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Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): I want to raise one or two important issues in my constituency.
For some time, my constituents have been telling me about their experiences and those of their relatives in our regional hospital, the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, Wonford. At the end of June, I received a letter from a constituent, who drew my attention to his experience as a post-operative patient after undergoing eye surgery:
"To save money we were told we were shunted upstairs to Otter ward every Saturday by 2 o'clock and awakened even earlier than usual for a move on Monday at 7 am to be back on Parkerswell ward settled for the day shift to commence."
When people have an in-patient stay, it is not uncommon for them to be moved, and we all understand the pressures at weekends, when hospitals try to discharge their patients and sometimes bring a couple of wards together.
I was struck by the idea that a post-operative patient or patients should have been woken at an extraordinarily early hour in order to shunt them back on to the original ward in time for the day shift to come in. When one reads such stories, one asks oneself whom the service is for. Obviously, I wrote to the management of the hospital on behalf of my constituent, and I was astonished to receive a bland reply. It says:
"It is therefore our standard practice to group patients on to appropriately staffed wards at weekends on occasions when it has not been possible to discharge them by the time that the ward closes. This is the only ward we have within the Trust which operates on a five day basis and our practice is consistent with practice across the NHS."
My message to the Minister today is that, if that is standard practice and the way in which patients are treated—got up at an especially early hour for the convenience of the hospital process—that practice needs to be changed. I know that he will pass that on to the Department of Health. Even worse, I heard stories from people whose relatives were particularly delicate and ill when they seemed to be subject to so many unnecessary moves around the hospital.
When the story of that patient appeared in my local newspaper, I received letters from others, including some very serious cases of people who were very ill. I shall just read an extract because I will not identify the constituents for obvious reasons. A young man wrote to me:
"I would like to tell you about my mum, and this is more than I can bear, who was 69 and admitted to"
"September 2003. She was shunted around five times in a four week period. With bravery and good humour my mum bore this . . . despite my pleas."
She died in the first week of November. He continued:
"Cancer patients it seems too are being shunted around the hospital in the last weeks of their lives."
None of those things will appear in the star ratings that the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Jim Dowd) mentioned. No such figures appear in official reports from hospitals, but that is what is happening in them. It cannot be right that that sort of practice is allowed to continue. I am not asking the Government to create a new target for minimum moves, as part of the star-ratings system. To anyone with any fraction of compassion or common sense, that is an unacceptable practice. It does not put patients first; it does not recognise that hospitals exist to serve patients, not their regulations and processes. I hope that, by drawing the House's attention to that today, the Minister will assist me in getting that practice stopped.
Another matter on health relates to NHS dentistry, which my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) has raised already. We had a debate in Westminster Hall on 11 February this year, initiated by my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire), about dentistry in our part of Devon. At that time, I could get no NHS
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referrals for people living in the east Devon part of my constituency, but practices were still open to patients in the mid-Devon part, in Crediton, Cullompton and Tiverton. However, because practices were closed to them in Exeter and east Devon, I flagged up in that debate the fact that it would only be a matter of time before the mid-Devon practices were no longer able to accept NHS patients. That has happened: we now have no NHS practices available in mid-Devon.
The reason I bring NHS dentistry to the House's attention today is that, in trying to find any surgery for one of my constituents this week, my caseworker contacted the trust to find out where the nearest NHS surgery is and was told that a practice in Barnstaple—on the north Devon coast, some 30 miles from Tiverton—is still accepting NHS patients. When my caseworker said, "Well, it's rather a long way to go—30 miles to visit the dentist", she was told, "Well, perhaps they would like the drive."
Bearing in mind the opportunity of people travelling around the country in the forthcoming holiday period, I would agree that the journey by car from Tiverton to Barnstaple is most glorious. The scenery is fantastic, and there are many wayside inns and places to cool off and to enjoy the day, but that, frankly, is not quite what people want when they have a terrible toothache and are looking for a convenient NHS dentist. So I add my voice to those hon. Members who have called for NHS dentistry to be addressed by the Government. When we had our debate back in February, the local trust was waiting for the Government to make a decision on funding, and I urge them to get on with that as quickly as possible.
Finally, I sat through the "Patience Strong" guide to the countryside from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs yesterday, when she painted a very glossy, very attractive picture of the Government's strategy for rural areas, but I simply do not understand why small businesses in rural areas are being deprived of their enterprises agencies. In my constituency, the enterprise agencies are closing in Crediton and Tiverton. In Honiton, which has had a very successful enterprise agency, we understand that the contract to service that business community has been lost to the city of Plymouth, which is hardly rural and is at the other end of the county. So my final plea to the Minister is that, if rural communities and rural economies are important to the Government, at least keep those support services that have been seen to work, on which local businesses rely, and that deliver local services to local needs.
4.40 pm
Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne) on his election victory and superb maiden speech. Mathematics was never my strong point at school, but a simple division of the time remaining and number of hon. Members wishing to speak suggests that I should be suitably brief.
I wish to dwell on the position of the maternity services in the town of Braintree, especially as situated in the William Julian Courtauld hospital. The name
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Courtauld may be familiar to hon. Members because it was the famous textile firm founded in Bocking, which is adjacent to Braintree. For many years, it had mills in both Bocking and Halstead and was a major employer of labour. The specific community hospital that I mention was endowed by William Julian Courtauld after the first world war and subscribed to by the working people of Braintree for the benefit of the town.
The hospital has provided superb personal maternity services to the mothers of Braintree for many years, although we saw a shadow of things to come in 1997 when the then health authority proposed to close down all hospital services in the town of Braintree and, not being content with that, also those in the town of Maldon. There was a tremendous local campaign against that. The consultation was called "Taking the Initiative", but hon. Members can well imagine that local people had another expression for it, which went even further than "Taking Liberties". The campaign against the closures in 1997 and 1998 was successful, so the William Julian Courtauld hospital retained its maternity service, albeit somewhat diminished, because although the service had been general practitioner-led, it was reduced to being midwife-led. Nevertheless, the service remained in place and continued to serve the people of the town.
Last autumn, the care trust that now administers the service announced that the hospital was closing for a short time owing to sickness of staff and pregnancy among the midwives. That was understandable and I made no fuss when it took place; midwives of course have the same right to become pregnant as everyone else. The hospital reopened on a most peculiar basis. It would be almost impossible to make this story up, so hon. Members must take my word for it that what I am about to say is true.
The maternity hospital opened on the basis of operating between 9 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the evening, Monday to Friday only. I do not think that we have reached a stage at which the time when babies arrive may be programmed more definitely than was historically the case—mothers and fathers in the Chamber will recall that a more common time for a baby's arrival is the early hours of the morning—so hon. Members will understand the difficulty that that has caused. If it is anticipated that a baby will be born outside the nine-to-five period, it is possible for people to contact a midwife, who will get the key and let them into the hospital.
Hon. Members can well imagine what happened as a result of the change. A mother gave birth to a baby in the hospital car park, and the town is in uproar about what has happened. Meetings and demonstrations have been held, and there was a substantial march through the town of Braintree last Saturday. It largely consisted of mothers with young children, although a few people of more mature years were present, including me as the local Member of Parliament. A descendent of the founder of the hospital, Julian Courtauld, was also there. We spoke at the end of the march, and there is a universal view in the town that the full service should be restored.
It is possible that we are making progress, and I am raising the matter today because I am sure that my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will convey the state of affairs to the Secretary of State for Health. I
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hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to persuade the care trust not to be quite so insulting to the mothers and children of Braintree.
There is a light to the case, even by its own logic. The number of babies born in the hospital rose to 22 at the end of last month. That is within the target of the health trust for the number of babies it wants to be born to justify a 24-hour service. The difficulty is, of course, that if it does not open on a 24-hour basis, fewer mothers go there and it is difficult to reach the target set.
I fully understand that those who have complications or potentially difficult pregnancies will go to the general hospital in Chelmsford, which can offer more specialised services. Births at the William Julian Courtauld hospital are expected to be—I say this as a mere man—of the more straightforward kind. However, the institution has been popular and has served the town well for the best part of 75 years. I hope that it continues and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will intervene in such a way as he thinks fit.
4.45 pm
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