Spotlight on Devon health service 'crisis'

Westminster debate hears catalogue of problems

Funding for family doctors in Devon is in crisis, sewage is leaking into hospitals and budgets are being cut.

Dentists and pharmacies are struggling and fertility treatment is a ‘postcode lottery’.

The bleak picture of the county’s health service was catalogued by its MPs during a Westminster debate on funding for vital health services in the south west.

Torbay Liberal Democrat MP Steve Darling led the debate, and said the state of the NHS had been a ‘key theme’ for voters during last year’s election campaign.

“We knew the NHS was a shambles, but we did not know the challenge that would face the new government when they came to power,” he said. Money for the new hospital programme had run out, with a £6.6 billion ‘hole’ in the budget.

Torbay Hospital, he said, was the third-oldest in the UK and only six per cent of its buildings are up to standard.

“There have been almost 700 sewage leaks on the site, often infecting clinical areas, resulting in closures and delays of service to our community,” he said. “The tower block of the hospital is swathed in scaffolding—not for a rebuild, but to stop clumps of it falling off and braining passers-by.”

Mr Darling welcomed funding programmes but questioned the government’s strategy of handing out money in ‘waves’. Torbay had bid for £183 million in the latest wave but had only received £7 million.

“It hardly touches the sides,” he said.

Conservative MP for South West Devon Rebecca Smith focused on fertility treatment, which she said was suffering due to an ‘atrocious funding situation’.

She said the Devon integrated care board (ICB) is not currently funding fertility care for local patients in line with government expectations, and is not fully following nationwide guidelines.

“That means we are living in a postcode lottery,” she said. “People with a PL, TQ or EX postcode are being completely sold short.

“Just living within their health authority should not mean that people cannot access the treatment that others in other parts of the country can access.”

Martin Wrigley (Lib Dem, Newton Abbot) said GP funding is in crisis, and the formula used to calculate it is no longer fit for purpose.

“It has contributed to the widening health inequalities across the country,” he said, “GP practices in the areas of greatest deprivation have patients with more complex needs, yet they do not receive proportional funding to address those needs.

“Some surgeries are short of a full-time GP; just imagine the impact that has on patients. No wonder it is difficult to get an appointment. That is unsafe.”

Rachel Gilmour (Lib Dem, Tiverton and Minehead) said a ‘systemic overhaul’ of GP and dental practices is needed, while Caroline Voaden (Lib Dem, South Devon) called for a change in the way funding for pharmacies is organised.

Richard Foord (Lib Dem, Honiton and Sidmouth) said the funding system for ICBs is flawed, and Fred Thomas (Lab, Plymouth Moor View) highlighted problems suffered by patients with ADHD in the city. “We have patients being left in limbo and unable to move forwards. The current refusal by some GPs to enter into shared care agreements is effectively blocking access to a diagnosis.”

Health minister Karin Smith pointed to the chancellor’s multi-billion-pound commitment to NHS funding in the recent spending review which, she said, would put it on ‘a sustainable footing’.

She said she shared Mr Darling’s concerns over Torbay Hospital, and said the new funding would help reverse its decline.

In Torbay, she said, the local ICB would get £2.5 billion of the £11.5 billion allocated to the south west. The allocation per head in Devon was above the south-west regional average. 

“The government is taking the necessary steps to fix the NHS,” she said.