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.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,188 lines we hold for Edward Argar, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 44 of 124.
“We remain publicly committed to eradicating reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete from the NHS estate by 2035-36—I note my hon. Friend’s point highlighting that in his view and the view of others, that needs to happen more swiftly—and to protecting patient and staff safety in the interim period. As he said, we awarded the Queen Elizabeth £20.7 million this financial year as part of SR20 £110 million ring fenced funding to address the most serious and immediate risks posed by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. In addition, further funding confirmed in the autumn Budget and spending review will allow for the continuation of this remediation work in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and, indeed, on the wider NHS estate. Let me turn to the next eight new hospitals.”
“Friend is, as always, passionate in putting the case for his local hospital to be among the next eight to be announced—I will turn to the process and timelines for that shortly. As he highlights, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust has been provided in recent times with significant national funding, including £5 million in 2021-22 from our targeted investment fund for the establishment of an eye care unit at the Queen Elizabeth and a modular endoscopy unit, and £2.65 million in 2020-21 for the emergency department expansion works and to address backlog maintenance across its locations. My hon. Friend advocated for both those investments. Let me turn to a point that I know is a significant concern for my hon. Friend.”
“We are pleased to confirm that an initial £3.7 billion has been provided over a four-year period—this spending review period—to begin making progress on delivering 48 new hospitals by 2030, with 30 of the hospitals already announced to be built outside London and the south-east. I am pleased that six of the 48 hospitals are already in construction and one has already been completed. Of course, this hospital building programme is in addition to the 70 upgrades, worth £1.7 billion, that are part of the wider programme of capital investment. Those commitments will result in outdated infrastructure being replaced by facilities for staff and patients that are at the cutting edge of modern technology, innovation and sustainability. My hon.”
“Members take in this subject. Indeed, I am conscious that even some Members in their lordships’ House take a close interest in this issue. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) for his words. He is absolutely right to highlight the dedication of our hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk to this cause. His constituents and, indeed, those represented by all hon. Members here today are lucky to have them, as they continue forcefully and firmly to argue the cause of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk will be aware, the Government are backing our NHS with a significant capital settlement that will create a step change in the quality and efficiency of care up and down the country, including in Norfolk.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to respond to this debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), about the quality of care and the estate at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn. As my hon. Friend has already alluded to, this is an important subject for him. It is rare that I pass him in the corridors of this place without him gently but firmly drawing me aside to raise this issue with me. I know that he does so because it matters hugely to his constituents. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) said, it also matters hugely to other people living in the region—the wider Norfolk area—and beyond. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk rightly highlights the close interest that a large number of right hon. and hon.”
“They will need to meet the recommendations arising from the pilots that took place in London and the getting it right first time review, but I certainly look forward to considering the bid from my hon. Friend’s trust in due course.”
“In highlighting the extra resources that we are putting into our NHS, it is vital to understand that this is not about the inputs; it is about the outcomes for patients and how those resources are used wisely to deliver improved patient outcomes and improved experiences for patients, with shorter waits. With regard to what is needed to achieve those outcomes, a significant part of that funding will be invested in staff, in terms of both capacity and skills. I understand that an orthopaedic unit bid for about £18 million has been submitted by my hon. Friend’s local hospital trust. That is in the context of the £5.9 billion elective recovery funding, and the £1.5 billion from that for capacity and social hub improvements. Those bids will be carefully considered.”
“To support elective recovery specifically, the Department plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, in addition to the £2 billion elective recovery fund and £700 million targeted investment fund already made available this year to help drive up and protect elective activity. Taken together, this funding could deliver the equivalent of around 9 million more checks, scans and procedures, and will mean that the NHS in England can aim to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than it was delivering before the pandemic.”
“I understand that 19,366 of those patients are waiting for treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. In February, the NHS published the “Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care”, which set out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and expand elective services over the next three years. That delivery plan commits to eradicate waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025. Within that, by July 2022, no one will wait longer than two years, and we will aim to eliminate waits of over 18 months by April 2023 and of over 65 weeks by March 2024.”
“As my hon. Friend knows, each region will feed in its views about which of the schemes and bids in its area are the highest priority. Without prejudging that assessment process, I hope I can reassure him that one factor that I know he considers to be of significant importance—RAAC—will be considered. Patient safety and the safety of the buildings will be a factor in the analysis of which bids should go forward to the longlist, but I do not want to go further than that at this point, however much he may charmingly seek to tempt me to do so. Elective recovery is an area of real focus for the Department and for the whole Government, and I am aware that covid-19 has placed an unprecedented strain on routine and planned care, with waiting lists in England reaching a record high, at just over 6 million in January 2022.”
“As I say, his constituents are incredibly lucky to have such a champion of their cause, of healthcare in his constituency, and of investment in his local hospital, and I look forward to continuing working with him to ensure that the quality of healthcare his constituents receive is the best the NHS can provide. I note his very kind offer, which has been reiterated to me, to visit him in sunny Norfolk—as I suspect it will be in the coming months—to see his local hospital. If I am able to do so, I will be delighted to visit. Question put and agreed to.”
“I reassure hon. Members that significant support is in place for acute trusts, to help address handover delays. NHS England and Improvement and its regional teams are working with local systems—in this case, with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk—to improve their patient handover processes, helping ambulances get swiftly back on the road. Ministers are in regular contact with NHSEI on the performance of the emergency care system, including the ambulance service and accident and emergency departments. In conclusion, I once again pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk and all my hon. Friends who have spoken in this brief but very important debate for the work that they are doing to champion the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn.”
“My hon. Friend is even more dextrous than our hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk in seeking to tempt me into an indiscretion or a prejudgment of the application process and consideration. I hear what he says and he makes his point eloquently, but I will not be drawn while that analysis and assessment of the bids is under way. Ambulance services, like other emergency care services in the NHS, have come under significant pressure, as hon. Members will know. In February 2022, the service answered over 764,000 calls to 999—an increase of 13% on the number of calls in the same month before the pandemic. High levels of demand on the emergency care system, alongside the need for infection prevention and control measures, have resulted in higher instances of delays in the handover of ambulance patients to A&E in some areas.”
“We are clear that the £312 million that my hon. Friend alluded to remains, as it was at the outset, the maximum amount currently allocated to that programme. It reflects the original allocation and continues to be the allocation, so I encourage her trust to continue working with NHS England and NHS Improvement to develop a scheme and a programme that matches that budget for the benefit of everyone’s constituents in Shropshire and in Wales, who this hospital also serves. I look forward to continuing to work with my hon. Friend and other hon. and right hon. Members from Shropshire and Wales on the future of services at Shrewsbury and Telford. I conclude by once again paying tribute to my hon. Friend for her passion, her determination and her perseverance on behalf of her constituents. Question put and agreed to.”
“She has campaigned for her constituents and she has won on this point, and I pay tribute to her. On my hon. Friend’s second key point about the Future Fit programme more broadly, and the budget available to it, she will be aware that as of this month £1.1 million has been made available to the trust to continue the development of that programme as part of the £6 million-worth of early funding agreed in late 2020. NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to work with her local trust to develop the business case for that programme, and we still wish them to go ahead with it. We want them to work to come up with the right solution for the local community, and we remain committed to that. My hon. Friend asked a very specific question about that. It will have to follow the usual business case approvals process.”
“She highlighted her campaign to retain a 24/7 A&E local in Telford. As she said, in 2019 my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) made his decision, which still stands, for the Future Fit programme to proceed, but also, crucially, for an A&E local to be in place in Telford. It is very important that I put this on the record. The success of my hon. Friend’s call—the fact that that was agreed to—is down to her campaigning work on behalf of her constituents. I suspect that without her, it may not have happened. The fact that it has, as I believe was confirmed by my right hon. Friend the current Secretary of State in a letter to her recently, is testament to the success of her campaign, regardless of some of the more misleading views that have been spread around in the course of this process. She has succeeded.”
“To that end, later this year we will publish a health disparities White Paper setting out actions to reduce the gap in health outcomes between different places and communities across the country so that people’s backgrounds do not dictate their prospects for a healthy life ahead of them. This will mean looking at the figures for preventable killers such as tobacco and obesity as well as wider causes of ill health and access to the services needed to diagnose and treat ill health in a timely, accessible way. This will be a cross-system endeavour relying on close working with the NHS, wider health and care services, and across local and central Government. I welcome any thoughts my hon. Friend has in her local context as we develop that White Paper. Let me turn to my hon. Friend’s two specific points relating to her health and care system.”
“Based on increasing demand and patient convenience, the CDCs aim to carry out the range of diagnostic tests required for a patient in as few visits and in as few locations as possible, and they genuinely have the potential to improve health outcomes. My hon. Friend talked about health disparities particularly in the context of her own constituency, sitting within our country but also within the county of Shropshire. She is right to say that health disparities across the country are stark and have been further highlighted and exacerbated by the pandemic. We are determined to address the long-standing health disparities that exist in many areas, be they in access to services, health outcomes or people’s experience of their local health service.”
“Friend mentioned the importance of improving our diagnostics facilities. This Government are proud to have invested £2.3 billion in the community diagnostic centres programme. Some £5.9 billion of capital investment will be provided for the NHS to tackle the backlog of non-emergency procedures and to modernise digital technology to tackle waiting lists, including £2.1 billion for the innovative use of digital technology, and £1.5 billion for new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment to help elective services to recover, including surgeries and other medical procedures, as well as the community diagnostic centres that I have referred to previously.”
“This Government are prioritising capital spend in the NHS to transform and improve healthcare outcomes for people and to put health financing on a sustainable footing. We are building new hospitals, upgrading those that have reached or are reaching the end of their life and tackling backlog maintenance and RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—challenges in hospitals. We are also improving the mental health estate, investing in technology, the digitisation of the NHS, elective recovery and research and development. It is our firm belief that health services will need to do things more efficiently and differently from before, and for that reason the DHSC’s capital budget is set to reach its highest real-terms level since 2010: £32.2 billion for the period 2022-23 to 2024-25. My hon.”
“Occasionally, as a Minister, one may catch one’s breath slightly when one sees an Adjournment debate in my hon. Friend’s name on this subject in the Chamber, because one knows she will press her constituents’ points hard, which is exactly what she is here to do. That is why they have wisely elected her three times now to this place. I know her determination on behalf of her local hospital and her constituents, and I gently say to her local trust that it ignores or dismisses that at its peril—something I have learned doing this job for two and a half years. I hope she will feel that I have never ignored or dismissed the points she has raised. I will turn to the national picture on capital spend before turning to my hon. Friend’s specific points.”
“As ever, it is a pleasure to be here at the end of the day for the Adjournment with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker—I may jest slightly, but these Adjournment debates are hugely important, as you know, because they give an opportunity to raise matters of genuine local importance to Members of this House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) has done. With that in mind, I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and on her passion and commitment to her constituents. She has raised these issues consistently in this House, both in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall debates, and I pay tribute to her for that. She is a strong and passionate campaigner on behalf of her Telford constituents, and they are extremely lucky to have her as their Member of Parliament.”
“They are simply technical in nature and ensure that emergency provisions that allow for controls on food or feed identified as presenting a serious risk to health may be applied equally to any goods destined for the market. They will ensure that appropriate legislative provision is in place to enable decisions taken to authorise feed additives and GM food or feed to be enacted through legislation. Finally, they will provide for a smooth transition through the transition period, to allow businesses to adjust to the new labelling requirements. Having effective and functional law in this area is key to ensuring that the high standards of food safety and consumer protection that we enjoy in this country are maintained in the immediate and longer term. I therefore ask hon. Members to support the SI before us.”
“To the point that I just made to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, it is important to note that Scotland and Wales have provided their consent for the SI. The Northern Ireland Department of Health has been briefed on the amendments, and we have engaged positively with the DAs. I welcome their engagement on that and the constructive relationships that officials of the Scottish Government and others have with my officials and officials in DEFRA. I want to take the opportunity to reassure hon. Members that the overarching aim of the regulations is to provide continuity for business and to ensure that high standards of safety and quality for food and feed regulation continue across the UK. As I said, the changes do not affect the essence of existing legislation.”
“Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, I put on the record my gratitude to all the devolved Administrations for the constructive engagement that we have had with them on these matters. The regulations will support food businesses in England that source products from the EU, or from outside the EU, through an EU distributor. They are also in line with the approach being taken by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to labelling changes within its remit. Let me make it clear that the SI does not introduce any changes that will impact on the day-to-day operation of food businesses; nor does it introduce any new regulatory burden. The essence of the legislation is unchanged, but it provides benefit for certain businesses by enabling a period of grace in the introduction of the labelling changes.”
“In preparation for EU exit, changes were made to the legislation on extraction solvents and quick-frozen foods to reflect the fact that the UK would no longer be part of the EU. As a result, relevant food placed on the market on or after 1 January 2021 is required to be labelled with the name and UK address of the legal person responsible for it, rather than an EU contact and address. The draft instrument provides for a period of adjustment in those sectors, allowing for the continued use of labels with an EU contact and address until 30 September this year. The adjustment applies to England only. The Food Standards Agency has worked with its counterparts in Wales and Scotland to ensure a co-ordinated approach, and similar measures are already in place in those Administrations. Through the hon.”
“The regulations did not sufficiently make it clear that the authorisation decisions for those products must be prescribed in legislation. While that does not prevent Ministers from taking decisions to authorise those products, provision for those decisions to be implemented through legislation makes certain their enforceability in law and, of course, the role of this House. The proposed amendment therefore clarifies the fact that decisions on authorisations for feed additives and for genetically modified food and feed will be prescribed through legislation, thus ensuring consistency with other retained EU law in this area. Thirdly and finally, the draft instrument provides a period of adjustment for changes to labelling requirements made necessary by EU exit legislation.”
“To correct that identified issue, the draft regulations include a technical amendment that will enable all Ministers to apply, equally, the same emergency controls to all food and feed destined for our market, regardless of their place of origin or route of consignment. The amendment does not extend the remit or gravity of the controls that may be introduced, but will ensure that emergency controls are exercisable equally across all parts of the United Kingdom. Secondly, the draft instrument ensures that authorising provisions for feed additives and for genetically modified food and feed authorisations will be made by legislation. Again, legal analysis of fixed and retained EU law identified that retained EU regulation 1831/2003 on feed additives and retained EU regulation 1829/2003 on GM food and feed contained a number of omissions.”
“Retained EU regulation 178/2002 on the general principles of food law provides Ministers with emergency powers to suspend or restrict the placing of food or feed on the market. That can be used where food or feed presents a threat to human health. Legal analysis of article 53 of that regulation identified that, as worded at present, it is not possible for a Minister to exercise those emergency powers over third-country food and feed entering Great Britain via Northern Ireland. I emphasise that that operability issue is confined only to third-country goods entering Great Britain via Northern Ireland. Emergency powers to restrict third-country products that present a risk to health having access to the Northern Ireland market are already in place.”
“This draft instrument, which concerns food and feed law, is made under powers in the Food Safety Act 1990 and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. It follows on from the 18 EU exit instruments on food and feed safety made during 2019 and 2020—probably many of them etched on the hon. Gentleman’s mind. The Government’s priority is, as always, to ensure that the high standard of food safety and consumer protection we enjoy in this country continues to be maintained now that the UK has left the European Union. The draft instrument is technical in nature. None the less, I am sure that hon. Members will welcome a brief summary of the regulations and the changes that we are making. The measure serves three key functions. First, it will ensure that emergency powers can be applied equally to all food and feed entering Great Britain.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the Draft Food and Feed Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2022. It is a pleasure once again to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. It is also a pleasure to serve opposite the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge. Over a number of months, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and I regularly debated European Union-related statutory instruments in Committee, to the extent that we could almost finish off each other’s speeches by the end of it. I suspect the same was true for the hon. Member for Cambridge and the Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), in a similar context. It is a pleasure to serve opposite him today.”
“As I said, these are technical amendments, but I hope that we have also had the opportunity to explore a little more widely some of what sits behind them. With that, I commend the regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to .”
“Gentleman mentioned the NFU. I suspect I share his view. I have a good relationship with my local branch of the NFU and I pay tribute to the work that it does and that nationally the NFU does to highlight issues relevant to our agriculture and food production industry in this country. We always carefully consider any representations that they or others in this space make. Finally, the hon. Gentleman talked about the relationship with EFSA. We have no plans to deviate from the current relationship, and that relationship is broadly characterised by close collegiate working. We recognise the importance of data sharing and working in a co-ordinated and, as I said, collegiate way in this space.”
“Gentleman mentioned that of course in 2018 we were in a very different place—I think that is something on which he and I would agree. We may disagree about what has happened since and whether it is for the best or not, but I cannot disagree with his statement of fact that 2018 was a very different place and certainly felt like it. A common thread running through all the work that we are doing in this space is that we seek to make the relevant regulations and put in place the relevant compliance regime, to protect safety, to protect the consumer and to protect high standards, but, at the same time, to ensure that that is proportionate and does not place an undue burden on business. I believe that with these technical amendments and what they pertain to more broadly, we have struck an appropriate balance. The hon.”
“Gentleman says, both about the challenges faced by the sector overall—in recent months, we have seen that manifesting itself in a variety of ways—and about the challenges, potentially challenges we do not yet fully know, coming out of the international situation. But I believe that the labelling deadline, the grace period till September 2022, provides a proportionate and reasonable amount of time to enable industry to adapt. I am very conscious, through my work on the Northern Ireland protocol in the context of medicines and medical devices, of the different lead times that industry needs, depending on the nature of what it has to do to its logistics networks, supply chains or compliance regimes, but in this context I believe that the six-month period is reasonable. The hon.”
“We continue to maintain the high standards of food and feed safety that the hon. Member for Cambridge highlighted, as set out in the explanatory memorandum. He touched on paragraphs 7.7 and 7.9. I am not aware of any practical events that have been a cause; I think that this is about tidying up and making the legislation fit for purpose. I am not aware of any specific ones. However, should I be informed that I am incorrect, I will of course write to the hon. Gentleman to correct what I have said. But I am not aware of any. The hon. Gentleman asked what procedure would be used. It would be the negative procedure for delegated legislation, in respect of that. On labelling and the timescale, I hear what the hon.”
“Indeed, I make a point, when it is in my policy area, of actually reading them, given that it is my signature as a Minister on the bottom of them. In this case, it is the signature of the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who sadly is not able to be here today, but I know that she takes the same approach. I will take this opportunity, if I may, to thank all the exceptionally talented and hard-working officials who have worked on this statutory instrument, got it to this stage and done the due diligence to ensure that we can have this debate and that we have the right materials to make it an informed debate. I am always grateful for the work of incredibly talented officials, who serve not just me as the Minister but this country, whoever is in government.”
“Turning to the shadow Minister’s comments, I am, as ever, grateful both for his support and for his tone and his reasonable questions. I am always happy to give credit where it is due, and quite rightly he highlighted the creation of the FSA under a Labour Government. That is a matter of fact, and I am certainly happy to give him, on behalf of his party, the credit for that achievement and for what he did there. The hon. Gentleman highlighted the paragraphs in the explanatory memorandum that set out the Northern Ireland protocol, and the impacts on how the current system or the previous, EU-led system works and how that will transition. I, perhaps like him, always ensure that I read through explanatory memorandums before taking part in a delegated legislation debate.”
“Gentleman made the point about the relationship between the devolved Administrations and the UK Government. I have worked throughout the pandemic and through the Brexit period, leading on a number of issues in the relationship with the Scottish Government and others, and I am certainly grateful for the constructive approach. There will be times when we have political differences of opinion. That is in the nature of a democracy and of the stances that we are all elected to espouse. But I certainly have found the relationship to be constructive and open, particularly in the context of the current legislation on health that we are putting through, and I look forward to continuing that open and constructive relationship, at both official and ministerial level, on issues such as this and more broadly.”
“I will be brief, but will endeavour to respond to the shadow Minister and to the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. If I may, I will turn first to the SNP spokesman’s comments and then come to the shadow Minister’s comments. At the risk of creating a challenge for us in respect of GM—I know that that issue attracts considerable attention across the House—I say, with slight hesitancy, that of course it is open to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill to choose it for an Opposition day debate. I am sure that the relevant Minister would be delighted to respond. That is obviously a matter for the hon. Gentleman and his party, but there are and will continue to be opportunities in the House for an issue of that public interest to be debated. More broadly, the hon.”
“I hope sunny Eastbourne will be sunny by the time we get to April.”
“Friend to talk about the challenges of the rail links between her constituency and London. Because of the location of the hospitals and trusts, there is still a degree of temptation or ability for highly qualified professionals to perhaps say, “I will have a longer commute and work in London”, or, “I will go and work in a big London teaching hospital”, so we need to do everything we can to make it attractive and easy for people to make the conscious choice to work in the local hospitals to make sure we have the workforce that we need. My hon. Friend raised other issues. As well as thanking the team and her local paper, she has talked in the past about getting me down to Eastbourne to visit her local hospital—something I have agreed to—and I will see whether that might be possible during the Easter recess.”
“I encourage her trust to continue looking at such options. If it is helpful to my hon. Friend, I will speak to NHS England’s south-east region to see whether it can convene a meeting to discuss that further with her and her trust to see what options might help fill the gap, even if what was initially put forward might be deemed impractical by the trust. My hon. Friend focused on patients and the impact on them, but she talked about staff as well, and it is important that in considering services and transport services for people to get to, from and between hospital buildings in the same trust, we do not forget the impact on staff. Although I know that sunny Eastbourne, Hastings and Bexhill are wonderful places to live, work in and visit, I will not tempt my hon.”
“The longer journeys would cost more, but, as the trust pointed out to me, people would, hopefully, have fewer appointments overall, would therefore not have to go to the hospital as often, and would not incur cumulatively the cost for the extra appointments that were no longer required, so they should not pay too much more. My hon. Friend set out the impact on people on low incomes—the 25% who have no car and for whom a taxi or private hire vehicle might be prohibitively expensive—and she gave a moving example in her remarks about the choices that some people might have to face. I expect the trust to consider that extremely carefully. My hon. Friend touched on the shuttle bus service and gave an example of where it has worked well in providing a service that works for patients, and it has environmental benefits as well.”
“With regard to the ophthalmology reconfiguration, the travel analysis summary, included as part of the consultation documents, set out that proposals would affect outpatients and people who come to the Conquest Hospital, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye, for procedures but do not stay overnight. That is around 27% of all ophthalmology patients who attend East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust hospitals for treatment and care. The analysis indicates there will be an increase in travel time for around 21% of patients who would use public transport and for 8% of patients who might travel by car—their own car, taxi or similar. Were the proposals to go ahead, some people would have a shorter journey and others a longer journey to their appointment.”
“Friend’s constituency. I know the area well, going across to Hastings and further to Bexhill and Eastbourne. I also know the horror which is the A259, on most days. I was going to say at rush hour, but it is not just at rush hour these days. My hon. Friend’s comments about congestion going up from 36% to 60%, certainly on that road, chime with me; and that is going back 20 to 25 years to when I was last regularly in that part of the world. The challenges of getting between the three sites are considerable. My hon. Friend alluded to the bus routes. There are bus routes but she is right that, certainly in one case, a change must be made to make the connecting journey. A patient going into hospital wants to minimise the stresses and challenges faced in getting there and back. My hon. Friend alluded to two specific reconfigurations.”
“Friend alluded to—ophthalmology and cardiology —as we would expect in any reconfiguration, clinical needs and safety in achieving the best clinical outcome for patients are obviously paramount. Achieving that sometimes comes with challenging changes to where people may access services, compared with where they previously did so. We would expect, among that consideration of benefits and challenges, patient transport, inequalities and equality of access to feature heavily. I expect my hon. Friend’s trust, in reaching decisions, will have given due weight to such considerations. I am well aware of the geography of her constituency and that of her near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), having grown up on Romney Marsh and having late grandparents who lived in the Icklesham/Winchelsea area of my hon.”
“All reconfigurations are subject to four Government tests. The first is strong public and patient engagement. To her point about the 2019 survey, I encourage her trust to continue engaging with that patient voice, including specifically around access. I will come on to access in a moment in the reconfiguration criteria. Other tests are consistency with current and prospective need for patient choice: a clear clinical evidence base; and support for proposals from clinical commissioners. It is important to hear from as many local people as possible about the practical impacts and concerns. None of the decisions on reconfigurations is easy or straightforward. They are about balancing different needs and benefits. Rightly, in the different reconfigurations my hon.”
“I also join her in paying tribute to the Eastbourne Herald , of which I am maybe not as assiduous a reader as I should be. The latest story I read was about disco public lavatories. I have followed the important work undertaken by India Wentworth, since she joined the Herald in 2020, in campaigning on the issue and drawing to public attention the challenges faced by my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in Sussex. It is rightly the responsibility of clinical commissioning groups—CCGs—or what will soon become integrated care boards and trusts, to plan for reconfigurations of NHS services. It is important that any such plan commands local legitimacy and confidence. I will respond to my hon. Friend’s questions. One was about consultation around reconfigurations, and how public transport and accessibility featured in that.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) on securing this important debate. As she alluded to, she has been a regular and persistent—albeit always courteous—campaigner for the NHS in her constituency, for her local hospital and, most importantly, for her constituents and their ability to access the services they need. I am aware of her long-standing interest in the issue. It is fair to say that her constituents are incredibly lucky to be represented by someone with such a passion for Eastbourne. I join her in paying tribute to her hospital trust and everyone who works there, across the three sites, for what they have done, not just over the past two years in extraordinary circumstances, but what they do every day, year in, year out.”