Yvette Cooper MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  May I apologise for the timing of the statement and thank the Opposition for their understanding? With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement on the report of the three-year public inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital between 2015 and 2018 led by Lady Justice Thirlwall, published today. I am grateful to Lady Justice Thirlwall for her thorough and devastating report. At the heart of the inquiry have been 13 families who lost their newborn babies or who saw them experience serious collapse or injury at the hospital 10 and 11 years ago. I cannot begin to fathom the grief and pain of the parents and families. The mother of Baby J describes her grief: “I cannot emphasise enough the impact of this on our whole family. Who we are as people, parents, work life, spouses, children…[it] has cast a shadow of sadness over every part of our lives.” Those parents have had to face the unimaginable. I recognise that they have waited many years for the details set out in this report and that it will continue to add to the distress and the loss that they have endured. They should be in all our thoughts throughout all the discussions of today’s report. The public inquiry was commissioned by the then Health Secretary in September 2023, following the conviction of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of a further six babies. Lady Justice Thirlwall has been clear that it was not her role to look at the convictions, the legal process, or the court evidence, and she is explicit about not cutting across the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Instead, her focus was on the experiences of the parents of the babies named in the indictment, the conduct of those working at the Countess of Chester hospital, including whether action should have been taken earlier, and the effectiveness of NHS management, governance, scrutiny and regulation in keeping babies in hospital safe. That is also the focus of this statement. In the words of Lady Justice Thirlwall, “The Report sets out a dispiriting and at times shocking account of multiple and repeated mistakes and failings by organisations and individuals.” The inquiry describes the increase in neonatal deaths in 2015 and 2016 at the hospital, the concerns about the possibility of deliberate harm that were raised by clinicians at an early stage, but then the repeated failures of organisations and individuals to act: shocking failures to put the safety of babies first; shocking failures on safeguarding; failures in governance and in regulation; failures in the most basic duty of candour; failures in professional curiosity; and repeated failures to refer concerns to the police, which the inquiry is clear should have been done at a much earlier stage. Lady Justice Thirlwall comes to the devastating conclusion “that some babies would have been saved…if action was taken earlier.” Central to the findings are what Lady Justice Thirlwall describes as “complete failure at all levels to invoke safeguarding procedures at any point.” She explains: “No one seems to have thought that safeguarding action is required when a member of staff is suspected of causing deliberate harm. Suspicion is enough.” The inquiry also identifies failure among external bodies, including the Care Quality Commission, which failed to consider the data and ask the right questions, and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which should have known as soon as it was engaged that this was a matter that needed to be referred to the police. The inquiry finds repeated failures of governance and candour by the trust and by individuals within it. Disturbingly, it refers to an “exercise in spin” to steer away from referral to the police. That is an appalling finding—an exercise in spin instead of putting the safety of babies first. Worst of all, the trust repeatedly failed the parents: it failed to keep their beloved babies safe; it failed repeatedly to provide them with information which they had a right to know; and it failed to ask their consent for sharing information with external experts and other organisations, or to keep them up to date with investigations. For parents to be kept in the dark for years about what was happening is, as Lady Justice Thirlwall has said, “reprehensible”. Let me address the issues for the families and the parents directly. The suffering endured by the babies and their families is impossible to comprehend. On behalf of the Government and the health service, I am profoundly sorry for the failures set out so clearly in the report, for the harm, distress and unthinkable loss for their families, and for the failures to keep their babies safe. Our responsibility now is to act. Let me be clear: the safety and care of babies, the safeguarding of every patient, the respect for families—all those go to the heart of our NHS values. They must be at the heart not just of what we say, but what we do. Let me turn to the recommendations. Lady Justice Thirlwall has made 17 recommendations on what needs to be done to keep babies safe. The inquiry recognises that in many areas things have changed since the terrible events took place, including welcome improvements at the Countess hospital in services for women and children. However, the inquiry is clear that new action is needed. I take the recommendations extremely seriously. The Government will, of course, consider the entire report and set out a full response, but let me highlight some key areas today. On the crucial issue of safeguarding, Lady Justice Thirlwall recommends compulsory training, a new protocol and employment requirements. A revised NHS safeguarding framework was published in April 2026, but I have asked the chief nursing officer to urgently review the framework and the training in the light of the report. We need to look urgently at that. Let me be clear: this goes beyond laws and procedures, many of which are already clear; this is about leadership and responsibility. Safeguarding is everyone’s business and safeguarding must be everyone’s priority. Concerns must be heard and acted upon. Staff who speak up must be protected and taken seriously. I expect every leader, every board across the NHS, every professional, every manager and every member of staff to uphold their safeguarding responsibilities. I will not hesitate to hold the NHS to account for the highest standards at every level, because at its heart, this is what the NHS stands for: care for patients and, most of all, keeping the most vulnerable patients of all safe. On safety and reassurance for parents, Lady Justice Thirlwall recommends the introduction of video baby monitors for neonatal units. I agree. I have asked my officials to urgently develop plans for cot-cams, which can also help parents feel better connected to their babies when they are unable to be with them in person. The inquiry says that the sudden unexpected death in infancy and childhood guidance must be updated. I agree. That is now under way. It welcomes the introduction of medical examiners but says that this should have happened 10 years earlier. I agree. We will set out further plans to strengthen their neonatal expertise following the inquiry’s recommendations when the Government set out their full response. The inquiry recommends much stronger controls on insulin storage. The NHS has begun that process with new guidance in January this year, but we agree with the recommendation to go further. It recommends new regulation on NHS managers, not just on clinical professionals. The Government have consulted on and confirmed plans to apply a barring scheme to senior leaders and managers, not just to clinicians. We will legislate to introduce the scheme as soon as parliamentary time allows, and we will consider the chair’s recommendation to expand it further. The report also makes recommendations for the regulators, including the CQC, which we will ensure are taken seriously. On technology, we have implemented the maternity outcomes signal system, which provides near-real-time safety alerts, but we agree that we must do more. I agree with the report that when the very worst happens and parents face bereavement, they need to be supported to the best of our ability. The report recommends that the national bereavement care pathway for neonatal death should be rolled out in 2027. I agree, and can confirm that all trusts are signed up to implement it. I will ensure that it is repeated in all versions of the NHS planning framework while I am the Secretary of State. Lady Justice Thirlwall highlights problems with past inquiry recommendations not being implemented, so my Department is setting up a recommendation hub to properly track our implementation progress internally, not just for this inquiry but for others right across the NHS. But we will work with the Cabinet Office now on improvements in this area, to respond to this inquiry. This afternoon I will discuss with the maternity taskforce our plan to bring forward amendments in the Health Bill to create a new maternity and neonatal commissioner to address the serious concerns around safety and standards that have been raised. Later this week, I will meet Lady Justice Thirlwall to discuss how we take forward the report’s conclusions. I want to highlight a final issue that has struck me while reading through the different volumes of this inquiry. A section of the report refers to the way senior oversight of neonatal care had been downgraded in the reorganisation of the Countess hospital. It includes the fact that the board and the medical director reviewed deaths within the hospital. However, this only covered adult deaths. The report says that “the Board did not receive any reports about the deaths of babies and children at any stage during the period I am considering. This was a serious failure of governance, which no one on the Board seems to have noticed. This is further evidence of the inadequacy of the structure, which removed the voice of children and babies from the Board, and the lack of profile of paediatrics and neonatology.” I am clear that the safety, safeguarding and wellbeing of babies must never again be treated as a side issue. As I reflect on some of the safety reports on maternity services we have seen in recent years, let me also be clear that maternity and neonatal services cannot operate on the margins. They must be at the forefront—a central priority in what our NHS must do at the vital and precious start of a family’s life. I want to thank the families for the extraordinary courage and dignity they have shown. I also thank Lady Justice Thirlwall and her team for their rigorous work. This must be a turning point for the NHS. When concerns are raised, especially about safety and safeguarding, they must be heard and acted upon, and it is time to put maternity and neonatal care and safety at the top of the NHS agenda, where they belong. I commend this statement to the House.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to the staff right across our national health service who work immensely hard every day, including in our neonatal units and maternity units, to provide compassion, support and quality care for people who need it at an important time in their life. That includes the staff across the NHS who were devastated when the police investigation, prosecutions and convictions identified terrible crimes taking place, and who are determined to ensure that the best quality of care is provided. Interestingly, it is an unwillingness to think the unthinkable that is identified as having held some people back from facing up to what happened. It does feel unthinkable that any staff member should deliberately harm a child, but we have a responsibility to be prepared to think the unthinkable. The report identifies that safeguarding arrangements are not a finding of fact; they are a step to be taken when there is a concern or a suspicion—that is when safeguarding action has to be taken, in order to put safety first, and we have to be clear about that right across not just the NHS but all our services. Safeguarding is about what we do when things are still unknown, to put safety first. My hon. Friend rightly recognises some of the real challenges around culture, concerns about blame, and people having the confidence and support to speak out. Again, the remarks from Lady Justice Thirlwall are really strong on this. It is a responsibility for everyone to ensure that if there are concerns, they are expressed and investigated. That is an act of good faith, not of bad faith. We must all keep patient safety and, above all, the safety of the most vulnerable patients of all—the little babies—in the forefront of our minds. That is what should guide us as we deal with these sensitive issues.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising this and for consistently speaking out for her constituents who have endured the unimaginable and been through the most horrendous experiences within their families—the loss of a baby, or a collapse—and to then have to go through everything that has happened since and still to have shown, as Lady Justice Thirlwall says, such huge dignity in responding to this inquiry. As the inquiry makes clear, those parents and families have given evidence exactly in the hope that this does not happen again to other families in other hospitals, as well as in Chester, and I pay huge tribute to them. I will take forward the point that my hon. Friend raised about the cross-Government issues, in discussion with the Cabinet Office—she is right to raise that—and I will undertake to draw together the recommendations from NHS inquiries. I also highlight, because I know it will be important for her constituency, that Lady Justice Thirlwall says: “in 2025, a large modern women and children’s unit opened, providing integrated family care for babies and their families. This welcome change represents a huge improvement in neonatal care at the Countess.” That will be hugely important to families in her constituency, but it does not take away from the devastating conclusions of this report and the action that needs to be taken.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her comments, her tribute to the families and her recognition of how much they have endured. She is right to highlight the importance of the duty of candour. One of the most shocking findings of the inquiry was that an “exercise in spin” was put above patient safety, including the safety of some of the most vulnerable patients of all, newborn babies, which is truly shocking. Boards are already responsible for ensuring that they follow the duty of candour. The inquiry found crucial breaches of the board’s duty of candour and responsibilities in a series of areas, including the responsibility to provide information to the reviews done, and safeguarding responsibilities that should have been clear. We will look further at the responsibility framework, the regulation of managers and clinicians, and the leadership’s responsibilities to ensure that what should happen takes place. The hon. Lady will know that the local guardians remain; that is extremely important. On HSSIB, I agree with her that that role needs to continue. It is the intention for that role to continue as part of the CQC, but I have undertaken to look again at those arrangements to ensure that they meet the expectations of the inquiry’s report. Fundamentally, the point that the hon. Lady makes is about the anger and sense of deep frustration and injustice about the fact that we are here again, discussing some of the same issues. For me, that is about two things. The first is patient safety, which has been discussed time and again when we have these kinds of recommendations. The second is the sense of the sidelining of maternity and neonatal care, which have been seen as a side issue in too many places, rather than being central. We have to put the cradle back at the heart of the NHS. We have always talked about the NHS being there from cradle to grave. The very start of a child’s life, and the very start of a family’s life, is one of the most important moments, and we have to make sure that our NHS keeps that at the centre of what it does.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Thirlwall Inquiry: Final Report and Recommendations · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for his response and questions and for the compassion he shows for the families who have been so badly affected by these terrible events—by the failures in the NHS and the crimes that have taken place. Our intention is to publish the full response within six months and to ensure that we have done so thoroughly. I will discuss this further with Lady Justice Thirlwall later this week. The issue about whistleblowers, which the right hon. Member raised, is incredibly important. The report states: “The way the grievance and its consequences were handled was deplorable” and the way in which the trust responded to these concerns was completely wrong. It also went against the guidance and rules that it was supposed to follow. That is why part of this is about ensuring that the right systems are in place; part of it is also about leadership, responsibility and culture, and ensuring that we are holding all those to account at every level in supporting this, particularly in relation to safeguarding. The safeguarding of babies should have been taken the most seriously of all. The right hon. Member specifically raised the issues with HSSIB. The inquiry is clear about the important role of HSSIB. The intention of our reforms is for that role to continue. As part of the Health Bill, it involves transferring HSSIB into the Care Quality Commission. However, that independent role and investigations will continue. I plan to review the detail of this to ensure that we are meeting the spirit of the inquiry’s recommendation, because it is immensely important that we have those arrangements in place. The right hon. Member also referred to the issues around the systems, interoperability and having the data assessments. Of course, we now have new systems in place, including the maternity outcomes signal system. That, when applied to the data that emerged from the Countess of Chester, does make it clear that real-time safety alerts would have been flagged, but of course, in the hospital, the clinicians already knew that a significant increase had taken place, but also they had unexplained deaths and a series of issues that were raised within the hospital. There was a failure of the board to review this, a failure of oversight, a failure of governance and a failure to take proper action. The right hon. Member raised the recommendation that we need to look at a series of reports. In this case, we know that a series of recommendations have been made, particularly about patient safety and often including whistleblowing. We need to ensure that these recommendations are actually implemented. We must not keep going around in the same circles. I am conscious that, shockingly, these events took place in 2015 and 2016, very soon after the Lampard review into the NHS, which had made clear the importance of safeguarding. Safeguarding should have been on everybody’s minds at the time, even if the circumstances were very different from what happened here. The issues around safeguarding and patient safety should have been taken incredibly seriously, and they were not. The right hon. Member is right that we need to ensure that systems are in place, but again, even immediately after reports were published, we still had a failure in this case to implement them and to adopt their spirit. On the recommendations about the NAO, the right hon. Member will know that it is a cross-Government issue. However, I have made it clear that the Department of Health and Social Care will establish a hub for health inquiry recommendations, so that alongside the cross-Government discussion we can ensure that the NHS is doing what it needs to do.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for raising this issue. We have invested an additional £29 billion in the national health service this year, and we have also recruited thousands more doctors, nurses, midwives and mental health workers. It is important that investment goes in. Alongside that, we also now have the major new hospitals programme. In addition, the £1.5 billion I announced today is part of a £6.75 billion fund to improve existing facilities where there are safety issues, in order to ensure that the NHS has the facilities it needs.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I know this is an issue that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education already takes very seriously. She recognises the importance of keeping children in school. Just as we are ensuring that the NHS is sufficiently resilient, public buildings across the country need to take seriously how we deal with the changing weather and climate that we face.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I am very happy to talk to my hon. Friend further about this issue, as I know other Health Ministers will be. She is rightly standing up for the patients—particularly new mums—and staff in her constituency who are affected by the facilities. It is hugely welcome that we managed to include Kettering hospital in wave 2 of the new hospital programme, given the new facilities it needs. Obviously, there is a lot of work to be done, and there will need to be discussions about prioritisation locally—about what can be done and when. I also welcome my hon. Friend prioritising maternity issues, which are an important personal priority for me; I think we have not taken them seriously enough, across the health service, for too long.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member talks about Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport, so I hope that she welcomes the fact that the hospital is one of 10 major schemes included in funding worth £200 million, which is part of the £1.5 billion investment that we are putting into improving our NHS estate. I gently remind her that some of the problems in the capital estate go back to austerity and what happened in the reduction in capital funding after 2010.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her work and that of her Committee. The Committee, as a result of its extensive work, has highlighted many of the issues that the Government have needed to look at and have then responded to, so I welcome its work. I look forward to giving evidence to the Committee and responding to the inquiries it has under way. One of the issues that I have asked the taskforce looking at summer pressures to consider is staffing resilience. While there were all sorts of extremely good preparations in place for summer, meaning that many areas responded well, including in July, she is right to raise the issue of staff resilience and the impact of the pattern of staff holidays—all our holidays—on planning. I take that immensely seriously. The hon. Lady is right to raise the workforce plan. We are continuing to work to complete the workforce plan, because it is needed. We are looking at how we ensure that we have a proper workforce plan around social care and what the links should be. One key area that we want to prioritise in response to Baroness Casey’s work is to develop a proper workforce strategy for social care, alongside the work being done for the NHS.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise this issue. It is one of the first issues I raised with the Department of Health and Social Care teams during some of the first meetings I had after being appointed; at the height of some of the heatwaves, we were looking at what could be done to ensure that the right advice and requirements were going out to social care across the country. Many care homes did a phenomenal job, sometimes in difficult circumstances because of old buildings, but the hon. Member is absolutely right to point out areas where things did not happen in the way they needed to. We are looking further at this issue as part of the heat taskforce.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising this. He is right to stand up for the staff at Hillingdon but also right across the country. These people are doing the most important jobs in the country: caring for all of us at the time when we need them most, at the time when things go wrong in our lives—when we are sick and we need help and support. It is a total disgrace that, while doing that job, they should face abuse, violence, discrimination or racism. It is totally appalling and unacceptable. I am keen to work with staff groups, trade unions and NHS organisations right across the country to uphold strong standards, stand up for our staff and ensure that they have the support they need, and I look forward to working with him on this.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend standing up for healthcare in his constituency. We are asking ICBs to look at the priority needs at different locations in each area, and it is vital that they look at pressures around rural areas and for every community in each area to ensure that all areas have the services they need.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Member’s point. The £1.5 billion that I announced today covers 950 projects across England, right across the NHS, to deal with some of the safety issues and to improve facilities. Each area needs to ensure that it has looked at issues around infection control and building repairs so that they are making best use of the funding they will get.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I take the point that the hon. Member has made very seriously, and will ensure that one of the Health Ministers talks to him further about the details. It is immensely important that families who have lost a loved one have the respect and support they need to be able to bid farewell to their loved one, and it is also immensely important that we treat those who are deceased with the utmost respect. That has not always happened, which is why we are proposing the regulation of services in this area, but it is also why we need to make sure that existing facilities work properly.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend not only for his question but for his considerable work in this field, both before he came to this place and through the issues he has been raising here. Our intention is to bring forward a new mental health strategy before Christmas, and I completely agree with him that we need to look at waiting times and where we can make early interventions around mental health. Earlier this summer, we announced new mental health A&E provision. As part of the work led by the chief medical officer, we have asked for work to be done looking at the impact of extreme heat, including on mental health and the most vulnerable populations. My hon. Friend is right to raise the health inequalities here.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is exactly right. What she describes in Ealing is a hugely important example of the way that modernising our basic estate and facilities can ensure that they are fit for different kinds of conditions and circumstances in the future, and that we are able to reduce the energy bills that put other pressures on our NHS, meaning we can get that money back into frontline care. I pay tribute to the work of the NHS in her constituency.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  With permission, I would like to provide the House with a brief update on the additional pressures on health this summer as a result of the heat, the action our NHS has taken in response, and some of the next steps the Department is taking on investment and reform to help our NHS improve its resilience and performance in the face of new health challenges. Before I do that, let me say, as I did last night, what a pleasure and honour it is to be back at this Dispatch Box as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, 27 years after I first became a Health Minister under the last Labour Government. While there have been many changes in health and healthcare in the last quarter century, the values that underpin our NHS—care and compassion for all of us, based on need and not the ability to pay—are the best of British values, and they have endured through generations. What has also endured is the incredible dedication of NHS and social care staff. As a result of their work and with the support of this Government, and despite record health demand, we have seen millions of additional appointments; record numbers of patients receiving treatment; waiting lists down by 350,000 in two years; ambulance and A&E waiting times down in the winter; thousands of extra doctors, nurses and mental health workers in place; and patient satisfaction with access to GP services up to 75% from 61% two years ago. Alongside recognising the dedication of NHS staff, I want to recognise the impact that covid had on staff across our NHS and social care and the pressures they faced. They were there for us then and we should not forget that now. That is one reason why it makes me incredibly angry that the figures show that one in seven NHS workers have faced violence and abuse while doing their job, and the figure is much higher in emergency care. That is a disgrace, and I hope I speak for the whole House when I say to those staff: we are on your side and we will always stand up for you. Let me pay tribute to my immediate predecessors in this role, my right hon. Friends the Members for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and for Ealing North (James Murray). I also pay tribute to the work of other Health Ministers over the last two years who together have commissioned the Darzi report, drawn up the NHS 10-year plan and the cancer plan—for which I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton)—and driven the additional investment, reforms and improvements in performance we have seen in the last two years. I want to focus on the immediate pressures on health that our NHS has faced, exacerbated by the summer heat. We have experienced what has officially been registered as the hottest summer on record, with five heatwaves, 40 days of temperatures above 30° and extremes that we now expect to be the new normal because of the impact of climate change. During May and June of this year, it is estimated that there were more than 2,800 excess deaths. To put that in perspective, it is almost twice as many as the 1,500 heat-related deaths during the entire summer of last year. Once the analysis of July and August is complete, it will be clear that the extreme heat we have seen this year has had an unprecedented impact on the health of the nation and represents a new significant threat to the very oldest, the very youngest and the most vulnerable in our society. Extreme temperatures also pose additional challenges to the normal functioning of the NHS. This July saw the highest number of attendances at A&E of any month in any year in the history of the NHS. Ambulance teams handled over 800,000 incidents that month—the second highest for a month outside winter. This is against a backdrop of continued pressure in A&E. Today’s National Audit Office report recognises that the NHS is beginning to see improvements in A&E performance, but not yet at the scale that we need to see. The heat has highlighted some of the weaknesses in the NHS estate, including overheated wards and operating theatres. This comes against a backdrop of the damaging under-investment in NHS estates that we inherited. This was highlighted in the Darzi report, which said that the NHS was “starved of capital” after 2009, impacting on productivity and performance as well as letting patients and staff down. Let me set out the action we are now taking to boost the resilience and performance of our NHS in the face of these new summer and other pressures. First, in the spending review, we allocated for the first time a multi-year £6.75 billion estate safety fund. I can announce the first wave of investment from this fund today, covering 950 hospital projects across England, which will receive a share of a £1.5 billion investment to fix urgent problems with ageing buildings and facilities. The schemes will tackle issues including failing fire safety systems, outdated ventilation and ageing electrical equipment that could put patients and staff at risk. More than £32 million will be spent specifically on projects that include improving cooling and ventilation, and helping hospitals cope with extreme heat as well as winter pressures. As part of that funding, I can announce 10 major schemes worth £200 million for Wycombe hospital in High Wycombe; the Royal Free hospital in north London; the Linden centre in Essex; the John Howard centre in London; Lister hospital in Hertfordshire; Southend hospital in Essex; the Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport; St George’s hospital in Stafford; the Bristol royal infirmary; and the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Gateshead. I have also asked the NHS to look in particular at extreme weather resilience as part of future waves of capital plans. The second action is about resilience and planning. For many years, the NHS has run a detailed planning process to ensure that it is prepared for the pressures of the winter months; however, this summer has shown us that seasonal resilience is just as important at other times of year. That is why we have established a new heat taskforce that includes the chief medical officer, NHS England leaders and several NHS chief executives from services that have been most affected. I have requested that the taskforce should examine the impact on vulnerable groups, including the frail, expectant mothers and those with mental health conditions. I will chair its first meeting in the coming weeks. The taskforce will help to ensure that our summer planning is on the same footing as our winter planning—looking at staffing, expert teams, patient flow, corridor care, links to social care and, crucially, prevention and public health. That comes against a backdrop of a £450 million investment to improve urgent and emergency care, expanding urgent care centres and mental health A&Es, and shifting more care into the community. The third area is social care. Many of those who are most vulnerable to extreme heat are in social care, so the work that our care system does is vital for people’s health. We also know that the persistent lack of join-up between health and social care continues to be a problem, with frail elderly people who would be better cared for at home being sent to hospital and patients being held in hospital for far too long because care support is not in place. This feels like groundhog day: we were having the same discussions about co-ordination between health and social care when I was last a Health Minister 25 years ago. The Government are taking action, including through the better care fund, neighbourhood health and an additional £4 billion investment into adult social care by 2028-29, as well as through the planning process to improve co-ordination. However, the problems are structural and will need much more substantial reform. That is why the Prime Minister announced this summer that we are bringing forward Baroness Casey’s commission to report next year and, alongside that, taking forward cross-party talks to see what consensus can be built. The legislation to create our NHS went through this House 80 years ago this autumn. At its heart was the idea that, as Nye Bevan said on Second Reading, it would “lift the shadow from millions of homes.” —[ Official Report , 30 April 1946; Vol. 422, c. 63.] It was to ensure that there was a health service to care for all of us whenever we needed it, improving the health of our nation. Ensuring that that shadow stays far from our doors for the next 80 years means not just the modernisation of the NHS, the 10-year plan and the improvements we will debate many times in the House; it means building the level of resilience, be it to changing weather and climate or for a changing world that impacts on our health and healthcare. We will do that only by working together and with the dedicated staff, patients and communities across the country. I commend this statement to the House.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for her questions, and for drawing on her expertise and interest in this area. On capital funding, that is exactly why we are allocating £32 million as part of the capital fund that we have set out specifically to deal with repairs and safety issues that have become acute across the NHS estate as a result of more than a decade of capital underfunding of the NHS. Ara Darzi made it clear in his report that this has had a huge impact on patients and staff, but also on the NHS’s productivity, because we have facilities that cannot be used because of that capital underfunding. That £32 million will be targeted at measures to improve cooling systems, but I have asked the NHS to look further, as part of the second wave of funding, at other areas across the country where there will be particular needs as a result of buildings needing to deal with extreme heat, which they were never designed for. As a result of the announcements I have made today, £1.5 billion is now going into improvements to existing facilities, to upgrade them and ensure that they reach the right quality and standards. On the hon. Member’s point about corridor care, nobody should have to be seen or treated in a corridor, or have to wait for a long time at one of the most distressing times of all, when they need emergency care and support. I have seen some phenomenal examples and have discussed the work that hospitals such as Watford have done to eliminate their corridor care challenges. We have introduced reporting and publication of those statistics for the first time, exactly to ensure that we have that priority. But I pay tribute to the work done by A&E teams to improve performance, despite the huge increase in demand that they saw in July—they are doing a really important job.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Member knows, we have different waves of work as part of the new hospital programme—which depends on prioritisation being done within ICBs and regions—and for the first time, this Government have set up a dedicated fund for safety improvements, the estates safety fund, which is worth £6.75 billion. The first wave of £1.5 billion in funding will deal with the 950 projects I have announced. We are turning around the substantial under-investment we inherited from the previous Government, but I would again gently point out to the hon. Member that Ara Darzi’s report identified that the big drop in capital investment in our national health service that has led to many of these problems started after 2009, as part of austerity under the coalition Government.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes an important point. There are two issues here. The first issue is that there is a legacy of a lack of capital investment in the resilience of our NHS estates, and that includes capital investment around equipment. That goes back over many years and was highlighted in the Darzi report. That is why we are turning that around with the safety fund, which can start to respond to and put money into looking at exactly these issues, including £32 million dedicated around heating issues as part of this wave of funding. The second issue is that, if we are honest with ourselves, many of our NHS buildings were not designed with climate change in mind or to anticipate weather that we do not expect to see in this country. That means that we all have to start rethinking ways of working to ensure that we respond to that challenge.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend the Minister for Secondary Care has been looking in detail at that report. We obviously take all reports immensely seriously. The advice and guidance have been in place for some time and rightly provide huge amounts of support, advice and, actually, improvements in healthcare right across the country. Where there are cases where things go wrong or where cases are raised with us, we will always investigate them and take them immensely seriously. We will also always ensure that the whole regulatory framework is there to ensure that the highest standards are upheld.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I can reassure the hon. Member that regular meetings and discussions take place, involving not just Ministers but chief medical officers across the devolved Administrations, to ensure there is co-ordination. There are areas where we can learn from each other, but there are also areas where we need proper co-ordination, particularly on some of the public health and information issues and—as the hon. Member rightly says—some of the issues that link into our economic supply chains, including community pharmacies.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  That is exactly one of the issues I have asked the chief medical officer to look at. If we are going to face more extreme heat conditions, what is the impact on those who are the most vulnerable? That includes those who are housebound and those who are the most disabled. Those are issues for local authorities to look at in local areas, but I have asked the chief medical officer to look at them nationally.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Summer Health and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend’s determination and enthusiasm. While he managed to refer to the hospital twice, I think he only managed to refer to Harlow once, so he may be slipping. I am delighted that the hospital is included in wave 2 of the new hospital programme. Obviously, there is considerable work under way to ensure that the project stays on track and that the planning is in place. This is part of our commitment to upgrade, to increase the capital investment in our NHS and to ensure that there are facilities for the staff who work in the NHS and, most of all, for patients in Harlow. I thank, through him, the NHS staff who work in his constituency,