Streeting asked if pensioners could die after losing winter fuel allowance

The Health Secretary has challenged the idea that some pensioners could die due to changes to the winter fuel allowance.

Wes Streeting insisted pensioners will “still be better off this winter than they were last winter”.

Appearing in front of MPs at a Health and Social Care Committee, Mr Streeting was asked about a 2017 Labour Party estimate that 4,000 people could die if the then government removed the winter fuel allowance.

He was asked if the Department of Health and Social Care has done any assessments on potential deaths following the Government’s announcement in July that the payment would be means-tested.

Mr Streeting replied: “Because of the choices that the Chancellor has made, particularly on protecting the state pension through the triple lock – even taking into account the decisions she’s taken on winter fuel allowance – pensioners will still be better off this winter than they were last winter, and will be better off next winter further still.

“And of course, one of the reasons it gives me confidence to stand by that assertion is she has protected winter fuel allowance for the poorest pensioners and put in place financial support, which I think will make a real difference to people.”

When asked if he meant not a single pensioner will die because of the move, Mr Streeting replied: “I can stand by very strongly the sense that because the state pension is rising in the way that it is, and because of the decisions the Chancellor has taken to protect the poorest pensioners – I admit an unpopular decision with people who’ve lost a winter fuel allowance – but not one that will lead to that fatalistic outcome.”

In July, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the winter fuel allowance for pensioners would be limited to only those claiming pension credit or other means-tested benefits, as part of measures aimed at filling a “black hole” in the public finances.

Meanwhile Mr Streeting was challenged over National Insurance hikes, with MPs suggesting that plans to increase contributions, coupled with the health allocation in the budget were “taking with one hand and giving with the other”.

After he was presented with a summary of the potential costs for GPs, pharmacies, hospices and social care providers, Mr Streeting said: “I don’t accept those figures on the basis I haven’t set up financial allocations for the year ahead, so we won’t know the net impact one way or another.”

He added: “The amount of money given to the Department for Health and Social Care dwarfs employer National Insurance contributions from the health and social care sectors.”

Mr Streeting was also quizzed about the role DHSC is playing in the Government’s strategy to halve violence against women and girls over the course of this Parliament.

“There’s some very obvious things we can do on the victim support side of things,” he said.

“The other thing I’d say about health and care services, we’ve got lots of eyes on people at various points, and those eyes that we have in the NHS on patients are the eyes that might identify signs of physical sexual violence and abuse, identifying victims at the right time, and crucially, assisting the police to collect evidence is a key part of successful prosecution.

He added: “For the worst possible reasons, child abuse is in the media at the moment. The NHS can be the difference between identifying victims and making sure that social services are intervening or accepting a borderline plausible or implausible explanation, and giving people the benefit of the doubt when we might later regret it in the serious case review.”

Meanwhile Mr Streeting said that the forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS, which will be published in May, will include a “clear plan of action and delivery over this term of in Parliament”.

He insisted the document has not yet been written, telling MPs: “This plan is not already finalised, written, drafted, I don’t have a kind of secret draft in my draw.

“I think it is right that this is produced with people, rather than done to people – I think that is a better way of doing policy, a better way of driving reform.”

The Government has said the plan will include three shifts – from hospital to community; analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

Asked which was the priority most important to him, Mr Streeting replied: “If there is one thing that would make a demonstrable improvement in the patient experience, the level of personalised care, and the extent to which we can run and lead this system more effectively and efficiently, that is around the shift from analogue to digital.

“When I talk about how we can use AI, machine learning, genomics, big data, to not only intervene early with earlier diagnosis and earlier treatment, but to actually predict and prevent illness, which is the game changing paradigm shift in healthcare in this century.”

Meanwhile Mr Streeting suggested that he may be willing to scrap some targets in the NHS.

“What I want to see over the course of the 10-year plan implementation is earned autonomy for our best performers, where we are not looking over their shoulders so much,” he said.

Asked if that means fewer targets for them, Mr Streeting replied: “I think we can let go of some of the control, yes.

“I’m actually, I’m up for a debate throughout the NHS about which targets are useful and which ones are not, because if you’re measuring everything, you’re actually measuring nothing.”

And he said there is “no solution to the crisis in the NHS that doesn’t also involve a solution in social care”.

He added: “On the 10 year plan I think we need for social care, alongside the 10 year plan for health, we’ll be setting out in the new year how we will build that plan.”

Mr Streeting also said that because the health service always “wins” in the budget, it should not have additional pressures put on to it – like providing home repairs or delivering income support – because “before you know it, the NHS has become the State. And then in the longer term, we won’t have a country with an NHS, we’ll have an NHS with a country attached to it instead.”

He also committed to protect the “investment standard” which protects spending on mental health.

“I am committed to the mental health investment standard. I think it is really important,” Mr Streeting told MPs.

He also highlighted the forthcoming winter pressures in the service.

“We are already seeing pressures at this moment that we don’t normally see until winter peak, which, as far as I’m concerned, is next month, not this month. So it is challenging, but there are things that we have done that have made us as well prepared as we have been,” Mr Streeting told the Committee.

Layla Moran, chair of the Committee, said: “We were reassured to hear (the Secretary of State) say that, contrary to recent rumours, the Government will not be rowing back on the Mental Health Investment Standard. The MHIS is vital to ensure that funding for mental health is ring fenced.

“Equally, we were intrigued to hear that a plan for a plan on social care may be coming in the new year. Urgent action on social care is sorely needed, and the Committee expressed concern over any prevarication.

“On the 10 Year Health Plan, it was good to hear the Secretary of State tell us that it won’t just be a vision and values document but a clear plan of action for delivery over the course of this Parliament, detailing ‘the how’ and not only ‘the what’ of reform.”