argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Bank Holidays in 2020 — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Defense
Andrew George Stephenson (Conservative, Centre-right): May I echo your comments about the new Assistant Serjeant at Arms, Mr Deputy Speaker? I wish to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this important debate and on his interesting and informative speech, which covered everything from morris dancers to bikers. I also thank other Members for their interventions, particularly the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who never misses an Adjournment debate. I would be delighted to hear more about his expertise at bonfires. [Interruption.] Indeed, not in this building I share the views expressed in the House that VE Day is an important opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices of a generation. The Government believe it is important to commemorate the sacrifices made by our servicemen and women in the second world war on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as we did for the 50th anniversary in 1995, when there were celebrations and street parties across the UK. My hon. Friend talked so eloquently about that Moving next year’s early May bank holiday to VE Day itself has been seen to be a right and fitting tribute to our heroes of the second world war. The sentiment of celebrating on VE Day itself cannot be monetised for the veterans who served in the war. The Government gratefully acknowledge the responsibilities that our country’s armed forces assume on behalf of the UK Government and our people.
Pensioner Poverty — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Culture
Guy Thomas Opperman (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady will be aware that this is a matter for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In the 2015 funding settlement the Government agreed with the BBC that responsibility for the concession would transfer to the BBC after June 2020. I reassure the House that the Government recognise the importance of this, but we are very disappointed with the BBC and we expect it to continue the concession.
Disability Confident — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Justin Paul Tomlinson (Conservative, Centre-right): I know my right hon. Friend has championed the case of Miss Saamanthy and I understand that the trust has contacted her to discuss alternative roles in the organisation, including roles that staff with hearing disabilities have successfully been recruited into. I also encourage that particular NHS trust to sign up to the Disability Confident campaign.
Universal Credit: Vulnerable Claimants — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nigel Paul Huddleston (Conservative, Centre-right): Vulnerable universal credit claimants often need to travel, sometimes long distances, to regular hospital appointments. What can the Minister do to help give these people the financial security they need to attend those regular and important appointments?
Universal Credit: Vulnerable Claimants — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
William James Quince (Conservative, Centre-right): Universal credit claimants may be able to claim a refund for the cost of travelling to a hospital for treatment through the NHS healthcare travel costs scheme. To claim travel costs, claimants should take travel receipts, as well as their appointment letter or card and proof they are receiving a qualifying benefit, to a nominated cashiers office, which will be located in the hospital or clinic that treats the claimant. I should advise my hon. Friend that costs can be claimed back up to three months after an appointment.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Questions: I established a universal credit action group in my constituency to track local progress and add performance indicators to see how the roll-out is going in Clackmannanshire. What measures are in place to track local success and progress? Are Ministers willing to meet me to discuss the progress of my action group?; I have the honour of chairing the all-party parliamentary group for terminal illness, and we have been taking evidence over recent months on the challenges that dying people face in accessing social security due to the six-month rule. Incidentally, the Scottish Government are already committed to allowing clinicians to make judgments for PIP, with their limited powers. We will be launching the report on Wednesday at 4 o’clock in the Members’ Dining Room, so will the Minister attend and agree to meet me and Marie Curie to discuss the report’s findings?; Will the Minister provide an update on the Department’s work to help people who are out of employment back into work, particularly in the Black Country and, more specifically, in my constituency of Walsall North?; I want to ask the Secretary of State about my constituent who hanged himself shortly after losing his personal independence payment. I wrote to her asking whether she would establish an inquiry, whether that inquiry would be independent, whether it would be headed by somebody who knows something about this area, whether it would report in three months, and whether the report will be made public.; Earlier this year, I visited the Friendly Autism Moray Experience in Lossiemouth. FAME is paid for by the Lossie Entertainment Academy and works in collaboration with the DWP and Moray’s autism services. Local DWP manager Jane Munro has seen people on the project and believes that their contribution increases both their capabilities and their confidence. Does the Minister agree that we should support this valuable project? Will he also wish everyone involved with FAME all the best for the future?; With £7 billion of unclaimed pension credit since 2017—equivalent to two out of five pensioner households entitled to that credit not getting it—how will Government respond to Independent Age’s “Credit Where It’s Due” campaign to ensure that everyone who is entitled to pension credit gets it?
Andrea Marie Jenkyns (Conservative, Centre-right): Last week I had a meeting with a Parkinson’s support group in my constituency and was told about the many struggles that sufferers face. Will the Minister review the 20-metre rule, so that more people with Parkinson’s who have mobility problems can qualify for essential support, such as the blue badge scheme?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, it is great that by the end of his questions the hon. Gentleman finally got to the future of the NHS, which is what we are here to discuss. However, what I did not hear—unless I missed it—was a welcome for the extra £33.9 billion that we are putting into the NHS. I did not hear him welcome the fact that life expectancies are rising, or our plan to drive up healthy life expectancy still further. I did not hear him say whether the Labour party supports our efforts to ensure that the NHS is properly funded and supported not only now but into the future, because that is what this Government are delivering I will go through some of the questions that the hon. Gentleman did raise. He asked about the prevention Green Paper. Indeed, he will know that preventing people getting ill in the first place is a central objective of mine, and it will be forthcoming shortly. He mentioned the better care fund. I was very precise in what I said about the better care fund, because its funding is rising in line with NHS revenue growth. In fact, the overall funding available to deliver social care in this country has risen by 11% over the past three years. Of course there is more to do to ensure that we have a social care system that is properly funded and structured to ensure that everybody can have the dignity of the care they need in older age, and that people of working age get the social care they need, but the Labour party ought to welcome the increase in funding, as well as the aim of ensuring that we get the best possible value for every pound The hon. Gentleman mentioned the clinical review of standards, which he welcomed when it was announced recently. The pilots that he mentioned started just four weeks ago, and of course we will be assessing the results and ensuring that we get the right structures in place in future. I am glad that he welcomed it, but in relation to publishing data, after just four weeks it is unsurprising that we are still in the early stages The hon. Gentleman asked me to ensure that the increase in funding for mental health will happen and that CCGs will be required to see that increase flowing through to make sure that patients get better service. I can confirm that NHS England is already intervening. The £2.3 billion increase that we have set out in the long-term plan will be required to flow through to the frontline. This implementation framework is part of the system that we are putting in place to make sure that that happens.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on putting the one-year cancer metric at the very heart of cancer services as a means of encouraging earlier diagnosis. You will be well aware, Mr Speaker, that the all-party parliamentary group on cancer has long championed the need to put this metric at the very heart of our services in order to encourage earlier diagnosis. The inconvenient truth is that despite the best will of those on both sides of this debate on the need to focus on process targets, we have failed to close the gap on international averages in our cancer survival rates. I chaired the APPG for 10 years, and I know that the current chair, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), is waiting to speak as well. Will the Secretary of State ensure that sufficient funds are allocated to the one-year metric, because history would suggest that this metric has been there, or thereabouts, in the mix before, but because the money has been attached to the process targets, local NHS systems have ignored it?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the work that the APPG, so ably led, has done in putting the measurement of improvements of cancer at the forefront of the debate. I particularly acknowledge the point about early diagnosis. Here in the UK, we are one of the best countries in the world at treating cancer once it is diagnosed, but we are behind the curve on early diagnosis. Putting a one-year cancer diagnosis metric at the heart of the implementation of the long-term plan is a critical step in making that happen. What is going to happen now is that each of the local systems will feed into the framework in terms of how they will be putting this into action. The full implementation plan, which will be published shortly after the spending review, will take that into account, as well as all the budgets that need to be settled in the spending review. I would recommend to my right hon. Friend—my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] Just for now. I recommend that he keep up this campaign, because we have made significant progress in the implementation framework but there is still more to do.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I picked out three of the 20 areas that we are particularly focused on in this implementation framework, one of which is the number of GPs and the broader primary care workforce, because it is not just about GPs but about all those who also support primary care across the board. We have a clear target of 5,000 more GPs, based on the 2015 baseline. We have a record number of GPs in training. Last month, the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), announced the consultation on changes to the pension to remove some of the unintended consequences of pension tax changes for GPs to ensure that we retain our highly trained, highly qualified GPs. There is a whole load of work in the people plan being led by Baroness Dido Harding to make sure that we have the number of GPs that we need and the wider primary care health workforce that is necessary.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Peter James Bottomley (Conservative, Centre-right): As my right hon. Friend said, the first Minister of Health was Christopher Addison, then a Liberal, who abolished his position as President of the Local Government Board to succeed himself as the first Minister of Health in 1919, but the first Secretary of State to hold up a White Paper saying "national health service" was the Conservative Sir Henry Willink in 1944. We must give credit to the Labour party for bringing in the health service, agreed by the coalition Government, in 1948, although we have to recognise that Aneurin Bevan decided to nationalise the hospitals and not the GPs, when most people expected it to be the other way round. In the experience of my wife, who did five years as Minister for Health and Secretary of State for Health, we should be praising all those who support the clinicians—the support workers, administrators and others who help doctors, nurses and other professionals—to look after us at all stages of our lives. We must have the extra money. I am glad that we have gone beyond the Labour party’s ambitious targets to meet our own ambitious targets, and that we can look forward to doing more, because we have to recognise that health will require a greater proportion of our wealth as we live longer and want better services.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I wholeheartedly agree with the entirety of what my hon. Friend said. It is true that for the majority of its 71-year history—71 this week—the NHS has been run by Conservative Secretaries of State, and the largest cash injections have come from this party. It is a truly national institution that we should all support, and we have to support not only the doctors, who lead many parts of the NHS, and the nurses, but all the health service staff, because it is a true team effort.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. First, in terms of the review led by Simon Wessely of the legal powers set by the Mental Health Act 1983, there will be a Government response and then legislation in due course. We want to get that legislation right and bring it forward on an open basis, to ensure that we get a consensus behind it before introducing it formally to the House. On the administrative side, a programme of work is under way to deliver exactly what the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. In my statement, I specifically referenced the expansion in community mental health services that must happen, which will be good value for money and, of course, much better for many patients.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): I felt that my right hon. Friend’s announcement deserved a more enthusiastic response than the uncharacteristically churlish one it received from the shadow Health Secretary. In terms of mental health, I particularly welcome the introduction of four-week waiting time targets for children and young people, because I know how much distress has been caused to many of my constituents by undue delays in the assessment and treatment of young people with mental health problems. Can he tell the House when he plans to implement those new waiting time targets and how he will keep pressure on CCGs, so that the benefits are seen on the ground as soon as possible?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. The shadow Secretary of State is so nice behind the scenes that he sometimes has to get a bit spiky in public, just to prove to his masters in the Leader of the Opposition’s office that he is on their side Over the rest of this year, we will deliver the plan to ensure that these targets are put in place. The truth is that we can only manage what we measure, and having a target for access to mental health services and pilots on how we do that for children’s health services is an incredibly important part of ensuring that the system lines up behind the rapid availability of mental health services, which, as I imagine every Member knows from constituency casework, is critical.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tone that he takes, and he is absolutely right in his analysis. I know he met the cancer Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy), last week on this point. We absolutely will address it, and we will not miss the less survivable cancers. Indeed, the focus on early diagnosis will of course help survivability, but it is also a focus across all cancers equally, rather than just on those where survivability has improved so much.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): This long-term plan for the NHS has been developed by the NHS, not imposed by Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this sets the plan apart and means it is much more likely to work for staff and patients alike?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The plan is of the NHS by the NHS for the NHS. We in Government will absolutely facilitate it and support it, and of course we are putting in the money, but the NHS as a whole should be very proud of what this plan proposes and the way the implementation is being done in such a rigorous fashion.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The whole plan—the whole NHS long-term plan—is about prevention as well as cure. The focus of the NHS needs to switch more towards prevention as well as, of course, helping people get better when they get ill. Taking the example of stroke, there is a lot on the prevention of stroke in the draft prevention Green Paper—just to give him a bit of a teaser for that. At the core of improving prevention of stroke is both behaviour change but also better use of data, because being able to spot people who have symptoms that are likely to lead to stroke can then help much more targeted interventions. I find it striking that with the big stroke charities, as with the big heart charities, their big ask is for better and more access to data.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): May I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and his commitment to this implementation plan, alongside the commitment to increase clinical standards? That is not a criticism of the medical professions; it is just a determination to make sure that the NHS is an infinite learning organisation and can learn from its mistakes. In that respect, will he recommit to HSIB—the healthcare safety investigation branch of his Department—which is devoted to doing clinical investigations without finding blame, so that these problems can be surfaced and the learning can be implemented across the NHS? In particular, will he recommit to the legislation, which has been through prelegislative scrutiny and is still waiting to be introduced?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I am looking forward to that legislation being introduced. The work that my hon. Friend’s Select Committee—the Joint Committee on the Draft Health Service Safety Investigations Bill—did in the prelegislative scrutiny was incredibly important. The HSIB Bill promises to improve patient safety, which is an important part of the agenda, and I look forward to its being brought forward to the House.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I will certainly look at the matter. When I was on a night shift with a London ambulance crew, we attended a patient who suffered from sickle cell, and it was horrific to see the degree of pain that they were in. I have therefore seen at first hand exactly how horrific the condition can be and I will look into the hon. Lady’s suggestion.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Hugo Swire (Conservative, Centre-right): I was delighted to be able to show the Secretary of State the health and wellbeing hub in Budleigh Salterton and the opportunities at Ottery St Mary community hospital, and that he confirmed that both places had a role to play in the future of health provision in East Devon. However, last week, the National Audit Office found that community hospitals and GP surgeries were struggling to pay the rents charged by NHS Property Services and that, nationally, outstanding debt has almost tripled since 2014 to £576 million. If my right hon. Friend is interested in securing a legacy before he moves on to even higher political office, will he please look at that, particularly in advance of the review planned for 2021?
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly will. I also draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to an announcement, which we made last month, to allow local hospital trusts to request property from NHS Property Services so that it can be transferred to the trusts if it can be used better and more flexibly locally, in the way that the hub I saw at Budleigh Salterton absolutely delivers. I can also see such an opportunity for the potential hub at Ottery St Mary, which was a community hospital and has enormous promise for delivering services closer to the community.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the importance of those drugs. Each one is in a slightly different part of the process. We have opened up availability of medicinal cannabis. Indeed, I was talking this morning to the head of NHS England to ensure that our plans to normalise access to medicinal cannabis for those with a clinical need for it can be brought forward. The hon. Gentleman should expect to hear more news soon on the progress that NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have made. On Orkambi, we are still engaged with the company, Vertex, to try to bring that to patients in a cost-effective way. I greatly hope that Vertex will make some progress.
NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation — House of Commons, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I thoroughly enjoyed visiting my hon. Friend’s local medical school and seeing the expansion that has taken place. The two of us walked into a room occupied almost entirely by dead bodies, which was quite an experience. [Interruption.] It was nothing like this place. On the specific and substantive questions she asks, we are looking at the funding for both the expansion of medical schools and how we ensure that we get the nurses we need into the profession. That will be part of the spending review process with the settlement of the budget for Health Education England.