Wes Streeting MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to hear of the work Ros is doing as mayor to support health and care services and to take health and care to where people are. I hate hearing that there are hard-to-reach communities; there are no hard-to-reach communities. There are underserved communities and, in our determination to tackle health inequalities, to get care closer to people’s homes and indeed in people’s homes, to do earlier diagnosis and to provide faster access to treatment, we need to make sure that we take health and care services to where people are rather than expecting people to always come to us.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. May I, through her, thank health and care staff in her city for the work they are doing to get the people of Birmingham through this particularly challenging winter? What we really need to do to make our health and care system more effective and more sustainable is shift the centre of gravity out of hospital and into the community. We need better and faster access to diagnostics and treatment, as well as a bigger focus on prevention—primary prevention to keep us all healthy and active, and secondary prevention so that fewer people need to call on health services, and particularly emergency departments, which are stretched at this time of year.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  That is an excellent question from my hon. Friend. This Government have been walking the talk on primary care since we came into office. There was an immediate release of funding, within weeks, for 1,000 GPs, who are to be employed on the frontline by this April, and an £889 million uplift in funding for general practice that we announced prior to Christmas. I think that care in the home and care closer to home will be how we not only get the NHS back on its feet, but make sure it is fit for the future. That shift from hospital to community is one of the three big shifts that will lie at the heart of our 10-year plan for the national health service.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  I am really grateful to the hon. Member for raising that question and for the example she gave of the Whittington advertisement for staff specifically to deliver corridor care. I make no criticism of the trust itself in trying to make sure it has the right staff in place to deliver the best care possible in the present circumstances. It is not the fault of the Whittington that there is corridor care; it is a legacy of 14 years of Conservative failure. I would also say that my reaction to seeing that advertisement was the same as hers: it was proof that corridor care has been normalised. I want to reassure her, the House and patients across the country that this Government will not accept corridor care as normal care. We will not tolerate it as being acceptable care. We will do everything we can as fast as we can to consign corridor care to the history books and I reassure the staff working in the NHS in these intolerable conditions that we will work with them to deliver the investment and the reform needed to get the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The conditions she describes at her local hospital are truly shocking. As I have said, and this is often quoted by the SNP, all roads lead to Westminster, and I am happy to report that up that road from Westminster to Holyrood lies a record uplift in funding for the Scottish Government. They have no excuses for inaction. They need to grip the crisis in the NHS in Scotland, as we are here. The difference, as my hon. Friend states, is that they have a record of 18 years that they cannot defend, and I hope people will consider that record very carefully when they decide who should govern in Scotland at the next set of Scottish elections.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  Today there are 1,399 fewer full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015, and NHS dentistry is at death’s door. This Government will fix the front door to the NHS. We have announced an additional £889 million in funding for general practice in 2025-26—the biggest boost in years—and we have already started hiring an extra 1,000 GPs on the frontline. Our 10-year health plan will shift the focus of healthcare out of hospital and into the community.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  We are looking at two things, the first of which is making sure we deliver what we said in our manifesto, including the 700,000 urgent appointments. We are determined to deliver those as fast as we can and my hon. Friend the Minister for Care is having discussions with the British Dental Association to that effect. He is also looking closely, as am I, at the money that is already going into NHS dentistry—how that money could be better spent and how it is that year after year, despite people’s teeth rotting to the extent that they are having to pull them out themselves or children having to attend A&E to have their teeth pulled out, we saw consistent underspends in the dentistry budget under our predecessors. We are determined to give dentists the tools to do the job so that patients can see a dentist when they need one.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As the Prime Minister set out in our elective reform plan yesterday, we are determined to make sure that accessing NHS services, including general practice, dentistry and other primary care services, is as easy and convenient as accessing any other services at the touch of a button via our smartphones. We have committed to that in the elective reform plan, which will bring benefits right across the NHS as we modernise. Of course, she is right to mention those who may not be digitally connected or may not want to access services in that way. That is why I believe very strongly in patient choice—different courses for different horses. People like me booking via the app will free up telephone lines for those who prefer to access services that way.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  I think the shadow Minister will find that GPs welcome the £889 million uplift announced just before Christmas. That is the biggest boost to general practice in years. It is part of this Government’s agenda to fix the front door to the NHS and recognise the dire state that GPs were left under. Of course, with that investment comes reform. I think GPs would be delighted to manage more of their patients in the community if given the tools to do the job, and that is something this Government are committed to doing.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for that question. I am incredibly sorry about the awful conditions in which staff in that practice are having to see patients and in which the patients it serves are having to be seen—that is the epitome of the broken general practice system that we inherited. Thanks to the decisions taken by the Chancellor in the Budget, we are able to invest in the capital estate need in the NHS. That will take time, and we would be delighted to hear more about that individual case to see how the ICB and the NHS can assist.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would be delighted for my hon. Friend to meet me or the relevant Minister. The NHS has a statutory duty to ensure sufficient services in each local area, including general practice, and it is vital that we also take into account population growth and demographic changes. I strongly support the Deputy Prime Minister’s commitment to delivering 1.5 million new homes, and she and I know that that must be accompanied by local healthcare facilities. We are working together to achieve just that.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  That was a rare admission of failure in this House by the SNP. I am very sorry to hear that general practice in Scotland is in such a sorry state, because here in England we are investing £889 million in general practice, the biggest uplift in years. That is in addition to the funding I have found to employ 1,000 more GPs on the frontline before April, because we are prioritising general practice. As for the decisions the Chancellor took in the Budget, as I said before the election, all roads lead to Westminster. Thanks to the decision a Labour Chancellor has made here in Westminster, coming down that road from Westminster to Holyrood are the resources the SNP Government need to deliver the priorities of the Scottish people. If they cannot, Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie stand ready to deliver.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  First, as the shadow Minister has said, advice and guidance happens in general practice, and we want to see more of it. We have to give GPs the tools to do the job, and that is what we are doing. My hon. Friend the Minister for Care will be talking to the BMA shortly in the context of contract negotiations in the usual way. What the shadow Minister neglects to mention is that these reforms and improvements to general practice are made possible thanks to the £889 million we are putting in, which is investment that he and his party oppose.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has been raising these issues with me since before he was elected to this place on behalf of the communities he represents. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), we must make sure that additional housing—which is desperately needed—is accompanied by health and care services. The Deputy Prime Minister and I are working together to achieve just that, and thanks to the decisions taken by the Chancellor in the Budget, we are able to invest in the health and care services that this country needs and deserves.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

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  Of course I will meet the hon. Lady. It would be daft of me to say no to the Chair of the Select Committee; otherwise, she will see me in less pleasant circumstances. In all seriousness, we are looking creatively at this issue. There are enormous capital pressures right across the NHS estate. We are regularly lobbied on new hospitals, for example, but we are also lobbied on general practice, the mental health estate and the rest. We will do as much as we can as fast as we can, thinking creatively about how we can get more capital investment in, and I would be happy to discuss that further with the hon. Lady.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Care Sector Salaries · Hansard source

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  This Government recognise the crisis in social care that we inherited, which is why over the past six months we have taken steps through the Budget to increase investment in social care, deliver the biggest expansion of the carer’s allowance since the 1970s and invest in the disabled facilities grant. Of course, as my hon. Friend alludes to, we cannot deliver great social care without the workers who deliver it. That is why I am proud that within our first 100 days, the care worker-turned-Deputy Prime Minister included fair pay agreements in her landmark Employment Rights Bill, so we can give our care staff not just the pay they deserve, but the professional status, recognising the hard work they do as care professionals. That is a crucial step on our path to building a national care service.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Care Sector Salaries · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend. I am proud that this Government have taken quick action within our first 100 days. Thanks to the Employment Rights Bill, which is UK-wide legislation, this Labour Government in Westminster are giving the Scottish Government the tools they need to do the job of establishing fair pay for care staff. If they do not do it, Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie will.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Care Sector Salaries · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for that question. With our fair pay agreements, we will be bringing together government, public and private sector employers and staff trade unions to negotiate the future for fair pay agreements that will benefit care workers across the system and give them the professional status and career progression they deserve. The Chancellor, through the Budget, also took steps to ensure that we could invest in our social care services. I am deeply saddened that the Conservative party has not supported that investment.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  What the shadow Minister neglects to mention is that the Chancellor has protected the winter fuel allowance for the poorest pensioners, and she has also put in place the warm home discount to assist people with their energy bills throughout the winter. If the shadow Minister does not support the decisions that the Chancellor took at the Budget and ahead of the Budget to raise vital investment for our health and care services, that is fair enough, but then she needs to tell people which NHS services she would cut or which other taxes she would increase.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  This Government are delivering on our commitment to cut NHS waiting lists and end the Tory backlog. We have taken immediate action with an additional £1.8 billion to support elective activity this year. That funding will support the delivery of our first step of 40,000 extra elective appointments a week. With investment must come reform, and the elective reform plan, published yesterday and announced by the Prime Minister, sets out how we will cut NHS waits to the 18-week standard, increase productivity, reform the system and improve patients’ choice and control over their healthcare.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  Of course, clinical need is paramount and must always drive decision making about who to treat when and the order in which people are treated. That is why I find the question posed so deeply disingenuous. [ Interruption. ] We inherited NHS waiting lists at record levels and waiting times that are frankly shameful. The shadow Minister should be apologising for her party’s record, and she should also apologise for the two-tier healthcare system that sees those who can afford it paying to go private and those who cannot afford it—working-class people—being left behind. That is the two-tier system that the Government are determined to end.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for that question. I agree with him about the need for clarity as well as consistency. We undertook the review into the new hospital programme because the previous Government’s timetable was a work of fiction and the money was not there. I hope to report to him and to the House shortly on that, with the undertaking that the timetable we publish and the funding provided by the Chancellor in the Budget and at the spending review will mean that we will provide not just clarity but consistency, which is important for NHS leaders, important for patients and important for the construction industry partners we need to work with.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work she is doing to improve health and care services for her constituents. The Government are giving health and care providers the tools to do the job. Of course, change will take time, and it is therefore crucial that we all pull together locally and nationally. For the avoidance of doubt, the Government are on the side of the builders, not the blockers.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for writing to me before Christmas. I recognise the pressures that have been placed on NHS commissioners in recent years and the pressure that that has put on service configurations. I tend to support the devolution of decision making, with decisions about service reconfigurations taken closer to the communities they serve. I recognise also that commissioners do not always get it right, which is why engagement with Members of Parliament and other democratically elected representatives is important. Ministerial oversight is important, too. We will look seriously at the issues he raises and talk to NHS leaders, and I know he will be doing the same. This Government are determined to give NHS leaders the tools to do the job, so that we can get the right care in the right place at the right time, with a better experience for patients and better value for taxpayers.

• 7 Jan 2025 · NHS Waiting Times · Hansard source

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  I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. As I said during the general election campaign—it was quoted regularly by the SNP—all roads lead to Westminster. Down that road from Westminster is a record increase in funding for the Scottish Government through the Barnett formula. I know the Scottish Government published their own NHS recovery plan just before Christmas, and I look forward to reading it, although I know some have expressed concerns about the lack of detail in the plans to drive down waiting times. The Scottish people can therefore compare and contrast with the ambition of our elective reform plan, which was announced by the Prime Minister yesterday, and then decide at the next Scottish elections who they trust to govern: the SNP with its rotten record, or a Labour Government who will get on and deliver.