NHS: Resources

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:07 pm on 26 April 2007.

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Photo of Baroness Verma Baroness Verma Shadow Minister, Education, Shadow Minister, Health, Deputy Chief Whip, Whips 1:07, 26 April 2007

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord James of Blackheath on securing this important debate. My noble friend's knowledge and attention to detail is substantial and very difficult to match. It is incredible that after 10 years of a Labour Government and billions of pounds spent on the NHS, it is facing a financial crisis on an unprecedented scale. How on Earth are medical practitioners supposed to work with uncertainty, cutbacks and ward closures? It is clear that the Government, steered by the Chancellor, have concentrated on processes such as the length of time patients wait for their first treatment rather than on outcomes such as cancer survival rates, whether they are improving and if patients are happy with their treatment.

Year on year since 2002, the NHS has finished each financial year in a worse state than the previous one. PCTs have fared equally badly, and it would appear that the combined deficits of all the NHS organisations are forecast to reach £1,318 million. Twinned with that is the fact that since 1997, productivity has fallen by 1.3 per cent each year. As has already been said, the Chancellor's decision that public sector organisations should adopt a system of financial accounting known as RAB—resource accounting and budgeting—but which he has now reversed, has led NHS trusts which are in deficit in one financial year having not only to face budget reductions in the next financial year but also to repay the deficit of the previous one. That is a ridiculous situation for any trust to find itself in. It has become something of a trademark for this Chancellor and a rod for the back of any incoming one.

The Government have top-sliced allocations to PCTs in order to create a central reserve. This has left trusts with £1.1 billion less for their budgets. It is therefore hardly surprising that many members of the Government are openly campaigning against government policies—for example, Labour Party chairman Hazel Blears in her Salford constituency and Tessa Jowell in her south London constituency.

The NHS has been reorganised nine times under Labour. Each reorganisation has cost millions of pounds. The Department of Health's own chief economist has recommended that workforce targets now be abandoned. The more one digs, the more incredible the figures appear. The NHS has 175,646 beds and decreasing, while it has 264,012 administrators. Just imagine the cost to the service of these extra people. If that is not bad enough, look at the Government's use of the private sector through the independent sector treatment centre programme. The Government have committed to paying for treatments at prices well over 11 per cent above the NHS cost.

I live in the city of Leicester, where the Secretary of State for Health is our constituency MP. I assure your Lordships that feelings are running high among both NHS staff and the public, who see budget deficits and ward closures as a direct cut to their services. Hundreds of staff at the three Leicester hospitals have signed petitions to halt cuts in jobs at the hospitals, where 900 jobs are under threat with wider implications of more job cuts each year over the next 10 years. The Secretary of State's response was to say that the cuts were not for financial reasons but a result of listening to staff and patients. Can the Minister ask the Secretary of State which staff and what patients she spoke to? If it was a proper consultation, are the papers available for public reading?

In Leicester, we have seen closures of mental health wards, and two hospital wards are also being closed. The closure of the mental health wards, which operated at almost 100 per cent occupancy, is a worrying sign to patients, particularly the elderly—who suffer from dementia and other age-related mental health issues—that they will now have to seek treatment elsewhere. While hospital wards are closed and bed numbers reduced in cities such as Leicester where there is an ageing population, can the Minister give the House proper assurances that social care budgets will be fully funded to meet the demands of patient care in the community? It is really worrying. As someone with a business in the healthcare sector—for which I declare an interest—my experience has been that social care budgets are unacceptably under-funded, especially with increasing demands of social and primary care taking place in the community.

In Leicester, we have seen huge changes in how people needing health and social care provision have been recategorised. With an increasing rate of reduction in the number of beds and hospital staff, how can patient care be met with the confidence for which the NHS used to be known? Does the Minister agree with me that all those working in the health service are right to feel unsure about their future? They feel demoralised, and are absolutely right to feel angry at the Health Secretary's arrogance in ignoring their concerns. Can the Minister assure the House that, before further cuts take place in Leicester's pathway programme—which is vigorously supported by the Leicester East MP, Keith Vaz—the £200 million cuts will be further and properly reviewed before taking place, so that all services for the people of Leicester are properly resourced?