§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McLoughlin.]
1.55 am§ Mr. Jonathan Aitken (South Thanet)Even at this late hour, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the subject of hospital services in Thanet. Unlike most Adjournment debates, the purpose of tonight's debate is not to air a grievance, complaint or criticism, or even to cajole the Government into righting some wrong or remedying some defect.
Instead, my purpose is simply to express appreciation and gratitude for a great national health service achievement in Thanet and to pay tribute to the doctors, nurses, managers, staff and others who have played their part in bringing that achievement to fulfilment. Their combined efforts have made a dream come true for the people and patients of Thanet in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who I am delighted to see in his place and who is hoping to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The dream come true that I am talking about is the opening of the new Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Thanet. It happened only a few days ago, when the first patients moved into its dazzling new facilities, which consist of a £20 million investment in state-of-the art medical technology and the new wards, operating theatres and buildings that go with it. With the medical and managerial innovations that I shall describe, the new hospital complex marks the beginning of a new era in high-quality hospital care for Thanet.
For more than 25 years, Thanet has been campaigning for its own properly equipped and resourced district general hospital. The campaign has been a long and, at times, arduous struggle, sometimes against forces of obstruction within our own NHS district and region.
Thanks in no small measure to the long-term tenacity of the local campaigners and to the more recent success of the Government's NHS reforms, the new Thanet Healthcare NHS trust has been able to match the local vision with an appropriate allocation of more than £20 million of nationally funded resources. The result is the finest hospital in east Kent and one of the finest in the United Kingdom.
The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital has no fewer than eight operating theatres on site, four of them high-tech theatres, including two laminar flow rooms for orthopaedics. Those new facilities will give the patients of Thanet the lowest waiting list time for operations in the South Thames region and some of the best post-operative care.
One of the most notable features of the new hospital, to which I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Under—Secretary of State for Health, is the critical care floor. It is a specialist complex consisting of four theatres, an intensive care unit, a cardiac care unit and a high-dependence unit, all in close proximity on the same floor and managed as a single medical unit.
I am told that the facilities on that floor are matched by only one other hospital in Britain—Addenbrookes in Cambridge. We are proud in Thanet to be one of the pioneers of that relatively new hospital concept.
171 However good the facilities of any hospital may be, they ultimately depend on the skills of the men and women who work in them. In that respect, we are highly fortunate in Thanet because our new hospital, under the enlightened clinical leadership of its medical director, Brian Cocking, has a first-class team of 40 consultants and nearly 500 trained nursing staff. The collegiate spirit of the hospital showed itself to excellent effect the weekend before last, when almost everyone on the staff worked round the clock to move patients into the new complex from the older wards and from the venerable Royal Sea Bathing hospital in Margate, which will be closing after just over 100 years of fine service.
Our local paper, the Thanet Gazette, captured the mood of this massive operation with the headline:
Hospital switch is a moving experience".I thought that that was a rather clever headline, because it subtly recognised that emotions as well as logistics were involved, the principal emotion being pride that, at long last, Thanet had a hospital ready for the 21st century.Last Friday, my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet and I walked round the gleaming new wards, theatres and recovery rooms of the Queen Mum hospital, as it is already becoming popularly known. We both felt that it was a joy to share in that emotion of local pride. He and I know as well as anyone that the battle to build the new facilities was won, not just after the usual financial infighting in Westminster and Whitehall—important as those skirmishes were—but as a result of the tremendous support given to the project by the local community. Perhaps the most symbolic element of that support was the backing given so wholeheartedly to the fund-raising campaign in Thanet for the hospital's new accident and emergency department which, under its dynamic consultant, Alan Jones, will open its doors in July. It is the focal point of the hospital's range of acute services.
Neither the accident and emergency department nor even, possibly, the new complex itself would be coming into service this year were it not been for the momentum provided by what was known as the Tear appeal. The campaign, masterminded by an inspirational Broadstairs resident and community leader, Mrs. Maureen Greig, raised more than £650,000 for the accident and emergency department's equipment budget. More important, it gave a kick start to the final phase of the campaign to create a truly modern district general hospital. I pay a particularly warm tribute to Maureen Greig for her pivotal role in making the dream come true.
If I were to single out one other individual from an earlier era who made a vital contribution to this hospital development, it would be Dr. Margaret Voysey. She held the torch aloft in some of the darkest moments in the, at times, faltering struggle to get the new hospital built, and at various moments combined the role of doctor, campaigner, consultant, advisor, NHS manager, general headbanger and inspirer-in-chief. Both she and Mrs. Greig deserve the congratulations that are flowing to them from all sectors of our community.
172 Looking ahead, all thoughtful observers of the medical and hospital scene in Thanet know that the opening of the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital is not a moment for looking back or for resting on laurels. This is the beginning of a new era of steadily improving quality health care for the people of Thanet. Success in that new era will depend on three elements of continuity for the future: good medical staff, good management and good government.
I have already praised the medical and nursing team at the hospital, but it must be acknowledged that the recruitment of their successors, their juniors and their future leaders is crucial to the hospital's future. In recent years, hospitals in Thanet have suffered from two unjustified difficulties, which are closely linked. They are, first, manipulations by some of the consultants in neighbouring hospitals in misguided attempts to downgrade Thanet hospitals and, secondly, withdrawal of recognition by the royal colleges of some junior doctor posts. I believe that the royal colleges have been led astray by rival consultants' gamesmanship in this regard and I hope that they will swiftly restore recognition now that all their criteria for recognition have been so well met by the standards, facilities and procedures in the new hospital complex.
The prospects for recruitment and retention of consultants are bound to be enhanced by a new £3 million development at the hospital, which is expected to be signed and formally announced in the next few days. I refer to the development of a postgraduate medical centre and a 23-bed private patient unit, which will be adjacent to the hospital and able to use the new facilities in the hospital. Construction is expected to start this summer.
Another development will be the building of new accommodation on-site for junior medical staff and nursing staff. Both of these projects are going forward under the private finance initiative—a successful Government reform in which I played some part when I was with the Treasury—which allows private capital to be invested in the national health service and other public sector developments.
I wish that there was time to say more about the other management initiatives that will come on stream in and around the hospital in the next few months, but the hour is late and I am anxious to make way for my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet, who has been a doughty campaigner over the years for the new hospital complex that serves our constituents, but which is located in his constituency.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the hospital development has been possible only because of the success of the Government's NHS reforms, which unlocked both the resources and the management skills that made it happen. Huge credit is due to the chairman and the chief executive of the Thanet Healthcare NHS trust, respectively Mr. Glenn Stone and Mr. Barry Page. Their stewardship of the project and of the hospital has been a beacon of managerial excellence—and long may it and they continue to shine.
The star that shines brightest of all over this splendid new hospital complex is the simple fact that it is not only a flagship of medical excellence, but that it is a people's hospital that has been built because of popular—indeed, passionate—local support. It is a great NHS achievement 173 and a great local achievement. I am sure that the new Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital will serve Thanet long into the 21st century.
§ 2.2 am
§ Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet)I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Mr. Aitken) on securing the debate and I thank him for allowing me to share it with him. It is more than 200 years since the distinguished John Coakley Lettsom founded the Royal Sea Bathing hospital in Margate. Since that time, it has become internationally famous for its position at the forefront of the treatment of the once prevalent tuberculosis and of orthopaedic cases. Even Mr. Lettsom would be astonished if he were to see the new orthopaedic and other operating theatres at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital.
As my right hon. Friend said, the theatres, with their laminaflow ventilation systems, represent a state-of-the-art facility that is unrivalled anywhere in the south-east. The investment—well in excess of £20 million—has produced a hospital that can offer our constituents a standard of treatment and conditions that are quite simply superb. That this is so represents an achievement in the teeth of some medical-political opposition.
In the 1960s, there was a plan and a scale model for a 1,000-bed hospital on the Margate site. No doubt that model is now collecting dust somewhere on a shelf as the result of the opening of an accident and emergency unit at the Kent and Canterbury hospital, and a campaign in the mid-1960s to close Margate and to centre treatment on Canterbury. It was the fierce opposition of the local council, under Conservative control, that preserved Margate district hospital, as it then was, to fight another day.
In the 1970s, there were further grand plans for development, which came to nothing as the debate over whether to rebuild or to downgrade the hospital continued. It is largely due to the determination of the local medical team, with the support of superb staff, and considerable foresight that the Queen Mum hospital—as it is already known—is now open for business.
As my right hon. Friend said, no recognition of this work would be complete without naming Dr. Peggy Voysey, who joined Margate hospital as a consultant anaesthetist in the 1960s and, on the first of several retirements, became the first unit general manager. Peggy Voysey almost literally laid the foundation of the new hospital when, on the back of some works on one ward, she renewed the drainage system and upgraded an antiquated pharmacy. Dr. Voysey's endeavour was continued, and the dream realised, through the hard work of the present management team under Glenn Stone and Barry Page, and as a direct result of the creation of the hospital trust that released local people to make local decisions.
Local people voted with their mouths and, through their tremendous response to the Tear appeal, through their pockets, and donated generously to demonstrate local support for the 24-hour accident and emergency unit that is needed to serve the population of the large and expanding Thanet catchment area.
Throughout a time of uncertainty and turmoil, as medical-political opinion was overcome, the consultants and staff of the Thanet district hospital kept their faith 174 and determination. My right hon. Friend and I have been privileged to work with them to bring to an end the days when Thanet patients have had to be transported many miles to receive the treatment that in some cases they needed as a matter of life or death.
I shall never forget the day when Ann Richardson, then the sister on Cheerful Sparrows ward, pointed out of the ward window and told the visiting then regional health chairman, Peter Barker:
That's where I want my new hospital".Well you'd better have it then, hadn't you?he said.We have had tremendous support also from his successor, William Wells, and Chris Spry at the new regional health authority, from the Secretary of State and the Department of Health and from many other people in addition to those named by my right hon. Friend. I hope that they will forgive me if I do not name them all because of time constraints.
When my right hon. Friend, who is now the Secretary of State for National Heritage was Secretary of State for Health, laid the foundation stone, we believed that we were at last on our way to delivering the hospital service that Thanet and the coastal towns need. Now, as one of our most prominent orthopaedic consultants told me at the weekend, we have a hospital that has, in only four years, made a quantum jump from the original Margate hospital of the 1930s to the health service of the 21st century, and the X-ray unit, once one of the most antiquated in South East Thames has, following the creation of the trust, been developed into one of the finest.
As all our services are consolidated on the Margate site, those at the now closing Royal Sea Bathing hospital will be sad that that chapter in their history is ending, after more than 200 years. They will miss the fine old building and the sea views that were the province of John Coakley Lettsom, but I hope that they will be proud to continue to enjoy their reputation for dedication and fine medicine in the Sea Bathing wing of the Queen Mother hospital.
The rest is not, as they say, history. The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital now seeks to play a still greater role in care in the community through its outreach clinic, and it has plans for the construction of a general practitioner service alongside the 24-hour accident and emergency unit. That development will extend the waiting space, provide GP surgeries with a triage centre at the core to deal with "walking wounded", keep more patients out of hospital and free accident and emergency beds to handle emergency admissions.
A programme of refurbishment of the vacated Margate hospital wards will commence once plans have been agreed and finalised, and with that extra space the hospital should be able to handle even the worst winter epidemic flood of admissions. Like the Windmill theatre, it will never close.
With the review of pathology services in east Kent, the Queen Mother hospital is well placed to offer biochemistry for the whole of east Kent. With histopathy and cystology concentrated at the William Harvey hospital in Ashford, and the haematology services located at the Kent and Canterbury hospital, the area will be provided with much-needed first-rate pathology facilities. I believe that the plan, if adopted, will make the best use of the talents and equipment available at the three major hospitals now serving east Kent.
175 My wife and I have good cause to be grateful to our hospital. I have been an in-patient on Hicks ward and my wife's mother was a patient on Viking and Venner wards during her dying days last year. We have experienced personally a standard of medical care, nursing attention and compassion in a hospital, then bursting at the seams, and from a staff whose numbers were depleted by illness, that was and is outstanding by any yardstick. I am delighted that the loyalty and dedication of those nursing professionals has been, and will continue to be, recognised by this investment in their future.
I hope that I have said enough to make it plain that the work of providing for the needs of tomorrow goes on. I feel honoured to have helped, with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet, to bring about the changes that we have already seen, and I am dedicated personally to seeing those changes through to completion. I am confident that my hon. Friend the Minister will, in turn, be able to pledge the support of his Department, through Government policy and, when appropriate, financial backing, to that continuing process of development and dramatic improvement.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Horam)I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Mr. Aitken) on his success in securing the debate, and on its timeliness. As he said, it takes place only a few days after the new extension of the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Thanet opened for its first patients. He, together with my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who has also taken part in the debate, have always been stalwart supporters of local health services. That we are able today to celebrate the opening of a new extension is in no small part thanks to their efforts in championing the development from the start.
I welcome the opportunity to respond to the comments about hospital services in Thanet generally. Hospital services are provided to the people of Thanet principally by Thanet Healthcare NHS trust. Many services are now centralised at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital, which is the new name for the Margate hospital. The renaming earlier this year marks the realisation of the considerable restructuring that has taken place recently, and heralds what I am sure will be a most successful future for that important hospital.
The £20 million extension to the hospital is a welcome development. It significantly increases the capacity of the hospital, improves the quality of the fabric and the environment, and creates a fully 24-hour accident and emergency department in that part of east Kent which has the densest population and therefore needs it the most.
The extension includes in a new block four operating theatres, six wards, a medical imaging department, coronary care, intensive care, and high dependency units, and physiotherapy and occupational therapy facilities. The first patients were admitted to the new block on 14 April, and new accident and emergency and associated trauma services are scheduled to start very soon.
Construction work on the development began just two years ago, and has been completed virtually on time and on cost—a tribute to the project leadership and to all those 176 involved with the work. The majority of the £20 million cost of the development was funded from the NHS capital budged, and I am grateful for the tributes that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) paid to successive Secretaries of State in that regard.
There was also a welcome contribution from local public donations in response to the Tear appeal, which was set up in March 1993 by the hospital league of friends to finance a 24-hour accident and emergency department at Margate—clearly showing the determination of Thanet residents to obtain the benefits that such a local service could bring.
The new development also signifies a very positive commitment to the trust and to the hospital by East Kent health authority on behalf of local residents. The new development represents a significant investment and is the outcome of successful discussions between the health authority and the trust. The new development is but the latest and the most prominent of various capital investments at the hospital in recent years.
As well as restructuring and the continuous spending on maintenance and minor works that is necessary for any building, I should like to mention particularly the day surgery theatre and endoscopy suite costing £320,000, which my right hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet opened in September 1993. That facility has helped the trust to achieve a remarkably high level of day surgery—last year 63 per cent. of elective surgery was done on a day-case basis—and dramatically reduce waiting times, which is quite unusual in light of the trend across the country.
Of course, high-quality health care is based not only on excellent facilities but on excellent staffing—both clinical and managerial—and on robust and constructive relationships with general practitioners and with other trusts. There is considerable evidence of the excellent health services provided by the trust, to the credit of the 1,100 or so doctors, nurses and other staff who work for the organisation.
The trust made quality of care a top priority from the outset. Nowhere is that demonstrated more clearly than in its recent success in being awarded full accreditation under the King's Fund organisational audit scheme. That is a most commendable achievement, requiring a high level of performance across a comprehensive range of exacting quality standards. I am pleased to report that it is one of the few hospitals in this country to achieve that level of accreditation.
There is much other evidence of quality and professionalism. The trust continues to develop laser and laparoscopic surgery. Surgeons at Thanet introduced the first Holmium Yag laser outside the United States to Europe, and their expertise now draws surgeons from overseas to study at Thanet and hone their techniques. That is good for local residents too, because the techniques being used mean that, even after major surgery, such as a hysterectomy operation, patients spend less time in hospital, recover more quickly and return to work and other activities that much sooner.
The trust is also at the leading edge in radiography. Its breast screening unit uses the latest high-sensitive, low-dose equipment, and the trust is also equipped with a state-of-the-art X-ray unit, incorporating the latest computerised imaging system—one of the first in Britain—at a cost of more than £400,000. Being perhaps 177 rather remote geographically has clearly been no barrier to the trust's achieving excellence at the forefront of technology. It has a tomography scanner on site, and a fully equipped investigative cardiac and lung function laboratory which provides a quick, local, high-tech service with direct access to local GPs.
During 1995–96, the trust provided more than 18, 000 in-patient treatments and almost 9, 000 day-case procedures. It saw some 96, 000 out-patients, and dealt with some 43, 500 accident and emergency cases. That represents a substantial work load, and the trust is committed to a further growth in activity this year of 8 per cent. That is excellent news for my right hon. Friend's constituents, who will also be heartened to learn that waiting times have reduced substantially and the trust is now well below the 12-month target in all specialties. Indeed, 75 per cent. of patients are treated within nine months.
Finally, I am glad to say that that has all been achieved with relatively modest management costs. That has meant more money for direct patient care and is reflected in the management cost reduction target, which has been set at 3 per cent. for the trust this year.
178 The new development at Thanet is just one of the 70 or so schemes, each costing more than £1 million, that we expect to see completed in the NHS this year. Those are in addition to the 700 such schemes completed over the past 10 years, in a programme worth many billions of pounds. In fact, we have seen the largest sustained programme of capital investment in the entire history of the NHS. By modernising and renewing the existing building stock and building new facilities, the environment in which health care is delivered up and down the country is being continuously improved.
I am glad for my right hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and for my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who have campaigned so hard and for so long with their constituents for that facility, that such a striking example of a new hospital should be opened in Thanet. I wish the new hospital, its staff and the patients who use it every success.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Two o'clock.