Got a question for Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,

Next week we’ll be back in Westminster to put your questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP.

His brief covers some big areas that we know are really important to Mumsnetters - including maternity care, access to GPs and dentists, mental health services, social care, public health, and how we keep the NHS sustainable in the long term. If you’ve got a question you’d like me to ask, please post it below.

As ever, one question per user please and keep it civil. We’ll be tight on time, so please keep questions short and sharp, so I can get through as many as possible.

We’ll close the thread on Wednesday pm - so do get your questions in before then.

Thanks,
Justine

Why is it so hard for women to get a GA as standard for painful procedures like a hysteroscopy. This seems to be based on saving money and women are suffering because of it. A man would not be told to take a paracetamol for a vasectomy

on the upcoming closure of Mount Vernon urgent care unit, why have you not sought opinions from the people that the unit serves?

You promised that women’s healthcare would be a priority yet, apart from maternity care, there is almost no mention of it in the 10 Year Plan. Why must women continue to be so badly served by the NHS?

Why isn't more care taken to make the air in hospitals and waiting rooms in clinics more safe? twice I have come back from hospital more ill than when I went due to picking up infections on site.

Why do we have a large community hospital in my market town that is barely used so we have to travel 20 miles to an extremely busy city hospital for a&e or any basic procedure?

Why are maternity health services so poorly invested in?
same with menopause - I’ve been on a waiting list for 18 months to get seen by a gynae re HRT
Women’s health is not given anywhere near the money and respect it deserves

Why is mental health care so appalling? I've been dealing with persistent suicidal feelings for the last year due to losing my home from a rogue builder. All I've been offered from my GP surgery is to call 111.

Is this really the best the UK can do?

Why are social care professionals paid less than NHS colleagues at the same band/ with similar qualifications? What is the rationale?

Why are conditions that predominantly affect women such as chronic fatigue syndrome ignored/ not believed by the nhs, social care and dwp? Therefore not getting the support they need and become invisible.

Can Wes kindly explain to my 15 year old daughter, why there is a three year waiting list for paediatric gynaecologist appointments at our local ‘super hospital’ and what she should do in the meantime, about the days she takes off school every month - due to flooding and painful periods? She is in her GCSE year.

How exactly are SEN parents supposed to access support for their children when CAMHS has a waiting list of 3.5 + years?

When will the government admit that the NHS is a money black hole, completely unsustainable, and needs replacing with an insurance system like the European ones?

When will the NHS enforce single sex spaces for staff, and has nothing been learned from tribunals brought in Darlington & Fife? My local Trust in Norwich has recently circulated another statement that staff can continue using whichever facilities they choose pending “further guidance”. This is abuse of the predominantly female NHS workforce.

What are you doing to sort out the wheelchair services in this country ? I live in an area where numerous children are unable to.attend school, medical appointments or even go out the door as they have no wheelchair. My family has two wheelchair users and one waited 20 months for his off the peg wheelchair and was forced to use a broken one all that time. The other child requires a moulded seat and has been unable to fit in his chair now for many months. He has been waiting 16 months already and there is no sign of it arriving. We have been forced to buy our own chair at a cost of several grand just to be able to get our child out the door. AJM healthcare have been paid many millions of NHS money to provide this service and are failing numerous families up.and down the land in what is nothing short of a national disgrace.
What are the government going to do about private companies who.tender for large NHS contracts and then fail to deliver them all whilst no.doubt making hefty profits and does Mr Streeting consider this a good use of public funds ?

Is two months waiting for chemotherapy after a tumour is found on the pancreas acceptable? This has happened to my sister this year at Derby Royal Hospital.

Is spending 24 hours in an Ambulance outside A&E acceptable?

Why are you shutting a viable minor injuries unit which provides excellent services when the other A&E services in the area are so overburdened and the population has expanded

Why are people’s pace marker batteries being allowed to go past their expiration date without being replaced ( those living in Essex) ?

The government can find money for sending abroad, understandably in some circumstances. We need more money to be spent on the NHS. People are dying because of a general lack of NHS funding.

My elderly mother was in hospital a couple of years ago whilst the care she received in hospital was very good. It was recommended she had rehabilitation in hospital before being discharged however no bed became available on elderly care. So she was discharged home with a community care package. This was totally inadequate and an absolute nightmare as the social services expected family (basically me ) to fill in.
She still, in my view at 87 years old needed specialist care. She couldn't even walk when the ambulance brought her home. The system is wrong our old people are the last on the list.

Why are nurses who have no choice due to carer responsibilities and need to work for staff bank, on AFC contracts and are cheaper to employ, are now facing the prospect of no available shifts?
Is this because they are easy cannon fodder to save money, whilst running other members of staff into the ground?

Why haven’t you updated the 2009 Dept of Health guidance allowing patients to self identify into the ward of their choice? It’s clearly unlawful, and it looks like it wasn’t even agreed by Ministers at the time (see this FOI):
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ministerial_permission_in_may_20_21?nocache=incoming-3096189#incoming-3096189

How can you possibly justify a £1bn voluntary redundancy cost as being good value for money amid widespread disruption at a local system level? Your plans are causing havoc and proving to be a major distraction when money and attention would be better focused on patient care.

What is your poan for social care?
A big issue for acute hospitals is medically fit for discharge patients having no where to go.

In my view, this causes a downward spiral of care because the medically fit patients get sicker in hospital, other patients who need treatment aren't treated due to acute services blocked by patiemtd needing social care. Tgese truly acute patients keep rebounding through ED and other acute services and frustrate GPs who cant do any more because they are suffering from whatever condition they have worsening. They are often working age people who are unable to hold a job due to repeated illness and therefore become reliant on state financial assistance, and eventually go private or just give up and drink themselves to death.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who should be in social care but are struggling along at home, as vulnerable people, either ending up needing acute serices or needing police input because they are being abused or neglected in some way.

So my question Wes is, what is your plan for social care?

What are you doing to expose the often cruel treatment of patients in hospital, particularly the elderly and vulnerable and how will you hold offenders to account?