Edward Argar
MP for Melton and Syston · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I will not keep the Committee long. I am very pleased to see the hon. and gallant Gentleman, the Minister, still in post, as this is a policy area that he has cared deeply about throughout his life. I share the broad support for the instrument expressed by the shadow Minister, my hon.”
“I appreciate it may be set out in the 2006 or 2025 primary parent legislation to these draft regulations, but if he can, I would be grateful for a little clarification. Finally, paragraph 10.1 of the explanatory memorandum refers to the legislation being continuously monitored.”
“I live in my patch and I know that there will be genuine local fury at the contempt this Government have shown for my constituents in approving a Leicester city land grab, which has cross-party opposition locally.”
“Lady was right to highlight in her remarks the importance of timely discharge from hospital as a key element of whether we can achieve that flow into hospital beds and have hospital bed capacity to allow an A&E department or emergency department to function.”
“That should not be a challenge; I suspect that that data is already extant in some part of the system. She is proposing a very moderate measure, which would pull all that together in one place, and allow it to be focused on and looked at in the round, rather than in disparate little penny packets of data.”
“Gentleman’s point, however, that with many of these things—both clinicians and coroners grapple with this—it is often complex to determine the actual most significant contributory factor. My hon.”
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“Many of our constituents will be unaware, and would be surprised were they made aware, that there is no law—no statute—that directly addresses this issue, and that tips or service charges paid through the business are legally the property of that business. Therefore, it is down to the good will of that business or the approach of that business to ensure that tips get to the staff for whom they are intended. There is no statutory protection of that currently. Yet as my hon. Friend and my hon.”
“I very much welcome the Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell). As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, he is nothing if not persistent once he has a cause to pursue. I recall that he introduced this Bill in 2021, and as it did not proceed into law at that stage, he is back again and determined to get it through the House on this occasion. I am very happy to be here today to support him in that endeavour. A lot of the speeches have focused on the hospitality industry—restaurants, bars and similar—but of course, as has been mentioned, this issue is drawn more widely than that and goes across the broader service industry of hairdressing, barbers and so on. A whole range of services are impacted by the issue that my hon. Friend is highlighting today.”
“I am absolutely delighted to support my hon. Friend’s Bill. It is about fairness to consumers, but most importantly fairness to the staff who day in, day out provide all of us with exceptional service. They have been through a challenging time. It is important that we recognise this in statute. I suspect many businesses do the right thing and it is always a shame when one has to legislate, but it is right, just as with the previous Bill we debated, to do the right thing by those who provide exceptional and courteous service to us. It is about the kind of society we wish to see and the approach we wish to see within that society. I welcome my hon. Friend’s Bill. He has my complete support and I very much hope that it will have a smooth and swift passage on to the statute book.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That goes to the heart of transparency and openness to the consumer but also to those working in this context. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford, in drafting and presenting the Bill, has, as ever, been diligent. He has set out the route to an employment tribunal, which will be an option, and given those tribunals the remedies they need to make redress, should they find a particular employer has not complied with both the spirit and the letter of the Bill and the code of practice. From my understanding of the Bill, this is hugely important. The Bill has only 15 clauses, but they are important and tightly drafted. It addresses not just the passing on of tips and service charges without their being top-sliced and deducted, but the vital need for fairness in how they are distributed between staff.”
“Lady, with typical sense, has struck an appropriate and proportionate balance in tackling a wasteful and cruel practice while still allowing a whole shark to be landed sustainably appropriately.It strikes, as we so often need to do in this place, a difficult but necessary balance, with the various specific scientific exemptions that have been highlighted and which we would expect to see for conservation purposes. I do not propose to detain the House longer, so I will conclude by congratulating the hon. Member for Neath on bringing forward this important Bill. She has my wholehearted support, and I wish her every success in seeing it swiftly translated on to the statue book.”
“As we have already heard, the Bill closes a loophole in banning the import and export of detached shark fins, and the fins of other cartilaginous fish such as ray, with the exception of the “pectoral fins of a ray”. It is well and tightly drafted, and it will do what it seeks to do. As others have said, the practice of finning, the catching of a shark, the removal of the fin and the discarding of the rest of the shark—sometimes still alive—is not only wasteful but cruel and unnecessary. The Government have said that they do not oppose the landing of a whole shark with its fins naturally attached. I know that some would wish us to go further while others would not, but I think that the hon.”
“We are talking here about sharks in the context of marine ecosystems, but we should bear in mind the fact that the ecosystems of all our waters, be they oceans, seas, chalk streams or rivers, are vital to the overall health of our planet. That is why it is right that we are considering this issue today. I am pleased that such leadership has been shown on both sides of the House in respect of animal welfare and protecting our planet. The animal welfare action plan that was published recently is hugely important, and in 2020 there was a petition debate about this very issue. I pay tribute to Shark Guardian for promoting awareness of the issue, and securing the engagement that has, I know, helped the hon. Lady’s cause.”
“As we have also heard, 143 species are under threat, and 46 species and ray are listed in CITES, the convention on international trade in endangered species. As the hon. Lady said, these creatures are integral to the ecosystems of our oceans. They play a hugely important role in what are fragile and complex ecosystems—and our oceans’ ecosystems are crucial to the health of our planet as a whole. In January 2021, an article in Nature suggested that there had been a 71% decline in the global abundance of sharks since 1970. That is a terrifying decline in the numbers of a creature which plays such a central role in our oceans’ ecosystems.”
“Let me add that his is an extremely good appointment in respect of this particular brief. The hon. Lady and others have already set out the context of the Bill and the challenges with which it is intended to deal. It is a very short Bill, with only three clauses and one schedule, but it does not need to be long, because it contains in those three clauses and one schedule everything that is needed to move things forward and close this loophole. The scale, globally, of the trade in fins has been estimated at between 16,000 and 17,000 tonnes per annum, with an estimated 97 million sharks killed annually. We know that since 2003 the landing of detached shark fins has been banned in the EU, but, as we have heard from the hon. Lady and others, that does not appear to be doing the job.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees). I have had the pleasure of working with her on a number of issues since I have been in the House, and it is a genuine pleasure today to have the opportunity—now that I have returned to the Back Benches—to contribute to such an important debate and to express my wholehearted support for the Bill. It is also a real pleasure to speak in a debate to which the newly appointed Minister will respond. Until recently, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) was my Whip, and he managed to discharge those duties firmly but very charmingly. I am sure he will bring the same balance of charm, firmness and indeed determination to his new role, and I hope he will continue to be a Minister for many years to come.”
“I put on record my support for what the hon. Lady is seeking to do and the underpinning principles behind that, and recognise how important this is to her constituents, to Liverpool fans and more broadly to anyone who could, through no fault of their own, find themselves or their relatives caught in a horrendous tragedy, and would want to know the truth and learn lessons from it. I do not propose to speak for any longer, because I am keen to hear the debate, but I wanted to put that on record.”
“We recently saw very concerning scenes at the champions league final in Paris, with an attempt to push particular and unacceptable narratives around that to blame the fans yet again. That will have stirred some horrific memories, particularly for Liverpool fans and people in the hon. Lady’s constituency and elsewhere. I support the concept of an independent public advocate and I support what the hon. Lady is seeking to do. I think there is more to be done to work through some of the detail of how it would interact with other investigatory bodies and specific powers; it is important that avoiding duplication in interacting with other bodies is handled appropriately. She may well suggest that Committee is the best place to tidy that up, but it is important that those issues are bottomed out before this Bill passes into legislation.”
“I will be very brief, but I do want to speak in this debate, because I was the Minister for victims in the Ministry of Justice in 2018 who pushed that consultation that the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) mentions. I want to highlight her consistent advocacy for an independent public advocate, certainly since my time in the Ministry of Justice. I am afraid I moved on relatively swiftly to the Department of Health and Social Care, so I was not there to publish the response, or indeed to see it, but I want to put on record that the hon. Lady makes some important points. It is right to remind this House and this country at every opportunity of what happened at Hillsborough and what needs to be done to minimise the risk of that ever happening anywhere again. Transparency is hugely important.”
“I will start with a couple of words of caution about the use of history and statistics. Hon. Members made a number of points. I have been doing this job for almost three years, and I have often found that assertions are made with statistics or other facts from the history of the NHS, and I want to provide a counter-narrative to three or four before turning to the specifics of the hon. Lady’s debate. First, I urge a little caution from Opposition Members when raising bed closures, not least because between 1997 and 2007, about 32,000 beds in the NHS were closed, which is more than double the number that were closed between 2010 and now. I say that simply to caution hon. Members that statistics can be used in different ways. There has been a long-term trend under Governments of both parties as the nature of care has changed.”
“I am happy to do so, Mr Stringer. It is a pleasure to be here on the Front Bench responding to this very important debate. If I am still in this role on Sunday, I think I will be the third longest-serving Minister for Health since 1970, which says something about either longevity or churn in this role. It is a genuine pleasure to respond to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), and I congratulate her on securing this debate. As hon. Members across the House have acknowledged, the NHS has faced extraordinary pressures over the course of the pandemic and continues to face them. Although I suspect that not everything I say will meet with agreement from Members from both sides of the House, I join them in expressing our gratitude to all those who work not just in our NHS and health services but in social care.”
“One of the first pieces of legislation that we introduced following the 2019 general election was the NHS Funding Act 2020, which will increase funding by £33.9 billion—a record amount—by 2023-24. As the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) would expect me to say, we introduced the health and care levy to bring more funding into our NHS and social care. It was disappointing that Opposition Members voted against additional funding for the NHS when that was put to a vote.”
“I just want to make a few more points, and then of course I will give way to the shadow Minister. She and I spent many happy hours in the Health and Care Bill Committee over many days. On engagement with the private sector, again I would urge a little caution. It was of course the Labour Government in 2004 who first introduced the private sector into the provision of frontline clinical services with the out-of-hours contract. A Nuffield Trust blog in 2019 highlighted the fact that the increase in the use of the private sector in the NHS began before 2010 under that Government. I do not think the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) was asserting anything other than that, but it is important that I put that on the record. Of course resources are hugely important.”
“The NHS, since the legislation in 1946 and its implementation in 1948, has been essentially a vertical system, whereas we have retained local care by local councils on a social care level. This is an attempt to integrate them far more effectively.”
“I just want to finish this point, but I will give way to the hon. Lady because it is her debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) and others are right in their analysis that this is about patient flows. It is about a whole-system approach and the challenges across the system. My hon. Friend asked what the solution is to making the join-up work better. A key element of the solution is the new integrated care boards and integrated care systems, which genuinely seek to bridge the gap between two parts of the system, to which the hon. Member for Bath—health and social care. They both have, for want of a better way of putting it, different DNA.”
“We have set up a national discharge taskforce, which is working actively with trusts and across local systems, particularly those that are most challenged, to support that discharge work. The situation is not as acute as he suggested, but it remains challenging because every one of those beds could be used to admit patients from an urgent and emergency care setting, or indeed to tackle elective backlogs and waiting lists.”
“Lady acknowledged in her Adjournment debate in the main Chamber on 31 March, although there are elements of that that we need to look at, we also need to look at the issue as a whole. She was right to say that. For example, as hon. Members have said, the problems and delays in discharging patients home or to community services once they have recovered have a genuine impact on hospital bed occupancy—taking up beds that could otherwise be used by patients who need them. I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland a slightly more optimistic picture, which is in no way to diminish the challenge that remains. The number of beds taken up by people who are clinically fit to be discharged is not 20,000; it hovers at around 10,000.”
“When someone rings for an ambulance, it is not a case of making an appointment with their GP; they are deeply concerned for their health, or the health of someone else, in an emergency. All those staff want to do—I have met many of them—is be there for those people, and the hon. Gentleman was right to highlight that issue. As the hon. Member for Bath will be aware, the pandemic has caused significant strain across the NHS and the social care sector, and emergency care performance, as hon. Members have been open in acknowledging, is recognised as a whole-system issue. The challenges in performance can be traced along the entire patient pathway. Indeed, as I think the hon.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but when hon. Members raise party political points, it is incumbent on me as Minister to respond and to put the facts on the record. I will turn to the specific points she has raised. I will also turn, in that context, to the various points that she and the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) made about various tangible suggestions from the Liberals on the issue. The hon. Member for Bath is right to have secured and introduced the debate, because this issue is one of growing concern, understandably, and not just for all our constituents but for those who work on the frontline of our NHS. I think it was the hon. Member for Weaver Vale who highlighted the challenges faced by those staff, who want to be there and want to help.”
“That has consistently remained nationally at around 93%—a level usually seen only during winter pressures, as hon. Members have said. The pandemic has played a significant part in driving those pressures, and there are nearly 9,500 in-patients either with covid or for covid in clinical settings, as of 1 July. That is about 10% of all general and acute beds in the NHS.”
“I would like to make a little progress before giving way again. I am conscious that I need to leave enough time for the hon. Member for Bath to respond. That affects how quickly patients can be admitted from A&E, and such delays increase waiting times, as has been said, and lead to that crowding in departments, which has an impact on how quickly new patients arriving in A&E can be seen and treated, including those arriving by ambulance. When this causes ambulance queues to form, the local ambulance resource available to be dispatched to incoming 999 calls is reduced. It is fair to say that although the ambulance queues and delays are often the most visible manifestation of challenge, they are in many ways a symptom of that broader patient flow and the systemic challenge we face. The root cause of these issues is hospital bed occupancy.”
“I will give way to the hon. Lady, but I want to make a little progress. There are points I want to make before I run out of time, but then I will give way. That number, as we know, has frequently been higher during the pandemic, and there is the challenge of staff absences during waves.”
“In fact, it was the Labour party that argued against giving the Secretary of State and Ministers the power to take action on those things when it voted against and spoke against that measure during the passage of the Health and Care Bill. It is right that clinicians determine what is the best set-up for clinical services in their area. I just gently make that point. In summary, I think that both sides of the House recognise fully the challenges faced in these unprecedented times by our urgent and emergency care sector, and particularly by patients and those who work in the sector. We have a plan to fix it. We continue to invest in that plan and to support our workforce, and we will continue to do that for the benefit of patients.”
“I will turn to a couple of further points very briefly, because I want to give the hon. Member for Bath her two minutes at the end. She raised a number of specific points. She called for greater resources to be put in. That has been done. She called for an increase to be made in paramedics and ambulance staff. That has been and continues to be done. None of these are completed works, but they continue to be done. She called for action to stop ambulance station closures or community ambulance station closures. I have to say that those decisions are made clinically by local trusts; the power was not there for the Secretary of State to intervene.”
“Lady and her party can rightly claim a degree of credit for that, because a degree of that took place between 2010 and 2015. We do continue to grow the workforce. Turning to workforce issues more broadly, it is absolutely right that, as well as providing the support to which the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) alluded—mental health and physical support for the workforce—we continue to grow the workforce in order to ease the workload pressures. We have already witnessed over 30,000 more nurses in the NHS since that pledge was made in 2019. We continue to grow all workforces. In section 41 of the Health and Care Act 2022 we set out a very clear duty on the Secretary of State in relation to workforce planning, and that work is already under way.”
“There is of course nationally a wide range of support in place to improve urgent and emergency care more widely. That includes growing the number of call handlers for 999 and 111, and the investment that we have seen going into our ambulance services and A&Es. It is the case that £450 million of capital investment has already gone into increasing capacity in urgent and emergency care departments. In addition, we have kept, I think, over 155 more ambulances on the road over winter with our investment of £55 million more going into ambulance services. We are investing those resources in the frontline. If I recall my statistics correctly, there has been a 38% increase in the paramedic and ambulance workforce since 2010. The hon.”
“I join her in paying tribute to the work that her local team there are doing. That hospital is working well with community partners to help patients to return home as soon as they are well. That includes work with the hon. Lady’s local council to develop its domiciliary care provider, which will provide an additional 1,000 hours of domiciliary care a week. A £2 million investment will also be made in the Home First programme, whereby experts from across health and care help patients to get safely back home as soon as possible. The system is also working on opening an additional 20 beds at St Martin’s Community Hospital, while also developing same-day emergency care for frailty to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital and to care for patients safely in the community.”
“I will not commit myself to what the hon. Lady specifically asks for because of the challenge of data collection, but I will say that I see where she is coming from and appreciate the underlying point, which is about understanding the impact of the policy. It has been in use since 2020 as a pandemic measure and is now in statute. The NHS will be monitoring it carefully. We do not agree on everything, but I am always happy to talk to her about these matters because she takes a close interest in them. With regard to local actions in the patch covered by the hon. Member for Bath, as an illustration of the sorts of measures being put in place across the country, the local integrated care system is working to improve patient flow and reduce handover delays at acute trusts, including the Royal United Hospital in Bath.”
“In June we announced the appointment of Dame Lesley Regan to that role. She will focus on raising the profile for women’s health, increasing awareness of taboo topics, and bringing in a range of collaborative voices to implement the women’s health strategy. To reassure the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, we do aim to publish the strategy before the summer recess. The relevant Minister will aim to do that.”
“Turning to the women’s health strategy, which I know is a central element of the way the Government propose to move forward. Across women’s health we are working to deliver better care through the first women’s health strategy for England, which will reset the way in which the Government are looking at women’s health. That will correct the way in which the health system has in the past been set up—it is fair to say, although hon. Members may disagree—by men and for men. That is the historical evolution of our health service. Huge progress has been made, but there is more to do, which is why that focus is necessary. Work on the strategy began in December 2021, when we published “Our Vision for the Women’s Health Strategy for England”. We announced in that vision that we are appointing the first ever women’s health ambassador for England.”
“That is why we increased funding by £33.9 billion in the legislation passed in early 2020 to reach a certain level by 2023-24, plus we provided additional funding throughout the pandemic. We recognise that there is a lot more to do. The hon. Lady also talked about prioritisation and ringfencing. The only note of caution that I will set out about ringfencing particular parts of budgets is that often it is more effectively done by local clinical systems than by me or another Minister. Often those systems are best placed to work out what their priorities are, based on their waiting lists, population health and population need. I hope that integrated care systems will play an increasingly large role in understanding that, and adapting to the needs of local areas.”
“We are increasing capacity for gynaecological surgery to tackle long waits in two key areas: first, through surgical hubs, which allow for higher volumes of care to be carried out in protected circumstances, reducing the risk of covid-19 infections; and secondly, through the high-volume, low-complexity programme, which allows increased volumes of surgical procedures to be carried out. To support services further, we have grown the workforce in gynaecology with the addition of 108 consultants this year, bringing the total number working in obstetrics and gynaecology to over 6,400, an increase of 681 since 2019. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle rightly highlighted a number of key points, one being staffing and another being funding, which is also about facilities and their availability.”
“The covid-19 pandemic has left a large backlog of people needing care. The latest figures show that 6.53 million people are waiting for NHS care, with 1.55 million of these waiting for diagnostic tests. As part of this, the waiting list for gynaecological services has over 28,800 people waiting longer than a year for care. We are working hard to reduce the number of people waiting for these vital services as swiftly as we can. It is promising that activity levels have reached 95% of their pre-pandemic levels in this area, but that is still 5% short of what normal activity would have been pre-pandemic. We recognise that more needs to be done in this space.”
“I congratulate her on that. It is always a pleasure to answer a debate of hers or to respond to her in the Chamber. It is also a great pleasure to be able to respond to the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who as ever gave a typically powerful and forthright speech. She highlighted some harrowing examples—as the shadow Minister put it—that illustrate the broader issues around hysteroscopy and particularly the challenges around the NHS listening and acknowledging patients’ genuine concerns and requests. I will return to that in a moment. Normally at this point I would offer to meet with the hon. Member for West Ham to discuss this, but I will instead offer that the relevant Minister meet with her to discuss this matter further and the specific points she raised with her typical forthrightness and expertise.”
“I would just say that if I am still in post on Sunday, I will be the third-longest serving Minister of State for Health since 1970, but only time will tell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing this debate about waiting lists for gynaecological services. I know this is a very important subject for her, and I would like to take a moment to highlight her well-known focus in this House on women’s health matters and the work she has done in that space, which reflects the importance many of our constituents attach to these issues. As has been alluded to, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has done important work on the suspension of the use of vaginal surgical mesh. She has also worked to promote menstrual wellbeing and worked with Endometriosis UK.”
“I do not want to prejudge the specifics of that strategy. In broad terms, I hope that I can reassure the hon. Member that we are seeking to look at all the drivers of the challenges that she and other Members have highlighted, and seek to address improvements. Without prejudging, there are points made by hon. Members that I would expect to see included around information, engagement, guidance and empowerment. The importance of empowering women, believing them and engaging with them came through very clearly in the hon. Member for West Ham’s comments.”
“We are continuing, through this, to try to build in more choice, not just for the patients—although that is crucial—but to help maximise the capacity within the system, to help avoid people having to wait longer than necessary.”
“We will also ensure that 95% of patients waiting for a diagnostic test will receive it within six weeks by March 2025. To support that, we have committed to spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, in addition to the £2 billion elective recovery fund and the £700 million targeted investment fund already made available to systems. That will hugely increase the capacity in the system. However—this also relates to the point made by the hon. Member for West Ham—one of the aims of the elective recovery plan, My Planned Care, and similar, is to increase, not just in the space of gynaecological services but more broadly, the opportunities for patients to exercise choice over whether they want something immediately or would prefer to wait, and potentially where they would prefer to have that procedure performed.”
“However, the key to whether they deliver the outcomes for all of our constituents is how we deliver and implement them on the ground. We have to get the strategy right; that is the first step and we anticipate publishing that before the summer recess. However, it is then important that we focus on delivery, and that we work not just with the NHS but with patients and relevant campaign groups to work out how we deliver on the intentions in that strategy. More generally, we set out in our elective recovery plan how we intend to build back from covid-19 and reduce waiting times across all elective services, including gynaecology and menstrual health. The plan included our commitment to tackling long waits, eradicating waits of longer than two years by the end of July 2022, and eliminating waits of over one year by March 2025.”
“I am grateful once again for the hon. Lady’s typical forthrightness. I have debated with her on a number of occasions—I was going to say “crossed swords” but that is unfair—and I know that she means it with good intentions, even when she is being rightly firm with Ministers in pressing a case. She is absolutely right. When I talk about empowerment, I envisage that encompassing a whole range of things. That includes believing people, treating them with respect and listening to them. In terms of action, one Opposition Member—forgive me; I do not remember who—mentioned the need for a clear delivery plan. I have been in the Department for almost three years now. Governments of all complexions are often very good at coming up with strategy documents, which are important.”
“It may not necessarily cover every point that she has focused on, but I hope she will recognise the amount of work that has been done.”
“The challenge that the hon. Lady poses is that if we are talking about, essentially, the multi-hospital trusts or similar, as they have grown up, they have often designed their services in x specialism in one hospital, and moved things around like that. In those cases, there are often only one or two hospitals within the trust that do it. We are seeking to try to create greater choice across the entire system, including regionally, which genuinely builds choice. That is a big challenge—Governments of both complexions have tried it with varying degrees of success—but that is what we are seeking to do here. However, there is a lot of work to do in that space. I hope that when she sees the strategy she will recognise the degree of underpinning research that has been done.”
“Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), who it has always been a pleasure to appear opposite in this Chamber. I hope that I have offered some reassurance to hon. Members about the extent to which the Government take the issues that they have raised extremely seriously, and I too look forward to the publication of the strategy.”
“I mention this in passing because it is important to recognise that for many the general practitioner is the front door to the system and being able to get access to a general practitioner is a crucial part of being able to get into the care pathway, be that for diagnostic tests or for acute treatment, should that be needed. I will wrap up now and I hope that will give the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle a few minutes to respond. In conclusion, I pay tribute to her for securing the debate and bringing it to the Chamber. What this Chamber may lack in numbers, for various reasons this afternoon, is made up for in quality and in the importance of the subject of debate. As ever, I am grateful to the hon. Member for West Ham and to the shadow Minister, the hon.”
“I will turn briefly to general practitioners, who are often key in the treatment of gynaecological conditions. As we all know, general practices are still very busy and are caring for patients in the community who are on waiting lists for secondary care. I pay tribute to the work of general practitioners and their teams throughout the pandemic. We know that some patients have struggled to get through to their GP practice on the telephone, which is why the NHS offered practices an interim telephony solution that enabled them to use Microsoft Teams to free up lines for incoming calls. We made an additional £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice capacity during the pandemic.”
“However, I hope that she will see progress in there. We know that diagnostics are a key area in many gynaecological pathways. As such, we are establishing up to 160 community diagnostic centres across the country by 2025. There are currently 90 such centres operating across the country, including supporting spoke sites, and they have delivered 1 million tests and scans since July 2021. The expansion of the centres will mean that the NHS will have just shy of 38% more MRI capacity, 45% more CT capacity, 26.8% ultrasound capacity improvements, and an increase of around 19% in endoscopy capacity by March 2025, compared to pre-pandemic levels. That will allow more patients to be seen more quickly, meaning they can be diagnosed sooner and then start any treatment they need.”