MPs warned West Country patients facing long waits and avoidable pain

Long waits for privatised NHS services have seen West Country patients forced to wrap leaking wounds in plastic bags or spend their final hours in “avoidable pain,” MPs have warned.

Private care provider HCRG took over a major NHS contract to run community health services across Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire in April 2025 and, in April this year, introduced a “single point of access” system. But MPs are warning that the system has not worked as planned.

Chippenham MP Sarah Gibson (Liberal Democrat) told a debate about HCRG’s performance in the South West in Parliament’s Westminster Hall on Wednesday October 27: “Constituents repeatedly tell me about the long waits on phones, missed callbacks, referrals that are difficult to track, and urgent cases not reaching the right team quickly enough.”

She said: “One district nurse described attending a patient whose leg wounds had leaked through his dressings. His daughter had contacted the service twice over the weekend without receiving assistance. By the time the nurse arrived, the patient had resorted to wrapping plastic bags around his legs and I understand that the same problem occurred the following weekend.”

She warned that knee replacements were not being seen on time, risking them having to be re-done; there were delays to dealing with “urgent catheter issues”; and that there had been repeated instances of referrals for help not reaching the community nursing team — in one case, leaving someone approaching the end of life in “severe pain” for hours with no pain relief. She said: “Nobody approaching the end of their life should spend hours in avoidable pain because the system is inadequate.”

Ms Gibson said that she had been approached, while using health services as a patient, by staff who wanted to raise issues with her in confidence because they were afraid of going through formal channels. She said: “Staff speak of chronic understaffing, excessive workloads, and concerns about the impact these pressures are having both on patients and on the workforce.”

Several members of staff attended the debate in Westminster Hall in person. It was called after a 24 hour strike by HCRG workers over the staffing levels, workloads, and concern for patient care on October 21. Frontline staff from across the three areas joined picket lines at Chippenham Community Hospital and the Orbital in Swindon.

Swindon North MP Will Stone (Labour) and Melksham and Devizes MP Brian Mathew (Liberal Democrat), whose constituencies are covered by the same contract, also spoke in the debate. Northern Irish MP Jim Shannon (Strangford, DUP) added: “Similar issues have come up in my constituency as well, across Northern Ireland, where they struggle to provide services due to worker shortages and lack of funding.”

Mr Mathew has been a major voice holding HCRG to account. He says more than 100 of his constituents have contacted him with complaints about HCRG, several of which have recently been reported on by the BBC.

Facing questions about the recent headlines earlier this month, at a meeting of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s health scrutiny committee, HCRG regional director Val Scrase told councillors: “I really want to be very clear that just because things get into the media, that does not mean to say that those incidents actually happened.”

She told councillors at the time: “I am not here to comment on individual incidents. There is an approach that we take with our commissioners around investigating clinical harm. We report into the ICB integrated care board through quality reports. The media is the media. I don’t want to comment any further.”

But, in the Westminster Hall debate, Ms Gibson said that she had heard from patients who were no longer bothering to complain, as they were used to the “delays and difficulties.” She said: “Sometimes, the absence of formal complaints reflects a loss of confidence rather than anything else.

“And this is particularly concerning when we think about older patients, disabled patients and those who are already struggling to navigate a complex health system. The people who find it the hardest to access services are often the same people least likely to make their voices heard.”

Minister for Secondary Care Karin Smyth (Bristol South, Labour) said: “We need to make sure that what was promised is delivered. That is what we all want to see for the people of her community and across the wider ICB integrated care board — the body covering Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire which commissions the service.”

She added: “I recognise the concerns about delays, callbacks and referrals across the teams, and about getting people through the single point of access. Single points of access have been worked on for many years under many different contracts. Generally, they should do what they say on the tin and actually help people move forward, so HCRG does need to make its work.”

Ms Smyth said: “I understand that, as a result of some of the issues that have been raised, the ICB is increasing its oversight, bringing together the provider and the system to support improvement. It is really important that that work also brings together patients, carers, the local community, staff and other stakeholders as it develops.”

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