3.21 pm
Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on obtaining the debate, and my right hon. and hon. Friends who represent Hertfordshire constituencies on showing the House and our constituents how much we care about their health care.
The national health service was created as a level playing field. It was there for all those who needed health care and could not afford to pay for it. On the estates where I grew up in north London, the hospital was the focal point of the community, because that was where people could go when they needed help. Many people in the areas of north London where I was brought up moved out to Hemel Hempstead in the 1950s, to the wonderful new town with its gardens, hospital and college, and all the facilities that they perhaps struggled to get before.
A wonderful acute general hospital was built in Hemel Hempstead in the 1950s. Smaller hospitals were closed and the full acute hospital was created. It fought for 30 years, under different Governments, to find out whether it was safe and would remain. Eventually, 10 or 12 years ago, it was concluded that it should be left alone, and investment was put into it, which meant huge amounts of money, under Conservative and Labour Administrations. A brand new stroke unit was built; huge investments were made in the cardiac unit; and a maternity unit was built up, which then closed, after which a new birthing unit opened—no one quite understood why, but there was an election in the middle, so perhaps we may assume that that had something to do with it. That hospital is a facility that is there to be used.
Great Ormond Street hospital was there to deal with the need for specialist care for children, and people who needed specialist cancer care could go elsewhere. My wife is presently visiting the Royal London hospital, because it has the best haematology department, whose services she needs. That is not what we are asking for in Hemel Hempstead. What we wanted, and what we have, is an acute hospital.
I shall probably be the last hon. Member to speak in the debate before the Front-Bench spokesmen make their speeches, and that is right, because what is happening is terminal for Hemel Hempstead. The acute hospital will go. If the trust gets its way, next spring it will send the bulldozers in to Hemel Hempstead hospital. It will become a housing estate. If we are lucky, I am told, we shall have an independent sector treatment centre—a surgery centre for elective surgery. I have plainly said that I do not want an ISTC. We have three theatres and an elective surgery unit. We have five theatres at St. Albans, doing the job now.
As I understand it from the evidence given to the Select Committee on Health, on which I have the honour and privilege to sit, the rules for ISTCs are that they are not permitted to create a demand; an ISTC is supposed only to replace something that is missing. What is happening in our part of Hertfordshire is that a demand for an ISTC is being created by knocking down a hospital and five theatres, an out-patient department and an elective surgery department at St. Albans. We must ask why.
Several of my hon. Friends have discussed the fairness of the funding formula. I think that it is unfair that the Minister has been picked on for the fact that her constituents receive more than mine, because there are some constituencies, such as Sedgefield, where people get £300 to £400 more per head than my constituents. I do not know why. Evidence was given to the Health Committee about that last week—by the way, we in my constituency got about £960 per head of population last year, rising to about £983 this year; some constituencies get as much as £1,600 per head. That is shameful when it is to be hoped that patients will, in the end, be treated similarly for the same ailments and problems.
I have a problem in Hemel Hempstead because, as a London overspill town, it has areas of serious social and economic deprivation. That is not just because of the Buncefield disaster—after which the hospital’s emergency services did fantastically well in treating the injured; God forbid that the hospital should not have been there, which would have meant going to the emergency centre at Watford. Perhaps some of those people would not be alive now, because two people were very seriously ill after the explosion.
What would it take to clear the deficit and to decide, “We do not need to do this”? The chief executive, in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire, said that the closures would not take place if there was no financial problem. What is happening is not reconfiguration; it is cuts. We are trying to get more out of less. It is that simple. We will move all acute services to Watford; we will not go ahead with the promised private finance initiative building; we shall put in portable buildings. Eventually we dragged from the chief executive the truth about the life expectancy of those buildings. It was 40 years—instead of the promised new hospital.
The residents of Watford, Welwyn and Hatfield, St. Albans and other parts of the country were duped. They were made promises that there was no intention of keeping. The funding formula problem—the deficit—has existed for years. Ministers in Select Committee and chief executives of other trusts have argued that the problem is one of management. The managers are not doing their jobs properly. How can that be, when the trust has been changed three times, the PCTs have been changed and the whole of the strategic health authority has been changed? They cannot all be bad, surely. Surely there must be one good manager somewhere in the NHS, because, clearly, they do not have such a problem in other areas. There is clear evidence, however, that areas without so many problems get a lot more money.
I want to close by explaining exactly what will happen to the Hemel Hempstead hospital. We have a full acute hospital with out-patients, elective surgery and, most importantly, as was explained earlier, the acute blue-light facilities, for those who need them. There are 250,000 people relying on the accident and emergency unit at that hospital. It is proposed that all of that should go by next Easter. The whole site will be up for redevelopment. I know that, because I was lucky enough to find out that the trust had had meetings with my local council asking what it could build on the site; I know, because eventually at the Select Committee I dragged from the chief executive the information that the land and facilities will be surplus to requirements. Surplus to requirements—it is a general hospital, which people rely on!
Lives are at risk. I am conscious of the need to leave time for the Minister’s response, but we are not playing a numbers game. We are not saying that some people are nasty and some are good. We are talking about ordinary people, who deserve the NHS that was created many years ago as a level playing field. Watford is in the premier league; it is a fantastic result. The Saracens are doing very well. Hon. Members might like to try going down the A41 from Hemel Hempstead at any time without a blue light. I drove blue-light emergency vehicles and I know how difficult it is. They will not get there. The Government are putting lives at risk.
My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) invited the Minister to visit the hospital in his constituency. I shall not do that, because thousands of my constituents have invited the Secretary of State, but she is too busy. I asked to see her diary and she was too busy to show me that, too. It is a disgrace, and lives will be lost.
3.29 pm
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OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE
Mike Penning: I do not think that anyone here is saying that everyone in every area should get identical funding. We want a level playing field in relation to the areas that the Minister has described, such as Manchester, where people die earlier. In our part of the world—the debate is about Hertfordshire—more people are living longer, and that costs the NHS more. When people get old, they get ill and need health care, no matter where in the country they live.
Ms Winterton: But the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He talks about a level playing field, but there will always have to be some way of allocating funding. It has long been proved that in areas of deprivation where health needs are higher and there are inequalities, there is a need for greater funding.
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Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD):... There is also another common phenomenon in Hertfordshire, which is that of a number of smallish hospitals in clusters, with pressures on all services.
Mike Penning: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has been to my part of Hertfordshire, but we do not have a small hospital. The Watford general hospital is not a small hospital and neither is the QEII hospital. They are massive acute hospitals, not little community hospitals, as he is describing them.
Dr. Pugh: I was not suggesting that they were community hospitals, but the descriptions are relative, and we could compare them with St. Thomas’ hospital over the river from here.
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