Helen Morgan

I welcome the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), to their places—I have to say that I was not expecting to be the continuity figure in the health portfolio. We need to be honest: the NHS is now in permacrisis, as outlined by the National Audit Office report. The hallmarks of peak winter pressure in the past—overcrowded A&Es, queuing ambulances and soaring 999 calls—are now a feature year round. This summer was particularly difficult due to record temperatures across the UK, with over 33 NHS trusts reporting temperatures well above the 28° limit set by NHS England, and we can all agree that is not acceptable. It is inhumane not just for patients but for staff—42° is unbearable. A constituent of mine suffered in his final days in a desperately hot setting in Royal Shrewsbury hospital until managers worked with my team to ensure that he was made more comfortable. We do not want to be dealing with cases like that every year. We need hospitals that can withstand the heat, and the Lib Dems have been calling for a new NHS rapid adaptation unit to urgently heatproof the most heat-affected hospitals and care homes. Turning to corridor care, the percentage of people waiting 12 hours or more in A&E has tripled since before the covid-19 pandemic. Analysis suggests that people waiting this long are twice as likely to die within 30 days of leaving A&E, compared with those who wait just two hours. It is abundantly clear that policies to deal with A&E are not working. Spend is increasing, as outlined in the report, while outcomes are decreasing. We are pumping money into emergency departments with no proportionate improvement. The Lib Dems have outlined our plan to end 12-hour waits in a year by investing more in step-down care and support for people to leave hospital and go into social care. The Health Bill will reduce co-operation between local authorities and integrated care boards, risking those improvements in social care. Although we welcome the cross-party talks on social care, I hope that the Secretary of State will look at this issue as the Health Bill makes its way through the Lords. Will she listen to our plans, change her approach and commit to ending the ongoing A&E scandal?