Helen Morgan

I have tabled several amendments to the Bill, but I will hopefully keep my remarks focused so there is a good opportunity for other Members to make their speeches. The Bill should be about fixing the front and back doors of the NHS. It offers the opportunity to bring in tangible changes for patients to address pressing problems and introduce desperately needed improvements to patient safety and experience. The primary care and social care crisis, in particular, are millstones around the neck of the NHS. But instead of addressing them, the Bill has focused on a top-down reorganisation, which risks diverting time and money away from those pressing issues, and it gives sweeping powers to the Secretary of State, which is not in itself without risk. The Liberal Democrats would instead have put social care and general practice at the heart of the Bill—a move that would represent real reform of the health service. In particular, new clauses 54 and 56 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) would together transform the rights of family carers through guaranteed respite care and reform of the carer’s allowance. They would put free personal care, and an end to catastrophic care costs, at the heart of social care reform. New clause 53, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), would ensure that everyone can see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent, and amendment 17 would introduce a primary care investment standard. Although general practice is the core of a patient’s relationship with the NHS, it has seen its funding decline as a share of NHS spending. Less than 10% of the NHS budget is spent on primary care, although that is estimated to constitute 90% of a patient’s direct experience with the NHS. A primary care investment standard would help to reverse that trend. Dentistry is another area of primary care that has been neglected, leading to dental deserts and dangerous DIY dentistry. New clause 18 would introduce a scheme to end dental deserts, and guarantee appointments for children and those most in need.