It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) for raising the issue in the way that he has. He has used Westminster Hall exactly as it should be used—to bring the concerns of his constituents front and centre before the House. He set out not only the challenges faced, but the ways forward and a number of solutions for different issues. In short, he raised issues of funding that relate to population and geography, travel, the potential for further integration, and also a way forward involving digital and data. I will address each of those in turn.
This is also a timely debate, as the shadow Minister mentioned, following the Prime Minister’s announcement at the Royal Free Hospital last week of a significant funding boost to the NHS. Alongside that, NHS leaders are drafting a long-term, 10-year plan on services, which will look at many of the issues he cited in his speech.
As we start that journey with NHS leaders, bringing the issues of the Isle of Wight front and centre is timely and helpful.
I would segment the funding formula issue into two: the challenges that the Island has in common with other parts of the country, such as those posed by the over-80s and by the significant number of constituents with dementia, and those that are unique to it. Indeed, few hon. Members feel that their constituents’ circumstances do not merit being higher up the funding formula than they currently sit. It is valid to raise those issues, and NHS England will look at them on the advice of the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation, which advises on the funding formula. Those decisions are common to other areas, but they need to be made in respect of the Island. If my hon. Friend wishes, I am happy to facilitate a meeting with NHS England so the funding pressures pertaining to the demography of the Island can be raised. He will recognise that the setting of the funding formula is an independent process.
There are specific issues about the geography that my hon. Friend raised very well, not least about maternity services and paediatrics. The Island needs to supply those services and that will have an impact on its funding. I am happy to look at those issues. Integration is one way that headroom will be facilitated to meet those challenges. As he said, the Island was a vanguard site that has received £8.4 million of extra funding since 2015 to facilitate the transformation of services. That funding recognised some of the Island’s specific geographical challenges.
Although geography can be, and is in certain areas, a disadvantage and a driver of cost, it is also a driver of opportunity, as my hon. Friend set out. The Island has a strong sense of place and identity, and there are strong personal links between key decision makers and stakeholders. As the shadow Minister rightly said, the move towards greater integration between health and social care—as is reflected in the name of the Department—is also an opportunity to drive integration between the council and health services. My hon. Friend alluded to the bureaucratic obstacles to that, and I am happy to work with him to overcome them. As patients present with multiple conditions and as we move away from silos of care to a more holistic approach to patients and their wellbeing, the Island offers a huge opportunity for greater integration.
On my hon. Friend’s point about data, I had an interesting meeting yesterday with the chief executive of the Christie in Manchester, which is one of our outstanding trusts. I was struck by the fact that 19% of its patients take part in medical research programmes. The chief executive set out how that is hugely beneficial to the trust and to the patients, who get access to cutting-edge drugs and the latest thinking. He has also been able to attract some of the world-leading figures in research because he has a population that researchers can work for, which is very attractive to them. That is a real win-win, and the demographics of the Island offer an opportunity in that regard.