened to GPs in his consultation process on improving the health service. He met GPs in Buxton some months ago and took direct action on what he heard. In particular, he enabled them to implement their ideas, which had previously been impossible, on improving out-of-hours cover when surgeries are closed. GPs appreciate that the Government listen to their views.
As we consider how to take things forward, I hope that we will examine how to extend pilot schemes more widely than is currently proposed. We should encourage GPs to think widely about how to improve services. We need a no-holds-barred approach to deciding what to do next. I fear that some health authorities may try to stifle some of those excellent ideas. I want to ensure that there is a right of appeal so that ideas can be heard and developed.
The Government have suggested that through the efficiency index, GPs should improve their efficiency--their level of activity--by 2.75 per cent. One surgery in High Peak has improved not by 2.75 per cent. but by 34 per cent. That massive improvement in activity was the result of becoming a fundholding practice. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will examine the formula that has been set by the Department whereby one episode in secondary care equates to 54 in primary care. That is a disincentive for health authorities to reconfigure their services and should be reassessed. He should also reconsider whether there should be a requirement that there should be a GP on the board of every health authority so that we can be certain that the views of GPs will be taken into account as their ideas and policies are developed.
In Buxton, there is an important review of our hospital services that centres on the Devonshire royal hospital, which is one of the most remarkable hospitals in the country. It must be the only hospital in the country that was built not as a hospital, but as riding stables 200 years ago. As time passed, and the landed gentry stopped coming to Buxton in such large numbers, and thus no longer required somewhere to exercise their horses, the building was covered with a dome and was gradually turned into a hospital. In fact, it is the widest dome of any building in Europe outside St. Peter's in Rome--not what one might expect to find on top of the Pennines. It has now become one of the most important centres for the delivery of health care, especially recovery from serious injuries, using the remedial powers of our local spa waters.
Inevitably, the building's running costs are high because of the history of the building and its structure. I welcome the imaginative new approach that has been taken, thanks to Ministers, to find a joint way forward by combining the health aspects of that building with its
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I have listened to Opposition Members' speeches, and the most important point to remember is that we must look at the reality of our health service. Year on year, the health service provided in High Peak is improving, as it is right across the board. New services and new treatments are being carried out in better facilities. Those services are being provided more locally after a shorter waiting period and are delivered by a wonderfully dedicated and expert staff.
Of course there are difficulties and problems--they are inevitable in a service that treats millions of patients every year. We seek to consider them in detail to see how, in each year, we can learn from the problems that we face and move on to improve the service yet further. The sadness of it is that all that would be ruined by a Labour Government, for all their fine talk about their commitment to the health service. We know from their history that the real funding crises in the health service have occurred under a Labour Government--the only time in its history when funding was cut occurred under a Labour Government.
We also know that there is a real problem now because of the Opposition's complete confusion over policy and the future of fundholding. The motion is fundamentally flawed because the Labour party does not have any proposals to take our health service forward. That motion should be defeated in the interests of patients not only in High Peak but across the country.
"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".
That is sad because a few weeks ago the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey), as a shadow health spokesman--and unannounced as she did not have the courtesy to follow parliamentary protocol by telling me that she was coming--visited my constituency to see the services. According to the local papers, she said that she was greatly impressed. She should have seen how those services were being improved in a rural area and how they were delivering better services for my constituents.
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