argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): This debate is intended to highlight the ongoing NHS crisis affecting my constituency and the city of Brighton and Hove and to outline solutions to what is far more than a purely local problem. The concept of a publicly funded national health service is at risk, and the situation in Brighton and Hove reveals a whole host of systemic problems that stem in large part from the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Patients and staff are being let down in my constituency and elsewhere, and it is more than likely that the additional strain of the winter months will further exacerbate the crisis The picture I will paint of the situation in Brighton and Hove is deeply worrying. It encompasses our hospital, our GP provision, our ambulance services and our community care. Those services are held together by incredibly dedicated staff, who often work well beyond the hours for which they are paid to keep things going. I want to thank and pay tribute to each and every one of them. Despite their tireless efforts, however, the overall picture of health and social care in Brighton and Hove is chaotic, not because of a lack of hard-working staff, but mainly as a result of two things: harsh funding cuts and an increasingly fragmented structure based on marketisation and the increasing commercialisation and privatisation of our NHS I will provide a quick overview. Our local hospital, the Royal Sussex, is in special measures for both quality and finance. As of July, over 9,000 people had been waiting for more than 18 weeks to start treatment—the worst recorded among 185 providers and the 208 clinical commissioning groups that submit data nationally. Over 200 people have been on a waiting list for more than a year While I am talking about the hospital, let me quickly put on the record the fact that I am very grateful that we are soon to have a brand new building—we certainly need it. The hard-working staff in that hospital are operating in a building that stems from before Florence Nightingale; it is the oldest estate in the whole NHS. At the same time, it is undertaking increasingly complex work for the whole of Sussex as a major trauma centre for the wider region.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as he anticipates exactly what I am going to say. Of course we need new bricks and mortar, but we also need finances for the services inside them. We desperately need a central funding settlement that recognises the unique pressures on our hospital, so that the systems can be updated. For example, we need a computerised records system—this is not rocket science but we desperately need it. We need increased capacity, particularly for accident and emergency, because we are now serving a much wider region, as a result of being a central trauma centre. With debts currently of about £45 million, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is facing a situation that is simply unsustainable That is just one example, but there are plenty of other examples of what is going wrong in the health service in Brighton and Hove. Patients in the city have seen six GP practices close so far this year alone. When The Practice Group announced that it was walking away from its contract to run five surgeries in the city, the decision was largely a financial one. With almost 11,500 patients registered, the disruption and uncertainty was widely felt, and other nearby surgeries were simply expected somehow to manage increased patient numbers. NHS England was not required to step in to help because of the terms agreed with The Practice Group. The fact that this type of contract is no longer permissible was of little comfort to the patients forced to find a new GP with whom to register. I particularly recall the constituent who contacted me after a sixth surgery, Goodwood Court, was closed and who was unable to visit the emergency drop-in clinic at Brighton station for an urgent inhaler prescription because of a disability. That is just one individual, among many, who has experienced unnecessary, unhelpful anxiety and distress as a result of the Government’s NHS policies Our emergency ambulance service was placed in special measures on 29 September following a Care Quality Commission report that rated it as "inadequate". The inspectors praised front-line staff, but identified unsafe levels of staffing, as well as poor procedures and leadership. The city’s mental health services, especially those serving children and young people, are overstretched and underfunded. Adult social care services in Brighton and Hove face ongoing cuts, despite the cost to individuals and the NHS. That means that over the next four years the city council is looking at potential cuts of £24 million and the complete privatisation of the remaining council adult social care, day centres, carers and so on I have lost track of the number of times that Ministers assert they are investing record amounts in the NHS, yet conveniently fail to mention the record amounts they are simultaneously cutting from local authority budgets that are supposed to cover essential care services for vulnerable people.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and congratulate him on the performance of his local hospital trust. I recognise what he is saying about the extra pressures put on the surrounding area when there is a particular problem as there is in Brighton and Hove, but I contest the implication of what he is saying, which is that there is something particular to Brighton and Hove. If we look around the country, we see that, sadly, a great many hospital trusts are in severe difficulties. Only a few months ago, the Public Accounts Committee was absolutely saying the same thing, and I shall refer to that shortly. If I am asked specifically about Brighton and Hove, I would say that we face some issues—for example, the fact that we are working in the oldest building in the whole NHS. There are particular problems when that is combined with the demographics. There are particular challenges in Brighton and Hove that come from having a number of older people and people with lots of complex problems, such as mental health problems and homelessness problems. I do want to challenge the idea that, somehow, this might be a problem simply in Brighton and Hove, because it is not.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): That would be a very interesting issue to debate. The hon. Gentleman can get his own debate on Worthing hospital, but what I know about are the particular problems that are facing Brighton and Hove, and I will point again to the particular complex needs that come together when one has a city full of young people as well as very elderly people, a lot of people with mental health problems, homelessness problems, vulnerability problems and so on. If he will give me a little more time, I will set out for him what some of the problems are in Brighton and Hove and also, crucially, what some of the answers are I was talking about adult social care and about the fact that, unfortunately, the Government are cutting yet more money from local authority budgets that is supposed to cover those essential care services for vulnerable people The Government know that social care in places such as Brighton and Hove is on its knees, and that that has very direct knock-on effect on the NHS that no amount of financial smoke and mirrors can conceal. Brighton and Hove National Pensioners Convention has begun a valiant campaign to protect adult social care services from cuts, with unions such as the GMB fighting alongside it. I really hope that the Minister is listening, because this is a crisis that lets down everyone and there is no hiding from it. Where should responsibility for this catalogue of troubles lie What has happened to the city’s non-emergency patient transport service goes some way towards answering that question, and I wish to look at this in a bit more detail. It also demonstrates what can only be described as an utter dereliction of duty on the part of the Secretary of State for Health and I want to repeat my call for his Department to step in and for him personally to resolve an unacceptable and untenable situation I am referring to a service that takes people to essential non-emergency appointments—kidney patients going for dialysis, and cancer patients going to and from chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Since April, it has been run by a private company called Coperforma and a number of subcontractors. Coperforma faced intense criticism from the outset, with patients saying that they had experienced delays reaching appointments and subcontractors reporting that they had not been paid. Two of those subcontractors, Langfords and Docklands, went bust in September, leaving some ambulance drivers with up to six weeks’ worth of wages unpaid. In early October, drivers for another Coperforma subcontractor turned up for work only to be sent home again Last week, the Patient Transport Service was plunged into a fresh controversy after an investigation by our local paper, The Argus, revealed that one subcontractor may not even have been licensed to operate a fleet of 30 ambulances. I have the headline from the local paper, which Members can see very clearly. It says that ambulances are now in a total shambles—
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I am sure that The Argus will be sad to see itself relegated to the seat behind me The subcontractor is a company called Docklands Medical Services Ltd. This is apparently a phoenix company for the aforementioned Docklands. As I understand it, the new company seems to be suggesting that it was acceptable for it to operate under the Care Quality Commission licence that was issued to its predecessor, the bankrupt Docklands. The application process for a licence is carefully designed to ensure that standards for vehicles and other safety checks and safeguards have been met. Just allowing a new successor or phoenix company to inherit a licence is setting the bar dangerously low, exposing patients and staff to unacceptable risks As a result of this debacle, our struggling hospital trust—yes, the one in financial special measures—has incurred £171,000 of private ambulance costs so far this year to plug the gap left by Coperforma and its subcontractors. To recoup this cost, the trust has, quite rightly, invoiced the clinical commissioning group, which appointed Coperforma. No doubt other trusts similarly affected will have done the same, with serious consequences for the CCGs’ budgets and, therefore, for the money available for other services. Whichever part of the Department of Health ends up footing the Coperforma bill, it represents an unforgivable waste of money and resources, and their diversion away from patient treatment and care I trust that the Minister will agree that patients in Brighton, Pavilion or anywhere else should not be paying the price for the failure of private companies that are profiting from NHS contracts. Will he therefore ensure that the CCG is not out of pocket in turn as a result of Coperforma’s mismanagement? I would also like his Department to stop passing the buck when it was his Government who passed the legislation that required services such as non-emergency patient transport to be put out to tender. It is unacceptable for no one in the Department of Health to know whether a fleet of 30 ambulances were properly licensed to transport Sussex patients for three months over the summer. When the Minister responds, will he tell us whether he agrees?
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention—someone who knows a great deal about these issues. I absolutely agree. Once the service has been outsourced, the ability to do a convenient U-turn is taken away. That is failing patients in Brighton and Hove The Department has said that allegations of ambulances operating illegally warrant investigation by the CQC. I have written to the Department of Health to demand that that happens and I have written to the CQC as well. Will the Minister go further tonight than admitting the severity of the problem, and let us know what he thinks he can do about it? Specifically, will he provide assurances that the Department of Health is no longer content to leave patient safety in the hands of private companies such as Coperforma, and that it intends to step in, bring the service back in-house and at the very least check that the sub-contractors’ contracts meet the requirements?
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully, he would have noticed that I am talking about private companies that are taking over and cherry-picking key NHS services. He and I worked together on Brightpip, and I am incredibly proud of what it has achieved, but he will know that it does not work for profit. It ploughs money back into the services it provides. It is a wonderful example and there are many others, including the wonderful Martlets hospice in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). There are plenty of examples of the charitable sector doing amazing work, and the NHS reinstatement Bill absolutely made provision for them as well. What I am criticising is when the private sector comes in and cherry-picks services, which are then lost from the NHS and work for profit.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I am going to make some progress, because I want to finish making my case about funding Last week the Prime Minister claimed that NHS funding was being increased by £10 billion. In doing so, she ignored a plea from the respected Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), for Ministers to stop using such a misleading figure, when the correct figure is less than half the amount claimed The chief economist of the Nuffield Trust argues that even that is overstating the case, highlighting King’s Fund research that found that NHS-specific inflation means that the real increase is about £1 billion—about a 10th of the figure that the Secretary of State and others repeatedly use. It is certainly not £350 million a week. I would be very surprised if any Ministers repeated that blatant lie again, but anyone who claims that the investment is £10 billion is playing hard and fast with the truth. Indeed, the NHS chief executive admitted to the Health Committee that the spending review settlement would actually deliver "negative per person NHS funding growth" in 2018-19, with "very modest" increases in the other years On top of that, Ministers expect the NHS to find £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020-21. No one with expertise thinks that that is possible. In a scathing report in March, the Public Accounts Committee found that a significant number of acute hospital trusts are in "serious and persistent financial distress" It said that there is a "spiralling" trend of increased deficits and that the current payment system is "not fit for purpose". That is perhaps most starkly demonstrated by our beleaguered social care provision, the funding of which all three Care Quality Commission inspectorates agree is seriously affecting the NHS. The Committee goes on to warn that it must be funded sustainably as a priority Yes, we have the better care fund, intended to advance the integration of health and social care services, but the majority of that comes directly from the NHS budget, resulting in what the King’s Fund describes as "a sharp and sudden reduction in hospital revenues." In other words, the Government are robbing Peter to pay Paul, while local authority social care budgets are slashed and people are having to sell their homes to pay for care or are not getting it. Nor is the Government’s secretive sustainability and transformation programme the solution. Many constituents are worried that plans are being conducted behind closed doors and that vital NHS services could be cut as a result. We urgently need clarity on what STPs will mean in practice for both patients and staff. The Sussex and East Surrey STP area, which includes Brighton and Hove, faces a financial funding gap of literally hundreds of millions of pounds by 2021, and it is not at all clear how our STP will bridge that financial gap or whether acute services will be cut.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): I want to put this on record. The Minister referred to the fact that up the road there is a more successful trust. Not only are we operating in a very old building, but we are trying to do that when the hospital is becoming a major trauma centre. That is a massive change in Brighton and Hove. I re-emphasise the points that my honourable colleague, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), made. We need real finance and I do not think that the STP is going to do it. It needs some money.
NHS Provision (Brighton and Hove) — House of Commons, 2016-10-24
Topic: Health
Caroline Lucas (Green Party, Left): The Minister says that the CCG has such a power, but the CCG told me that it could not see the contract between Coperforma and its subcontractors, because that was not for the CCG to see. It therefore cannot have such a degree of oversight If this is the last time the Minister gives way, will he say if he will step in on the issue about whether the Docklands phoenix company is properly licensed to provide the service it is providing? Right now, we do not know whether it is, and our patients may be at risk.
Defence Spending — House of Commons, 2015-03-12
Topic: Defense
Malcolm Leslie Rifkind (Independent, Unknown): I strongly agree with what has just been said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). I also pay particular tribute to the impressive and remarkable speech that we heard from the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), the Chairman of the Select Committee, who explained the practical implications of our situation in a very detailed and convincing way. I shall not repeat the points that he made, because they were made so well by him Let me begin by emphasising that this debate is not just about defence expenditure, but something far wider. If we continue to make cuts in our defence budget of the kind that are being contemplated, we shall find that we are making a profound and irreversible change not just to our defence capability, but to the ability of the United Kingdom to conduct a global foreign policy with authority, conviction and credibility. That, in essence, is the fundamental choice that we are being asked to contemplate We have had these cuts over a number of years. I have not until now criticised the Government for their defence cuts over the five years of this Parliament, for several reasons. First, I have recognised—as have most of us—that in a period of great austerity it is of course impossible to remove the contribution that the Ministry of Defence, given the size of its budget, might be able to make to resolving matters. I was privileged to serve as Secretary of State for Defence, and I had to implement defence cuts myself, so I am very conscious of the pressures that exist, and the need to try to find a way of resolving them.
Famagusta — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Defense
Sylvia Eileen Hermon (Independent, Unknown): I have listened intently to the debate, which of course stirs memories of the past in Northern Ireland. I would like to make a suggestion to the Minister. The IRA murdered and disappeared a number of people 30 or 40 years ago. A very distinguished forensics expert has helped identify some of the remains of the disappeared—they have not all been found, sadly—and also helped in Bosnia. Will the Government please make a point of involving that very distinguished lady forensics expert in identifying those found in graves in Cyprus?
Parachute Regiment: Arrest — House of Commons, 2015-11-18
Topic: Defense
Sylvia Eileen Hermon (Independent, Unknown): We often hear from the Prime Minister about the importance of having enshrined the military covenant in law in this country, and he is quite right to boast of that: it is a wonderful thing to have done. In that context, will the Minister guarantee that the Ministry of Defence will pay for all the legal costs—for legal advice and top legal representation—of any former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland who are charged in connection with any inquiry, such as Bloody Sunday, or any inquest, such as those announced for Ballymurphy?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Sylvia Eileen Hermon (Independent, Unknown): I have a specific point about Northern Ireland. Of course, health is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, but I can assure the Health Secretary that junior doctors in Northern Ireland are absolutely furious about the proposed changes to their contracts. It would help if he could confirm that he is in regular direct dialogue with the Health Minister in the Stormont Assembly, Simon Hamilton MLA. I ask him not to reply that officials talk to each other regularly, because "Minister to Minister" is what I would like to hear.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-01-30
Topic: Defense
Questions: Last week, we debated the difficulty and challenge of recruiting new prison officers. May I urge the Ministry of Defence to use its good offices to point personnel who leave the services of their own volition in the direction of the Prison Service? There seems to be a synergy between the two, with the skills and expertise of those in the services much valued by the Prison Service.; The recent report of the Select Committee on Defence on UK military operations in Syria and Iraq recommended that the Government “provide the necessary detail on what is being targeted”in those countries, and“put this information, as far as possible, into the public domain”.Is the Secretary of State prepared to make that commitment today?; I welcome the visit to Yeovil earlier this year of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), and the investment in Crowsnest fleet protection to be provided by our Merlin helicopters. What is she doing to ensure that Boeing works with Leonardo in Yeovil on the UK’s Apache helicopters, and to encourage Boeing further to build capability in the strategic aerospace cluster in Yeovil?
Natalie McGarry (Independent, Unknown): When will the Secretary of State answer calls to grant an independent inquiry into the botched Trident II D5 missile test to inform this House and our constituents what went wrong? What plans has he made to ensure that the House can be confident that the procedure for providing information is reliable and timely?
Armed Forces Covenant — House of Commons, 2017-03-13
Topic: Defense
Simon Danczuk (Independent, Unknown): Councillor McCarthy and Rochdale Council go above and beyond when it comes to delivering the armed forces covenant. This includes having a dedicated council officer—Caen Matthews, a former veteran himself—to ensure that those who fought for our country are properly looked after in our town. Will the Minister congratulate Rochdale Council on its success, and will he encourage other councils to follow suit?