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Wes Streeting MP: speeches

1002 published records · newest first.

Speeches

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am so grateful to my hon. Friend. I enjoyed visiting her Carlisle constituency ahead of the general election campaign, and I look forward to working with her to improve health services there and across the north-west, especially in the rural and coastal communities that rely on the hospital in Carlisle, as well as on more local neighbourhood services. I must warn new Members that one of the most depressing things about the last nine years has been constituency advice surgeries, where people would come to see us about the consequences of the failure of Government and the failure of this place. We owe it to them to do better—better integration of health and care services, better access and outcomes, and better joined-up care. As she has painfully described, if we do not tackle the problems early, they become multiple, higher-cost and personal tragedies. We have seen enough of that.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place representing the people of Bournemouth. The great thing about where we are at this moment is that, for the first time in a long time, there is a feeling of hope and optimism about what the future could be. We are determined to build on that and give staff and patients the confidence of knowing that the best days for the NHS lie ahead.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I welcome the hon. Member to his place and thank him for that question. I am always cynical about huge volumes of regulation. We reassure ourselves as legislators and regulators that putting regulations in place means that we have dealt with the issue. But the problem is that if we fail to deliver, we put another regulation in place, then another, and then more, and before we know it, we have drowned the people responsible for delivery in so much regulation that they cannot sort the wheat from the chaff or see the wood for the trees, compromising standards and patient safety. That is why I welcome the work that Penny Dash has done in relation to the Care Quality Commission, and we will continue to work with her to reduce the burden of regulation, focus on the things that really matter and free NHS staff from red tape. I hope that he finds that reassuring. I plead with him not to send his party leader to agree with me as well, or I really will be in trouble.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    NHS staff did not break the NHS—the Conservatives did—and this Labour Government will mobilise them to help fix it.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said; coming from him, that means a great deal to me. I reassure him that I am committed to working with Ministers in all devolved Administrations to improve health outcomes for everyone in every part of our United Kingdom. I know that the system is particularly pressed in Northern Ireland and I will do whatever I can, working with Ministers in Northern Ireland, to help that situation and create the rising tide that lifts all ships right across the UK.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach. The tragedy of the Health and Care Act 2022 was that a large part of its focus was on trying to correct the enormous damage done by Lord Lansley through a top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and that the country could not afford. That is why I have said very clearly that we will not repeat the mistakes of top-down reorganisation. With the architecture of the system, we will take an approach of evolution rather than counter-revolution. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about learning from what is working well in the NHS, what gives me great hope for the future of our national health service is that every day there are amazing people providing great-quality care, reforming, innovating and showing us what the future looks like. It is the responsibility of this Government to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. That is exactly what we will do.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am not sure that is a fair characterisation of Sir John Bell’s position. I have a huge amount of respect for him. I am grateful to Lord Darzi for writing the diagnosis. Given that the Conservative party was in government for 14 years, repeatedly promised to rebuild Hillingdon hospital and left my Department in a position where the money for the new hospitals programme ran out in March, the hon. Member has some brass neck to point the finger at us while he is in opposition.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    Of course we seek to work constructively with all trade unions representing staff across our health and care services, and also with the royal colleges. We want to work in a spirit of partnership, and we are only able to do so because people sent Labour MPs to Parliament to replace the Conservatives.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She has a huge amount of expertise in health and care, and she is absolutely right about the need for that shift. I have made it very clear to ICB leaders and to trusts across the country that I want more focus on secondary prevention, which means much more activity in the neighbourhood. I know that she will keep on championing these causes. She is a good critical friend, and I know that she will hold my feet to the fire to ensure that I deliver.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I have never denied, nor have the Welsh Government, that our health and social care systems are in crisis across the United Kingdom, and that waiting times and patient outcomes are not where they should be. [ Interruption. ] The Conservatives do not wish to acknowledge the truth, and even now, without a shred of humility or acceptance of the responsibility of their record in government, they carp from the sidelines. They will not admit or accept that different parts of the United Kingdom have different strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of the fact that there is a Scottish National party Government in Scotland or a unique arrangement in Northern Ireland, as well my friends in the Welsh Government, I am proud that in my first weekend as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, I made it my business to phone my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I made it clear that we will always work constructively, whatever our parties and however hard we will fight each other at the ballot box. Rather than pointing fingers at other parts of the United Kingdom, as the Conservatives did when they were in government, this Government are determined, just as the last Labour Government were, to create a rising tide that lifts all ships. I look forward to working with every devolved Administration to improve health and care outcomes across the whole of our United Kingdom.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that question. He is not too far away from me geographically, but he is miles away from me politically, and I always get nervous when he stands up to praise me. We have to keep a sharp eye on value for money. The Darzi report presents some politically challenging messages about NHS management. I could be wildly popular with the country if I stood up and said, “I’m going to take the axe to management across the country and sack loads of managers.” What we need is better management and a sharp eye on value for money. The NHS would not work without good leadership. We have to ensure that we have the right people in the right place, delivering against the public’s expectations, so it is a more nuanced position, but I am sure that what he says will have been heard by his local trust. I will certainly keep an eye on value for money across the country.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    First, my hon. Friend is right that we should celebrate and thank staff who are doing an outstanding job against a very difficult set of circumstances. On his second point, we have to ensure that, on the tech side, we unlock productivity in the system. Having literally sat looking over the shoulder of GPs at their IT systems, I well understand those frustrations. For the benefit of all observers, there is sometimes a perception that I am up against NHS staff when it comes to reform. Actually, it is staff who are crying out for change.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    The hon. Member is an experienced Member of this House, as both a former Chair of the Treasury Committee and a former Treasury Minister, so she knows how impact assessments are done at the Treasury. She knows that impact assessments of all the Chancellor’s fiscal decisions at the Budget and the spending review will be published at that time. She also knows, I suspect, that despite the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from some pensioners—it will be targeted at those most in need—they will still be better off because the Government have committed to maintaining the triple lock and to extending the warm home discount scheme and the available hardship support, so that pensioners are not left behind as we clean up the £22 billion mess that the Conservatives left behind.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place. She might be from the wrong side of the river, but she is absolutely right about the importance of prioritising children’s health. As the Prime Minister said this morning, it is shocking that the No. 1 cause of hospital admission among children aged between six and 10 is tooth decay. I was criticised by the shadow Secretary of State, who said that I called our children “short and fat”; she is more outraged by my calling out the scourge of childhood obesity that her Government fuelled than she is by the scourge of child obesity itself. That is why we will act and why the Conservatives failed.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    The Minister for Secondary Care was whispering in my ear that it was her frustration with exactly the bureaucratic processes that the hon. Gentleman describes that led to her seeking election as a Member of Parliament to sort them out, so I defer to her on this one. On a serious note, he is right that wherever we find waste and inefficiency designed in, we must deal with it. I want to see an NHS that is more clinically led, free from political interference. We must also be honest: as it is such an enormous part of the public sector, which the public pay an enormous price for and value so much, there will always need to be an accountability relationship. What I have tried to build with NHS England in the last couple of months, with real joy in the process, is a real team between the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England, as well as the team across the country. I look forward to continuing to galvanise that team as we embark on the 10-year plan process.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    How refreshing to have constructive opposition in the Chamber. It was clear throughout the election campaign that my party and the Liberal Democrats have much in common, both in the commitments we made, which in some cases were identical, and in our shared areas of emphasis: the link between health and wealth, the importance of prevention and the importance of social care. As the Prime Minister reiterated again this morning, we are absolutely determined to address both the short-term crisis and the long-term needs of the century in our social care system. We want to work on a cross-party basis wherever possible, so I would be delighted to meet the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I thank my hon. Friend for her question and congratulate her warmly on her election to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee. I am looking forward to sharing, through the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the work that our Departments are doing together, particularly on the link between mental health and unemployment and on integrating pathways. She is right about the social determinants of ill health. That is why I am genuinely excited that, through the mission-driven approach that the Prime Minister has set out, we are already bringing together Whitehall Departments, traditionally siloed, to work together on attacking those social determinants. The real game changer is genuine cross-departmental working, alongside business, civil society and all of us as active citizens, to mobilise the whole country in pursuit of that national mission, in which we will be tough on ill health, and tough on the causes of ill health, as someone might have said.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    Absolutely. I thank the hon. Member for the way she put her question. I send my deepest condolences to Sophie’s family on what will inevitably be a difficult day—I suspect just the latest of many difficult days—on the imaginable pain, grief and loss that they have suffered. I thank the hon. Member for her work over many years campaigning on children’s cancer in this House on behalf of her constituents and so many other families affected by young cancer. The pause is because we are looking at the breadth of the work of the Department to make sure that we have the right vehicles to deliver the outcomes that we want. That is why we have paused rather than cancelled, slammed or criticised the work that she was doing. I would be delighted to meet her to talk about the genesis of the taskforce and how we can take forward the outcomes that she wants to see. What we are trying to avoid is a plethora of taskforces, and the risk that there has sometimes been—this is not a party political point, because this spans successive Governments—of taskforces being an alternative for action. I know that she wants action, so let us meet and see what we can do together.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    My hon. Friend is absolutely right that our country has stark health inequalities. It is not right that people who live in different parts of the country have such different chances of living well. A girl born in Blackpool can expect to live healthily until she is 54, whereas a girl born in Winchester can expect to live healthily until she is 66. That is why, with the Prime Minister’s mission-driven approach, we will not just get our NHS back on its feet and make sure it is fit for the future; we will also reduce the cost and burden of demand on our national health service by attacking the social determinants of ill health.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    Absolutely.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    My hon. Friend is right, and at some point the Conservatives will have to take responsibility for it. We learned through bitter experience that if we did not change as a party, the country would not choose to change the Government. Long may the Conservatives continue, therefore, with their head in the sand, and long may we continue to get on with the job of clearing up their mess and building an NHS that is fit for the future. The relationship between the NHS and local government, and between my Department and local government, is of particular importance in relation to social care, which is why I was especially delighted that the Prime Minister chose this week to appoint Tom Riordan, the chief executive of Leeds city council, as second permanent secretary. He is an outstanding public servant with a demonstrable record on health and care integration, public health and prevention. I look forward to having that local government perspective, and local community delivery perspective, at the heart of our Department.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place, standing up for her communities in Penistone and Stocksbridge. In opposition, it was very frustrating watching successive Ministers promise better hold music for people trying to get through to their GP, rather than solving the problems of access. Fixing general practice, and building general practice so that it can meet the needs of this century, will be a vital part of our 10-year plan process.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    My hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this area and I would be delighted to meet her. Let me give the Conservative party a lesson in humility. However proud I am of the last Labour Government—and I am incredibly proud of what they did to our health estate, the investment they brought in, through a range of different types of private financing, and the impact that had; I can see the benefits in my own constituency— I have never shied away from what we did not get right. At the same time as celebrating what we got right in government, we must reflect on what we did not get right and genuinely learn those lessons, which is what we did in opposition. It took us too long to get back into government—we will learn from that for the future—but it has been really interesting to listen to Conservative Members over the past nine weeks. They have not learned anything, they have not got the message and they are not going to change.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place. She is absolutely right. I feel really sorry for NHS staff for what they have been put through over more than a decade of mismanagement and political incompetence, and we will work with them to clean up the mess. She establishes exactly the right test, which is whether we would want our loved ones to be treated in our local health and care services, and whether we would have confidence that, in every case, on every occasion and in every interaction, they would have access to the best-quality care. The truth is that we do not have that certainty, and too often it feels like chance. That is why we will always put the patient voice, the patient interest and the patient experience at the heart of our reform and modernisation programme.

  • 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source
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    I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in her place. She is absolutely right. We will take Lord Darzi’s diagnosis to write the prescription and ensure that our reform agenda benefits every part of the country—not just big cities and the wealthiest communities—so that every person, wherever they are from, grow up and live, has access to the very best health and care services.

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