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Tuesday Volume 652 15 January 2019 No. 234 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Tuesday 15 January 2019 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2019 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 991 15 JANUARY 2019 992 Stephen Hammond: As I said a moment ago, the House of Commons long-term plan sets out a framework to ensure that, over the next 10 years, the NHS will have the staff it needs. To ensure that we have the detailed plan the hon. Tuesday 15 January 2019 Gentleman wants, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has commissioned Baroness Harding to lead a rapid and inclusive programme of work to set out a The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock detailed workforce implementation plan, which will be published in the spring. PRAYERS Helen Jones: Fifty per cent. of the staff the NHS will need in 15 years’ time are working there now, yet one in 10 nurses is leaving, 80% of junior doctors report excessive [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] stress and six out of 10 consultants want to retire at 60 or before. Does the Minister not accept that this Government have presided over a disastrous decline in morale in the NHS, and will he say what the workforce Oral Answers to Questions plan will do to address it? Stephen Hammond: Nurses are at the absolute heart of our NHS. There are 13,400 more nurses since May HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE 2010. We have announced the biggest expansion of nurse training places, with 5,000 more available from 2018. Alongside that, we are opening up new routes. As The Secretary of State was asked— the hon. Lady will know, the workforce is at the heart of the long-term plan and, as I have just said, a detailed NHS Workforce Shortages workforce implementation plan will be published in the spring. 1. Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab): What recent steps he has taken to tackle NHS workforce Stella Creasy: Last week, a 14-year-old boy lost his shortages. [908556] life in my local community, yet in September, when the Department wrote to my local community asking for 8. Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab): What steps ideas about mental health provision, I wrote back to he is taking to recruit and retain additional staff in the Ministers asking for an urgent meeting to talk about NHS. [908563] how we could get mental health workers into our schools to work with young people who might be at risk of 17. Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op): What being involved in gang violence and youth violence. recent steps he has taken to tackle NHS workforce With the shortage of mental health workers at a rate of shortages. [908572] one in 10, can I finally have that meeting with Ministers so that we can talk urgently about how to support such 19. Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/ young people and save not only money, but lives? Co-op): What recent estimate he has made of the level of staff shortages throughout the NHS. [908574] Stephen Hammond: The answer to that question is yes. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond): Good Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie morning, Mr Speaker. The NHS employs more staff Doyle-Price), will be delighted to meet the hon. Lady. now than at any time in its 70-year history, with a Jim McMahon: The most recent Care Quality significant growth in newly qualified staff since 2012. Commission inspection of the Royal Oldham Hospital We have increased the number of available training said that it failed to meet safe staffing numbers in places for doctors, nurses and midwives, and taken maternity and it only had 85% of the required staffing further actions to boost the supply of nurses, including contingent in surgery. There is a human cost to that. We offering new routes into the profession and encouraging see list after list where people have died, including those who have left nursing to return. The long-term children, because of unsafe staffing numbers in that plan, which was announced last week, sets out the hospital. Where is the urgency that is required to address framework to ensure that the NHS has the staff it that? Will the Minister meet me about this particular needs. hospital to see what more can be done? Neil Coyle: Guy’s and St Thomas’s, which is based in Stephen Hammond: The hon. Gentleman is right. I my constituency, offers globally renowned, first-class recognise that the overall CQC rating was that the healthcare, but the trust has seen a massive drop in hospital requires improvement. I understand that the applications from other EU member states, including of funding that has gone into it has been more than almost 90% in midwives alone. All vacant posts across adequate and that it is improving. However, I recognise the NHS present the risk of longer waiting times and the concerns he raises and I would be delighted to meet risk patient safety, so why did the Government not him to discuss them. publish the workforce strategy in the so-called long-term plan? When will it appear? Will the Government reinstate David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con): Will my hon. nursing bursaries to address the shocking staff shortfall Friend congratulate Conservative-controlled Hinckley across the NHS? and Bosworth Borough Council’s health and wellbeing 993 Oral Answers 15 JANUARY 2019 Oral Answers 994 board, and its approach to NHS workforce shortages? damning that, with a record 100,000 vacancies in the It has, for several years, been working on collaboration NHS, the main plank of the Government’s strategy to between GPs and community services, which is in line tackle the workforce crisis is to rely on volunteers? with the 10-year plan. Will he look at the registers of the Professional Standards Authority, which are not Stephen Hammond: The hon. Gentleman is right to mentioned in the long-term plan, and see if he can say that volunteers in the NHS provide an invaluable make better use of the 80,000 properly regulated service, but he is completely wrong to suggest that any practitioners on those registers? part of the long-term plan relies on volunteers. There is an expansion in numbers of nursing associates to deal Stephen Hammond: My hon. Friend is right to recognise with those vacancies and, as I have said to other hon. that community provision lies at the heart of the long-term Members, we have seen an increase in the number of plan, and that a number of health service professionals doctors in GP training. Obviously, he will welcome the make up that community provision. If he wishes to £20.5 billion a year that is going into the national health write to me about registers, I will be delighted to respond. service. That will inevitably mean more doctors and nurses, which is why we are making more training Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con): The Minister knows places available. about our difficulties in recruiting obstetricians, which has led to what we very much hope is the temporary Leaving the EU: Contingency Planning closure of the full obstetrics service at Horton General Hospital in Banbury. We are doing everything we can 2. Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab): What progress locally to rectify that situation. What more can the his Department has made on contingency planning for Minister do to help us nationally? the UK leaving the EU without a deal. [908557] Stephen Hammond: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s 3. Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab): What progress campaign and her tireless work on behalf of her his Department has made on contingency planning for constituents. Figures from the Royal College of Midwives the UK leaving the EU without a deal. [908558] show that there are over 2,000 more midwives on our wards since 2010. The NHS plans to train 3,000 more 18. Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP): What midwives over the next four years, and as of last September preparations his Department has made for the UK there are over 5,000 more doctors in obstetrics and leaving the EU in March 2019. [908573] gynaecology than there were in May 2010. The NHS is hoping to fulfil what my hon. Friend wants to see. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock): We do not want a no-deal scenario in Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): Will the Minister our exit from the European Union, but it is incumbent confirm that since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 on us to prepare in case. We asked medical suppliers to there has been an increase of 4,000 EU nationals working stockpile a further six-week supply over and above in our NHS? normal levels, and that work is going well. We will continue to work to ensure the unhindered supply of Stephen Hammond: My hon. Friend and I do not medicines in all Brexit scenarios. always agree on everything about the EU, but numbers and statistics show that he is correct on that matter. Wes Streeting: The Prime Minister’s threatening of this Parliament and the country with no deal is entirely Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con): Clearly, it is reckless, irresponsible and unnecessary. It is also causing important as we move forward with the NHS to train unnecessary fear and anxiety among a range of clinicians more doctors and nurses.

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