Matt Warman

By Matt Warman Boston & Skegness MP

Last week Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock visited Pilgrim hospital to see for himself how the staff and patients were affected by recent changes to paediatric services and also to see just how important it is that we maintain local services in Lincolnshire.

I’d invited Matt, whose grandmother worked at Pilgrim, because I wanted to make sure that he met the staff who have made sure services are continuing to operate. More than 97% of all paediatric patients are still being treated at Pilgrim despite a huge problem in recruiting doctors and nurses to work on the ward.

Listening to managers and staff it’s clear that nobody wants to see local people in Boston or Skegness travel further than they have, which chimes with Matt’s own message that the era of NHS centralisation must only continue in places where it benefits patients. I’m clear that, in the vast majority of cases, that means my constituents should be seen locally, and I was delighted to hear Matt agree in person.

At the same time it’s important to remember that there is a huge need to make sure that services are safe. As the Secretary of State, Matt can make sure that there are the right long-term plans being made for staff to be both trained in the right numbers in the right specialties and also sent to the right places.

It’s always struck me as a good thing that local health service managers make decisions about local services but ultimately it is for politicians to set the landscape within which they operate. That’s why we have programmes for long-term change to see Lincolnshire’s health service improve. Both the Secretary of State and myself are clear that it is not acceptable for our patients to see worse health outcomes simply because they live in Lincolnshire.

Nonetheless it remains hard to recruit people to our area, partly because they don’t know its many great qualities and partly because there are other opportunities in large hospitals around the country. For Lincolnshire to compete with London it’s vital that we do everything we possibly can and I wanted Matt to hear the ideas that we have locally and to see the changes that are being made already.

These changes are already starting to attract new staff and include reconfiguring much of Pilgrim so that we can get patients seen by the right people as soon as possible and also make sure that people spend as little time in hospital as possible.

The Secretary of State was clear that he agrees that it is always better for people to get home as soon as they are well enough and to spend the right amount of time in hospital. Getting that right, both in terms of access to GPs and specialisms, as well as getting people discharged efficiently, will not only reduce pressure on the NHS overall, but it will also make the forthcoming £20bn cash injection go a lot further.

Matt Warman is the Conservative MP for the Boston and Skegness constituency.

By Matt Warman Boston & Skegness MP

As Parliament begins its summer recess, MPs head to their constituencies to think beyond the day-to-day Westminster programme.

There’s plenty to ponder, at every level of politics, but running through it all is a single thread that should concern anyone interested in the future of the UK. In short, the public simply does not trust those elected to decide all our futures.

That’s not just my own general sense: it was the perturbing conclusion in the polling conducted for my recent Centre for Policy Studies report, ‘Who Governs Britain?’. We must tackle the gulf between politicians’ day-to-day actual actions and the sense that once somebody is elected they cease to act in the public interest.

This is despite the fact that Britain is a country blessed with what are among the lowest rates of corruption in the world. A maximum of only 9% of Britons feel they would be dealt with fairly when dealing with government – this is truly a crisis of confidence in our democracy.

Some of this comes down to the sense that – according to the news on Facebook at least – things have never been so bad, whichever side you’re on. But we also need to go beyond questioning bad reporting to tackle the perception that decisions aren’t taken in the public interest. And we do also need to tackle where those decisions are actually taken.

So first, ‘Who Governs Britain?’ proposes that adverts on Facebook make it clear who and why political parties might be targeting individuals, and to make a combined list of commercial interests available to the public. Our democracy would be healthier if we knew the motives of parties and the potential vested interests that elected government officials have. This is not because there is any evidence that there are serious incidents of unrevealed malpractice – precisely the opposite. Public distrust of elected government, however misplaced, should be examined rather than brushed under the carpet.

On the more substantial themes, however, it’s clear that on issues that matter to local communities such as planning in particular there is a sense that decisions are taken by those who are lucky enough not to be affected profoundly by them. Moves in Lincolnshire and Devon, among others, to devolve planning powers down, initially for minor cases, show a faith in local people that should be developed further. And to go beyond that, it should be clear that if a community is home to hundreds of new houses and extensive new development, that brings with it a predictable and definite benefit to local health services, or broadband or education or the whole host of important public services.

The aim behind all of this is to try to provide a greater sense of accountability, and that’s why there is a further proposal that’s been characterised as a ‘Right to an explanation’. How much did something cost, who decided it was right and why? In an age of increasing outsourcing to the private sector, the citizen deserves no less.

Individually, each of these measures is relatively minor – but taken together they could seek to close the gap of trust between citizen and state. That’s never been needed more.

Matt Warman is the Conservative MP for the Boston and Skegness constituency.