argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Heidi Alexander (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is completely right. The lack of clarity in all these negotiations is something that I will come on to later The truth is that if the Secretary of State wanted to persuade junior doctors that industrial action is not the answer, he has the power to do so; it is his political choice Junior doctors are the lifeblood of the NHS. Two weeks ago, I spent a morning shadowing a junior doctor at Lewisham hospital. It was the single most powerful thing I have done since taking on this role. I was blown away by the skills, knowledge, humanity and professionalism I saw. The junior doctor I shadowed was working a gruelling 11-hour night shift and regularly works 60-hour weeks. I left the hospital asking myself how it could possibly be right to say to that individual, "You might be paid less for the work that you do."
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Heidi Alexander (Labour, Centre-left): As I have already said, there is absolutely no clarity. The hon. Gentleman might do well to read the article that appeared in The Guardian on 4 October, written by the former Health Minister, who quite clearly states that he has concerns about the fact that the new contract might be used as a lever to find some of the £22 billion of efficiency savings that the NHS needs to find over the next few years.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): That is exactly the point, and I am glad that my hon. Friend is exposing the misleading comments of the Government, who are defending the indefensible. It is exactly those doctors—in maternity, in paediatrics, in emergency medicine—who will lose out the most and will see their pay cut by up to a third.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): Last week I met junior doctors in my constituency, many of whom told me that they cannot afford to live in London. One reported that she was sleeping on the sofas of friends and family members in order to cover her night shifts while working in London. The doctors also reported unfilled vacancies in departments in the hospital which serve and look after the sickest patients. Does my hon. Friend agree that the recruitment and retention of junior doctors is a bigger threat to patient safety than the issues to which the Secretary of State alludes?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Gisela Stuart (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is absolutely right that we need to address the fact that there seems to be less cover at the weekends. He is trying to circle that square without expanding the number of doctors and the services. He is thinning the service on Monday to Friday to bring more cover to the weekends. That does not solve the problem.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Secretary of State not see anything perverse in making the case for a seven-day NHS—he has repeatedly done so—while drawing up a junior doctor contract that financially penalises doctors who already work evenings and weekends? How can that make any sense?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman has prayed in aid the weekend effect and quoted Sir Bruce Keogh, his own NHS medical director. Is he aware that Professor Keogh has also said that "it is not possible to ascertain the extent to which these excess deaths may be preventable; to assume they are avoidable would be rash and misleading"?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): Is the right hon. Gentleman going to continue with his plan to change the rules so that trusts that insist on doctors working unsafe hours can no longer be fined for doing so? It will help if he can assure us that those rules will continue and trusts will be fined if they break them.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Lady not agree that in any other walk of life that would be intolerable, yet we put up with this situation in the national health service? Secondly, does she agree we still have not seen the £8 billion the Government promised, during the general election, to put into the NHS?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Lady agree that across the piece—nurses, doctors, everybody—there is a huge loss of morale in the NHS? It is down to us to stand up for the workforce and put them at the heart of our thoughts, rather than concerns about how it might look politically.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for busting this myth about weekend death rates—these might be sick people admitted at weekends who die within the 30 days. In fact, fewer people die in hospitals on Saturdays and Sundays than on other days. The Secretary of State is not giving the right impression of the figures.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is making some extremely powerful and relevant arguments. I wish to make a point about the importance of junior doctors in my region, having spoken to some of them at the demonstration on Saturday. They are essential to the functioning of the service. They have the option of going not only to the Antipodes but to Scotland, where these contracts do not apply. If we lose these valued staff, it could hurt my region more.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): I spent some time in a busy city hospital last week with doctors who told me that many junior doctors now feel so demoralised that there has been a flood of applications to receive the certification to go and work overseas, so much so that the department that deals with that process has had to take on extra staff just to deal with the number of applications. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is very worrying indeed?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Marie Elizabeth Rimmer (Labour, Centre-left): We have a very real problem in recruitment and retention in our national health service. Hospitals and general practices are forced to recruit doctors from overseas and highly expensive locum and agency staff. The British Medical Association has described the plans as unsafe and unfair. My postbag is full of letters from junior doctors in the past weeks. Many of them feel that they are already overworked and undervalued. The threat of the imposition of the new contract does nothing to make that feeling better and only compounds it One of my constituents, Elizabeth, was born in Whiston hospital, which is ranked the best hospital in the country—I am so proud of it. She has lived in St Helens her entire life and is now a junior doctor in the hospital where she was born, training to be a GP. Admirably, she wants to put something back in to her community, but she tells me her plans are at risk because the new proposals financially penalise those on maternity leave. She tells me that she will have an enforced pay cut of approximately 30%—I listened to what the Secretary of State said about that—which would leave her unable to pay her mortgage, which she carefully budgets for She would also be unable to pay for the compulsory exams needed to complete her training. Sadly, that means she would be forced to take her skills elsewhere. She went on to tell me that other countries, such as Australia, can offer a better quality of life compared with what the new proposals mean for her. Given the very real prospect that she might default on her mortgage, she would have no choice but to move abroad with her family. Applications for certification to practise abroad are soaring. These proposals will also impact unfairly on female junior doctors, 80% of whom are part-time trainers, as pay progression will be slower for them; we will lose even more doctors as a result I do not want to go back to the old days, when a junior doctor told me he fell asleep while with a patient—the patient had to wake him up. Another junior doctor was killed in a car crash on the way home after working for nearly 30 hours without a break. It cannot be proved that his working pattern was responsible, but nothing would convince his colleagues and family that that was not the case We cannot afford to lose the doctors we are training. Not one hospital in the north-west would be able to balance the books in the next financial year. The clinical commissioning groups are facing enormous financial challenges. Hospitals can only get the money from the tariff from the Government and the CCGs, and it is not there. We cannot pay consultants seven days a week if there is not the money in the CCGs.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): In order to save paper, I am going to read out an email that comes from a doctor in my constituency. It would be great if those responding to the debate dealt with the concerns that doctors have raised and told us whether they consider their concerns to be right or wrong In essence, the junior doctor says the proposed changes will mean that doctors who work shifts of up to 11 hours will be entitled to only a 20-minute break; an NHS trust will no longer face penalties for introducing unsafe working rotas; and there will be a change in description of what are called sociable working hours. For junior doctors, sociable working hours will now be from 7 am to 7 pm, Monday to Friday, and 7 am to 10 pm on Monday and Saturday. That means that 9 pm on Saturday will be considered to be the same as 9 am on a Tuesday morning. That cannot be right The proposals will lead to a decrease in doctors’ salaries. As my junior doctor says, "Contrary to popular belief, we do not earn a lot of money. We start at £22,600 a year after five to six years of hard training and we rack up a debt of £40,000. We work a lot of hours." The £22,600 figure translates to £10.65 an hour. Junior doctors hold an incredibly responsible job for that amount of money. Changes to pay progression will mean that if they leave the NHS to take up either training or maternity leave, they will not receive the pay rises due to them. In addition, if they change specialism, they will start from the bottom of the pay scale again—all their experience will count for nothing. Patient safety will be compromised and to suggest that that will not happen is plainly wrong The junior doctor’s email goes on to state, "We have to move jobs every three to six months. We struggle to settle anywhere and put down roots. We love our jobs and that’s why we sacrifice so much to be doctors, but this new contract is bullying, undermining and undervalues the doctors in our country." Many doctors may well leave the profession. He says that that is the last thing they want to do, as they love the NHS and they want to serve the NHS The suggestion has been made that the information presented by doctors is wrong, or that they are worrying unnecessarily. If that is the case, I would really like an answer to every one of the questions we have raised. We must also be mindful of the fact that many doctors are leaving the United Kingdom. They are going to Australia and to New Zealand, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) said, they may go to Scotland.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): I would like to relay some comments made to me when I participated with other colleagues in a demonstration in Newcastle attended by about 5,000 junior doctors. I had the great honour to be in the company of Dr Rachel King, a dedicated professional from South Tyneside district general named "doctor of the year" for her outstanding contribution in the field of care of the elderly, and some of her colleagues. I was struck by their commitment. They love the service, they want to protect it and they want to see their profession valued, and to that end they asked me to make a few points today For them, this debate is not about money, although I take issue with the claim from some Members that the reforms are cost-neutral and that doctors will not lose out. That might be the case overall, but the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) made a really good point: some individuals might lose out. They pointed out that junior doctors, en masse, do not support the reforms. These are clever people—the cream of the crop—and we should listen to them. They know how the service works and how it should be reformed They also pointed out that the reforms could increase the danger to patient safety because they might well not solve the problem of junior doctors working longer hours. As colleagues have pointed out, including the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), the protections currently in place are to be removed, yet we have not had an assurance that something else will be put in their place. As we all know, tired doctors make mistakes. We need to address this issue about discouraging career breaks. Many junior doctors are women who leave to have children. Having spent a great deal of money on training them—the Secretary of State may be able to tell us the figure, but I believe it is in the order of £200,000 or £250,000—we want to encourage them to come back into the profession. There are concerns about not having enough people going into specialist areas We need to address the issue about recruitment and retention. Members representing constituencies in the north of England have touched on the issue of how attractive it would be for people to go to Scotland where the new contract does not apply. Over a period of two or three days, about 1,300 GPs made an application for the certification to practise abroad. That should be a real concern when we are having difficulty recruiting and retaining GPs. There is also a knock-on effect in general practice, but I will leave it there, given the shortage of time.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): In that case, I ask the Secretary of State to explain this. If the pay envelope is not increasing, and if the pay is not being reduced, how can these sums add up? They just do not add up, and I suggest that he go back to night school and learn some basic arithmetic We know that the BMA has been conciliatory today: it has offered to speak to the Secretary of State again. I ask him, please, let us take this down a notch. Let us get him talking to junior doctors again. The simple fact is that these are the junior doctors who work in our A & E; these are the junior doctors who work in every department of every hospital on the frontline. They come in early and leave late, they already provide care for seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and they deserve a lot better than this Government.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward the Bill which, it is estimated, would save about 5,000 lives a year. It should surely proceed on that basis alone. Will the Bill not also encourage workplaces to introduce first aid training, which will save even more lives?
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Julie Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): That needs no answer; it is absolutely clear. The provisions in this Bill will be a very important addition to the national curriculum, saving many lives. This training would no doubt feed into the ability of bystanders to use CPR in public settings outside of the home—this is a long-term investment for the country Our country’s bystander CPR rates are some of the lowest in Europe, with many Britons unable to diagnose cardiac arrest or other heart conditions. I believe that by making CPR and the use of defibrillators a key part of our national curriculum, we will create a whole generation ready to intervene and save the life of a stranger, joining Sweden and the Netherlands, which have some of the highest bystander CPR rates in Europe.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Julie Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): I am delighted to see the widespread and increased use of defibrillators around the country, and I would congratulate any Government who make that provision. That is the right thing to do, and we should do the right thing. I therefore hope the House will do the right thing today I have noticed that every London underground station now has a defibrillator. While I welcome that, I would like to see more in public spaces, including in my constituency of Burnley. I am sure that we can all agree on the sentiment that training students in CPR and emergency first aid is just the beginning when it comes to saving a life in a public space, but there needs to be a readily available defibrillator I will be supporting this Bill today, and I encourage all those assembled in this Chamber to do the same. How to save a life is, after all, the greatest lesson we can teach our children, and I hope that our schools will be required under the curriculum to teach that skill.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on promoting this Bill, which will save so many lives? I am going to keep my comments brief because I am keen for it to have the opportunity to proceed I was walking down the street one day when I saw a crowd of people. As most of us would be, I was curious, but I walked by, not knowing why they were gathered. Something drew me back into that crowd and, as I looked beyond, I saw a woman lying on the ground. There were 40 to 50 people in that crowd, with two people attending to the woman, tidying her skirt and arranging her legs. The thing they did not do was check whether or not she was breathing—she was not; her heart had stopped. Not one person knew what to do. Nobody had called an ambulance—they did not even have the confidence to do that. I gave that instruction and then started CPR.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I would just like to finish my story and then I will answer her point. I administered CPR and had to keep going for some time before an ambulance was able to get to the scene and its crew were able to step in and take over. We are talking about changing a nation by giving it the confidence to administer CPR, so other people will be able to assist in that process.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention —clearly we know what we are talking about, and I totally agree with what she has just highlighted The reality of that or any other situation is that if people have the skills, they can administer them. The Bill is not just about CPR; it is also about dealing with bleeding or choking, situations we may come across at any point. As one of those bystanders, you would feel totally helpless, knowing that you could have saved the neighbour, the friend or the relative—we might even be talking about someone saving you. That is why I urge hon. Members to allow this Bill to go forward.
Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because I can tell him that 84% of secondary teachers support the Bill. Clearly, teachers want these provisions to be brought in, so this is in line with my previous statements in the House Whatever the medical condition, we know that it is only the start of a journey for a patient, who then will go on to use wider NHS services. Having worked in intensive care for 20 years, I know the cost of that time delay; individuals could have hypoxic brain injury or other such conditions as a result, which would place real strain on not only the services, but the family and the life of the individual. For that reason, it is vital to ensure that the Bill has a safe passage to its next stage As I have said, I will keep my comments brief. What we are seeing today is the start of a journey towards us being a nation of life savers, which is what I hope the Bill will achieve in time. I urge the Minister to allow this Bill to continue to the Committee stage.
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): Members of the Public Accounts Committee hear repeated reports about the challenges of recruiting some of the very junior doctors who will go on strike. Not only is the Government’s game of brinkmanship causing problems with morale and patient safety, it could lead to a longer term crisis in the NHS as doctors choose not to work here. Will the Health Secretary just get on with it and get around the table? It is within his gift to get talks started again and avert this strike.
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I have hundreds of junior doctors in my constituency and I have spoken to many of them. They feel misled, but not by the BMA. Does the Minister understand that the anger that led to the 98% vote in favour of action is because junior doctors were told that they would get a pay rise, when many would get a pay cut? Disgracefully, they have been told that somehow they may be responsible for unnecessary deaths. The only way to restore trust now is independent arbitration. Will the Secretary of State agree to that without preconditions?
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary Of State was here last year in relation to the rest of the NHS staff. First, the DDRB is an advisory body to government, not a mediator, whereas ACAS is a mediator. Secondly, the dispute has provided an opportunity for both sides to step back and explore the issue with a blank sheet of paper. Will the Minister take that opportunity by entering into ACAS talks to explore the grounds for moving the dispute forward?
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Julie Elizabeth Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept that his insistence that junior doctors do not understand the conditions is deeply insulting to some of the most intelligent people in the country? Does he accept that this shabby and patronising treatment has led to a total breakdown in confidence in the Secretary of State, and that the only way forward is through ACAS, an independent body?
Junior Doctors Contract — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Health
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): As my hon. Friends have said, the absent Secretary of State has lost the confidence of almost everybody in the NHS, to the point that consultants, nurses and others support junior doctors in their fight against him. Morale is at an all-time low and the deficit runs into billions. How will Ministers get the NHS out of this very dark hole?