argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, have had the great pleasure of asking a question of the Minister this morning, but there is no shortage of fascinating and important questions to ask on this topic. My second question of the day is really a follow-up to what we discussed earlier. The heart of the issue we face now is the fact that our vaccine immunity is beginning to wear down. That seems to be what people such as Professor Neil Ferguson believe is the reason we have higher case rates and death rates than countries such as France and Germany. I just want to understand this: given that about a third of the over-80s and 40% of the over-50s who are eligible for a booster jab have not taken it up, and that our vaccination rates are lower among teenagers than other European countries, what are we doing, other than encouraging, pleading and exhorting people to take the vaccines, to actually get these rates up? None of us wants to go to plan B, and I understand the Government’s reluctance to do that, but nor am I convinced that just exhorting people will be enough.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): It is good to be asked a further question by my right hon. Friend. I would like to reassure the House that vaccines continue to be effective in preventing serious illness. Current evidence suggests that the AstraZeneca vaccine is at just under 80% effectiveness at five months, and that is brilliant. Even though effectiveness is waning, it is not dropping off a cliff. That is why, before levels get lower, we are encouraging people to come forward for their boosters. He asks what more we are doing to get more people to do that. For 12 to 15-year-olds, until now they have been able to claim their first jab through the School Age Immunisation Service. We are now opening up the national booking service for 12 to 15-year-olds so that they can go along with their parents and get their jabs at the centres throughout England. I am sure that my right hon. Friend is pleased that we are providing more choice.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to reiterate the data I gave earlier that across the UK 86% of people have taken up the opportunity of a first dose and 78.9% their second dose. That is a really great achievement. To me, it is inappropriate to try to draw divisions between our Union; we need to work together on this. As I mentioned to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), we are opening up more opportunities for 12 to 15-year-olds to take their vaccines, and that is only right. However, we have to be really aware of safeguarding issues when it comes to 12 to 15-year olds getting their jabs and the importance of having their parents with them at that time.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Felicia Jane Beatrix Drummond (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for her statement and all the work that she and her Department are doing. During recess I visited one of my local secondary schools, Swanmore College, where people are anxiously waiting for the vaccinations to come to the school. How can we speed up vaccinations in schools so that they can continue with their education?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Margaret Ann Throup (Conservative, Centre-right): The school age immunisation service has done a good job in getting through lots and lots of students in different schools. My hon. Friend asks about how we can speed it up, and that is why we are providing opportunities for parents to take their children to the vaccination centres by booking through the national booking service, which will provide further choice over the coming days, weeks and months.
World Menopause Month — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Nicola Jane Aiken (Conservative, Centre-right): I should like to start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate today. I also want to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and of course my friend the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) not only for this debate but for their brilliant work on the menopause. The fact that we have a menopause awareness month, and a day, demonstrates how far we have come in this debate. Clearly there needs to be a continuous, bigger conversation on women’s health issues and about how our bodies change as we get older, and it is important to reinforce the fact that the Government have a clear policy on addressing women’s health. I look forward to the strategy being published—sooner rather than later, I hope As a perimenopausal woman myself—I say that with pride—I think it is right that we discuss these issues now, in public and with our friends and families. We have heard loud and clear today that access to information about the menopause remains critical to enabling women to feel empowered to make informed decisions about their own health. Right now, we need women themselves to be well informed, to have positive reinforcement and to be supported by sympathetic networks. That is why I am delighted to have met Elizabeth and Clare, the founders of Pausitivity, a not-for-profit campaign dedicated to helping women feel empowered to talk about the menopause and to provide tools to make informed decisions. I have a copy here of its "Know Your Menopause" poster. I have a copy in Welsh—Cymraeg—and one in English. It is also available in Urdu, Scottish Gaelic, German, French and Dutch on the campaign’s website. The posters follow the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. I would recommend all clinical commissioning groups across the country to talk to their GPs about putting these posters up in their surgeries, to provide women with the information and signposting that they need I was first struck by the menopause—it was like being struck by a truck, to be honest—when I was 48. That was when I started to feel the many different symptoms. I had a blood test, but it showed that my hormones were fine. Apparently I was not having any issues with the menopause. I remember my GP phoning me about something and she said, "How are you?" I said, "Well, apart from the acne, the hair loss, the weight gain, the stress, the insomnia and the anxiety, I am absolutely fine!" To which she said, "Okay: HRT." I went on to HRT straightaway and have never looked back. It has been a lifeline. I also have to declare an interest as I pay for the prescription charge myself.
World Menopause Month — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Julie Marson (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this debate and on her words earlier, because this is an important debate on an important issue. I mean no disrespect to any of the male Members here, because I know they are champions as well, but I have a suspicion that, if this was a male issue, it may have been discussed and medicated out of existence by now I had a career in my 20s and 30s, as many of us did. I took a career break for 16 years and when I came back I realised why women in their 50s sometimes do not start new careers—I will leave it at that and not go into any more detail—although I highly recommend that they do I wish to make one point about access to HRT for those of us who have a family history of breast cancer, and how difficult—in my case, nigh on impossible—that has been. There is an issue about the training of GPs, misinformation about the issue, and surveys and research that may be out of date. It is so important that diagnosis, treatments and information are based on the latest research and data, and are proportionate. Other issues, including osteoporosis, are important counterbalances to the risk of breast cancer. One of the biggest things this Government are doing is the women’s health strategy. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who was previously the Minister responsible, for her work on the strategy, which I know the new Minister will continue. Women’s health, physiology and biology have not always been taken as a central point of reference for medicine, diagnosis and the way we devise and deliver health services in this country. Making sure that that changes is a crucial part of our work in this House I wish to make one final point. A few years ago, probably around the time of World Menopause Month, a prominent female parliamentarian with many years of experience used social media to say to women, "Recognise the symptoms and get treatment, help and advice." The first response was from someone who said that she should not use the term menopause because it was not inclusive enough. If we have a problem, we have to name it and understand it and who it affects. We should be clear that biological sex is a reality and that this affects women, along with lots of other things. To recognise it, treat it and talk about it, we have to be very clear about that biological fact.
World Menopause Month — House of Commons, 2021-10-21
Topic: Health
Suzanne Webb (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes an important point. That is exactly what happened with me. We went through the process and tried the various options, although I ultimately ended up coming off HRT because it just did not suit me Talking about menopause is so important, especially when we often do not realise that we are starting to go through the process. We are not tapped on the shoulder one day and told, "This is it." It is a slow and confusing process that can create anxiety and depression. Some say that it can be akin to a grieving process. The menopause brings on deep and profound changes, which should not be underestimated, but somewhat embraced, and perimenopausal women should not be confined to the out-of-date shelf. It is for all of us to think about this issue and do something about it; we all need to do something about this.
Fire and Rescue Service: Negotiations on Pay and Conditions — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Defense
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): Fire and rescue professionals work tirelessly to protect their communities. Currently, the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services is responsible for negotiating the pay and conditions of fire and rescue authority employees, and central Government have no direct role in this process. The Home Office will be launching a consultative White Paper on fire reform later this year.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an important point from my right hon. Friend. He will know—I judge that is why he asked the question—that at the moment the figures available are "with covid", which does not make a distinction about what is causing that individual to be in hospital, so the data are not precise and detailed enough. I think that is what he is getting at. It is a very good point and I have asked for advice on it. I hope we can start to get clearer data precisely for the reason he raises.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Graham Stuart Brady (Conservative, Centre-right): Steroid inhalers, of the type used by millions of asthma sufferers worldwide, are known to be safe and cheap, and trials show that they are also very effective in reducing the severity of covid symptoms and the length of time they are suffered. Will my right hon. Friend take rapid steps to revise the guidance to ensure that this becomes an immediate part of GPs’ armoury in dealing with people who present with covid symptoms?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): When my hon. Friend wants something done rapidly, I listen very carefully to him. I am pleased to tell him that the clinical guidelines have been published today that allow the central alerting system to recommend to clinicians that they prescribe inhaled steroids on a case-by-case basis for exactly the purpose that he set out. I hope that is quick enough for him.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of vaccination. That has been the key to getting us to where we are on our road map, which is why we cannot emphasise enough the importance of continuing with the programme. That is why we have set out that we plan to have a booster programme in September.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the importance of the point my hon. Friend has made. As I said in response to another question, the date of 16 August is based on the best advice that we can get at this point in time. He may be interested to know that, as well as the test and trace system, there is the NHS covid app. A number of people have referred to the so-called pinging. I want to take a careful look at this to ensure that it can also provide a more proportionate and balanced system, given the rate of vaccination.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. The vaccines are working and I have set out clearly why. The Government have published much evidence on that. The booster programme begins in September and the immunosuppressed and clinically vulnerable will get priority in that; they will be in the initial cohort. The advice that I referred to earlier will be published today.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady will know that there is still significant economic support in place, and of course it is the job of the Treasury to keep that under review. When it comes to self-isolation and the impact that it has on businesses, it is important, now that we have such a high level of vaccination, including in the north-east, that we can take a more proportionate and balanced approach, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Jacob Young (Conservative, Centre-right): It is great news that we are moving back to personal responsibility next week, and I thank the Secretary of State for that. However, the rates are increasing in Redcar and Cleveland. Although hospitalisations are not climbing in the same way, my concern is that more and more people are having to self-isolate due to the dreaded ping from the NHS app. We all remember the difficulties of last year when people struggled to get a test, but since then the Government have massively increased the testing capability and getting a test is no longer an issue. What more can be done to utilise this immense testing capability to prevent people from having to self-isolate unnecessarily?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative, Centre-right): More double-vaccinated people than ever are being asked to self-isolate because they have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for covid. That is incredibly difficult for individuals and families and of course it disrupts jobs and businesses; I have heard cases of people being asked to self-isolate more than once in the same month. May I add my voice to others across the House and ask my right hon. Friend to consider bringing forward before 16 August some form of test and release measure for people who are double-vaccinated?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-12
Topic: Health
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): From previous answers given, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is now looking at the underlying settings of the Track and Trace app—I ask him to do that as a matter of urgency. Those settings take no account of vaccination status or any other behaviours; it is just a blunt, bluetooth signal. It might have had value when there were few other tools in the box, but it must now be highly questionable to condemn potentially millions of people to unnecessary self-isolation and the economic impact thereof.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): No. If I may, Mr Speaker, I will laboriously repeat the answer that I gave earlier to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, just to get it into his head yet again. Isolation is a very important part of our armoury against covid. We are going forward, as everyone knows, to a new system on 16 August based on testing, but in the meantime, when you are advised to isolate to protect others and to protect your family against the spread of disease, you should do so Even more important than the isolation campaign is, of course, the vaccination campaign. Some 3 million people of the 18-to-30 group are still to get one. I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s time would be more usefully employed, if I may so, in encouraging everybody to get vaccinated.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I think this is pretty feeble stuff from the right hon. and learned Gentleman on what is going to be a glorious 60th anniversary edition of PMQs. I have given him the answer in a letter that he had earlier on about the businesses and the sectors of industry that we think it would be sensible now to exempt. But he cannot have it both ways. He attacks the self-isolation system, but as far as I understand the position of the right hon. and learned Gentleman when it comes to the road map, he actually now, this week, opposes going forward with step 4, as we did on Monday. He wants to keep this country, as far as I understand his position, in lockdown. Now, which is it? He cannot have it both ways. He cannot simultaneously attack—
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to. I will repeat it. I will say it as many times as you like, Mr Speaker I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is guilty of failing to listen to what I said just now, and it is perfectly obvious that, as I said to him in a letter earlier on, there are some businesses and some parts of our economy that of course need exemptions from the isolation regime because they need to be able to carry on, and for the most part, obviously, people will have to follow the rules. We are changing it on 16 August, by which time we will have vaccinated many more people I understand people’s frustrations, but this is one of the few real tools that we have in our armoury against the virus. I really think that in attacking the isolation system, which is what I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman is doing, he is being totally inconsistent with his earlier announcement, which seemed to be that we should stay in lockdown. If I understand the position of the Labour party now, which is different from last week, it does not want to go ahead with step 4. I think I am right in that.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Nothing I can say from this Dispatch Box—or this virtual Dispatch Box, I should say—and nothing I can do can make up for the loss and suffering that people have endured throughout this pandemic, and there will of course be a public inquiry into what has happened, but I would just remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he goes back over the decision-making processes that we had in those very difficult and dark times that there are incredibly tough balancing decisions that we have to take: we have to balance the catastrophe of the disease against the suffering caused by lockdowns—the impacts on mental health, the loss of life chances for young people. What has changed since we were thinking in those ways is of course that we have rolled out vaccines faster than any other country in Europe: 96% of people over 50 will now have had a vaccine, and 68% of people have had two jabs. What we are trying to say to the country today—the single most important, serious message—is, "If you have not yet had your second jab, please come along and get it, and if you’re over 50 and still have not had a second jab or over 40, please come and get it as well." And we must never forget that if we had followed the advice of the right hon. and learned Gentleman we would have stayed in the European Medicines Agency and would never have had the vaccine roll-out at all.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Let us look at the position as it was at the end of last year, and as we come to the end of this parliamentary term let us be absolutely clear that it is thanks to the vaccine roll-out—which, by the way, I never tire of repeating, would have been impossible if we had followed the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s advice—that 9 million people have now come off furlough, unemployment is 2 million lower than predicted, job vacancies are 10% higher than before the pandemic began, and business insolvencies are lower than before the pandemic began The right hon. and learned Gentleman wants three-word slogans; I will give him a three-word slogan. Our three-word slogan is "get a jab"—and by the way, we are also helping people to get a job. We are turning jabs, jabs, jabs into jobs, jobs, jobs. That is the agenda of this Government. By taking sensible, cautious decisions and rolling out the vaccines in the way that we have, we have been able to get this country moving and to keep it moving I have listened to the right hon. and learned Gentleman very carefully this morning. I have absolutely no idea what he proposes to do instead, except keep us all in some sort of perpetual lockdown and limbo. He has no answer to the question, "If not now, when?" He has no plan, he has no ideas and he has no hope, while we in this Government are getting on with getting our country through the pandemic and delivering on the people’s priorities.
NHS Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I join the hon. Lady in thanking NHS staff in her constituency, particularly in St Thomas’ Hospital, just across the river from where we are now, where I had one of my three children and was extremely well looked after. She asks about mental health support for staff. We recognise the pressure and mental health challenges that staff have been facing, particularly during the pandemic. That is why the NHS is putting in place 40 mental health hubs to provide specific mental health support to NHS and social care staff. That is one of a range of things that we are doing to support the mental health of staff through this time.
NHS Update — House of Commons, 2021-07-21
Topic: Health
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): As I have said, we are considering the recommendations of the NHS pay review body. This is an extremely important decision for the Government; it clearly has consequences for a very large number of NHS staff. We will be announcing our decision on pay as soon as we can.