argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to give my hon. Friend the commitment that we will look at that. I think everyone in the House agrees that the principle is vital, and I am sure it is supported across the House Let me briefly highlight the changes that we have made. First, we have heard the desire of the House to rate and strengthen the safety and performance of the integrated care systems. Working with members of the Health Committee, we have introduced an amendment that gives the Care Quality Commission a role in reviewing ICSs Secondly, we have heard concerns about the independence of integrated care boards. While it has never been our intention that anyone with significant involvement or interests in private healthcare should be on an ICB, following a productive meeting with the hon. Members for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) we tabled an amendment that ensures we write that principle into the constitution of ICBs Thirdly, we heard concerns from hon. Members about the potential impact of our proposed restrictions on advertising less healthy food and drink. We must, of course, do that in a pragmatic way, so we have introduced amendments to ensure we do not unintentionally impact UK businesses when they advertise to overseas audiences. Further, we will consult with stakeholders on any further changes to the nutrient profiling model Fourthly, and very importantly, the Bill now reflects our commitment to end the crisis in social care and the lottery of how we all pay for it. It is not right and not fair that the heaviest burdens often fall on those who are least able to bear it, so we are introducing a cap on the costs of care so that no one will have to pay more than £86,000 over their lifetime. That cap that will be there for everyone, regardless of any conditions they have, how old they are, how much they earn, or where they live. We will introduce a far more generous testing system, so that everyone will be better off under the new system. We move a Health and Care Bill that is stronger than before, with those three underpinning principles reinforced: embedding integration, cutting bureaucracy and boosting accountability. On integration, it is not about simply telling the NHS, local authorities and others to work together; it is about helping them to do it by doing things like merging NHS England and NHS Improvement into a single statutory body and establishing integrated care boards to deliver as one.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Daniel Leonard James Poulter (Conservative, Centre-right): I declare an interest as a practising NHS doctor. On integration, my slight disappointment with the Bill is that while it pulls people together in joined-up commissioning boards, there is no commitment to put the money into the same place. If we want to drive joined-up commissioning, we need to put the money into the same place. Will the Secretary of State consider that and how true integration can be achieved as the Bill goes to the House of Lords?
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, who also speaks with deep experience. I very much agree with what he has just shared with the House On bureaucracy, we are removing the rules and regulations that make sensible decision making harder. On accountability, our healthcare must be accountable to democratically elected Members of this House. We spend well over £140 billion pounds of taxpayers’ money on our healthcare system, so it is right that there is more accountability to this place In closing, the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic have only deepened our affection for everyone working in health and care. They have been the very best of us. It is on us in this place, and on everyone who can make a difference, to give them the best possible foundation to work together to meet the challenges of the future. The Bill does that and a lot, lot more.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the passage of the Bill and congratulate all those who have been involved in bringing it to this place and getting it to Third Reading: the Secretary of State; the Minister, who has worked on it for an awfully long time; and the official Bill team, who were the best team I ever worked with in government. I am not saying that just because they are sitting in the Box The Bill gives the NHS what it needs. Critically, it learns the lessons of the pandemic and embeds them in legislation by removing bureaucracy and silos. I can see that the Secretary of State is already acting on that to merge parts of the NHS so that they can work better together I want to make a specific point in response to a comment from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), about accountability. Although the Bill rightly devolves decision making and discretion more locally to the new integrated care boards and panels, it also gives Ministers the right to make sure that the NHS is accountable to them; it removes the so-called independence. That is right, and it is surprising not to see Labour Members supporting it, because it was in the Labour party’s manifesto as well as the Conservative party’s. When £150 billion of taxpayers’ money is at stake, imposing apparent independence is not just impractical, but wrong. The NHS should be accountable to Ministers so that they can be accountable to the House, which is accountable to taxpayers through the ballot box. That is right constitutionally, morally and practically, which is why it was in both major parties’ manifestos. It is how the NHS operates anyway in practice, but the Bill will remove some of the unnecessary friction in the senior relationships that resulted from the attempt at independence Of course clinical voices should always be listened to, but as we saw during the pandemic, we can listen to clinical voices and then make a decision that is held to account on a democratic basis. The Bill will therefore strengthen not just the running of the NHS, but how we constitutionally govern the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that is spent on it. For that reason alone, it is worth supporting the Bill.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Peter James Guy Aldous (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to you for giving me time to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would have liked to speak on new clause 18 on Report, but that was not possible Access to NHS dentistry is a problem that has been brewing for a long time and has been exacerbated by covid. There are now parts of the country, particularly in rural and coastal areas, that have dental deserts. It is invariably children from poorer backgrounds and vulnerable adults who suffer the most. The crisis is acute in Suffolk and Norfolk, but is not confined to East Anglia. Sir Robert Francis, who chairs Healthwatch England, commented: "Every part of the country is facing a dental care crisis, with NHS dentistry at risk of vanishing into the void." There are five issues that need to be tackled to address the problem. The Bill can provide the framework to ensure that that happens without delay or prevarication. First, funding must be increased. Secondly, it is vital for the new NHS dental contract, which has been being developed for more than a decade, to be rolled out next April. There are rumours that it will be kicked into the long grass, and I should be grateful for confirmation that that will not happen. Thirdly, we need to step up the recruitment and retention of dental professionals. Fourthly, it is important to highlight the role that water fluoridation can play in improving the oral health of future generations, and in that context clauses 132 and 133 are to be welcomed. Finally, there is a need for greater accountability, and for dentistry to have a voice on integrated care boards and partnerships People are currently pulling out their own teeth, while children are having whole-mouth replacements and early signs of cancer are going undetected. We need to act now to put in place an NHS dentistry system that is fit for the 21st century, instead of reversing into the 19th. My hon. Friend the Minister has advised that the Government will not accept new clause 18, and I should therefore be grateful if, without delay, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State could ensure that his Department comes up with a clear plan for addressing a crisis that is affecting people throughout the country.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-23
Topic: Health
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for that superb speech. We have a huge problem with NHS dentistry on the Isle of Wight, and also with independent pharmacies. I have written to the Health Minister about that several times, and there is an ongoing conversation, for which I thank him very much In the short time that I have, I want to speak about fairness and equality. The Secretary of State spoke eloquently—as he always does—about equality between the four nations. I want to see equality between isolated and non-isolated communities as well, specifically in relation to unavoidably small hospitals. There are about a dozen in England and Wales, and for obvious reasons they tend to be in isolated areas. The most isolated of those hospitals is St Mary’s on the Isle of Wight, which has a 100% isolation factor because it is separated from everywhere else by sea. Such areas tend to have populations of less than 200,000 Unavoidably small hospitals find it difficult to achieve the economies, and the economies of scale, that are possible elsewhere in the NHS, because they do not receive tariff payments. They have to provide baseline services at a certain cost, but they do it for many fewer people. It is therefore likely that fewer people will use the services of that particular surgeon or those particular nurses, and as a result they are under permanent pressure. On the Island, our additional costs are estimated, at 2019 prices, to be some £12 million a year. That covers acute services, ambulances—including helicopters, for us—and travel to other destinations, which may involve ferries The NHS long-term plan—pre covid, back in January 2019, almost a lifetime ago—set out a 10-year strategy, stating that it would develop a standard model for delivery for smaller hospitals. May I ask the Secretary of State and the Health Minister what has happened to that plan and to the community services formula, which we hoped would support unavoidably small hospitals I am, however, delighted that, thanks to the excellent work of Maggie Oldham, the superb chief executive of the Isle of Wight NHS Trust, St Mary’s Hospital has been taken out of special measures and is now good. I would welcome either of the Ministers if they came to see us on the Island, not only to congratulate Maggie but to understand the pressure that one of the 12 unavoidably small hospitals in the United Kingdom is under, so that they can work with me to provide a better funding model for it and the other 11.
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes a powerful point: there must be a holistic approach because although the delivery of government exists in the silos of health and education and social care, the needs of patients do not. The complex, interactive needs of patients must be dealt with in exactly the holistic way she describes, and hopefully this Bill will ensure that that integration occurs to a greater degree in the future than, sadly, it did in the past The hon. Lady also makes the good point that today we are seeing an example of Parliament at its best: united across the traditional party divides to deal with an issue we have all experienced and where we all know things have to improve. I hope that while this Bill, to my regret, applies only to England, we will soon find ways to make its provisions available to all parts of the United Kingdom.
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for making special provision for my guest today, who is up in the Public Gallery. Corina Gander and I met at 7.15 am in a very cold car park in Cuffley with our walking shoes. As you are aware, Mr Speaker, there are problems with transport today, so we arrived in Moorgate and then spent an hour in the rain getting here, but it is an important occasion and we both wanted to be here. Corina is the mother of Daisy. Daisy has Down’s syndrome, and she is going to be watching this with her mum later tonight on Parliament TV, as will Daisy’s four sisters and her proud grandparents I first met Corina nearly two years ago. She came to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that what was happening in Hertfordshire was not good enough; there was not enough support for her and her daughter. I did not know a huge amount about Down’s syndrome then—I know a lot more now—but I said to her, "So what are the problems?" My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) brilliantly identified them in his introductory speech "Fundamentally," Corina said, "the illness is just not taken seriously. When my daughter was born, she had terrible breathing difficulties. I kept saying to the doctors, ‘My daughter is struggling with her breathing,’ and they said, ‘Well what do you expect, Corina? She has Down’s syndrome.’" Then, one day, a health visitor came who had a relationship with the family, and she said to Corina, a worried mother, "What would you do, Corina, if this was one of your four other daughters?" Corina said to the health visitor, "I’d take her to A&E." The health visitor said, "Well you know what to do, then, don’t you? I’ll hold the baby; you get your coat. We’re going to A&E." That child, Daisy, was on life support for a month and then spent another three months in hospital. That is the stigma that my right hon. Friend is trying to address today Beyond stigma, my right hon. Friend identified other areas that need to be addressed—fragmented services, for example. At the moment, services are almost always fragmented. A young child will need physiotherapy, which will be in one place. Occupational therapy will be in another place. Speech and language will be elsewhere. Community paediatricians will be in another place. Then there are opticians, audiology and so on. It can be exhausting to navigate specialist services, but particularly so when one has a child who is very demanding of one’s time and other family commitments. We need to make it easier for parents to get the support that they need and, most importantly, their children need.
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady—I think we are all hon. Friends today—anticipates the next part of my speech and I will not detain the House for too long Members of Parliament love to take credit for all the wonderful things they do, but I take no credit for this at all. This is entirely down to Corina. She said, "Right, Charles, you seem like a motivated, engaged individual. Let’s convene a meeting of all the people who matter to me and my daughter." So we did that and I actually came up with a few names that were not on the list Who did we have on the list? We had the wonderful Alison Patrick, who is a fellow traveller and parent. We had an amazing man called Dr Nick Cholidis, who is Daisy’s consultant, because consultants need to be absolutely at the centre of this. We had the wonderful—and I do say wonderful—county councillor, Teresa Heritage, who is the cabinet member for children, young people and families. When we were travelling up on the train, Corina and I did say that she was a diamond. It is not often that we identify county councillors as a diamond, but she is a diamond and I hope she is listening. It is a function of modern politics that everybody has very, very long titles, so I do apologise. We also had Dr Jane Halpin, joint CEO of Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Systems and clinical commissioning groups. I must also give a special mention to Sally Orr of the CCG and Andy Lawrence, Hertfordshire County Council’s lead for social care Now, why are all those names important? Because the point of my right hon. Friend’s Bill is to bring services together and integrate them.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased to respond to the shadow Minister. His first question was on the six countries we have decided to put on the red list from midday today. We are going primarily by where the new variant has been detected at this point. It has been confirmed in two countries in southern Africa: South Africa and Botswana. We included the four other countries in southern Africa I mentioned earlier as a precaution. The shadow Minister will not be surprised to know that we are keeping this under review and that there are very live discussions going on around whether and when we should add further countries. We will not hesitate to act if we need to do so On vaccine donations to developing countries, the shadow Minister is absolutely right about the importance of that. He will know that the UK has, for a country of its size, done far more than any other country in the world, with over 30 million donations already. We are absolutely committed to our 100 million target and will continue to work bilaterally with countries, but also through the COVAX alliance, to get out more vaccines to the developing world Testing remains a hugely important part of our response to the pandemic. It is playing an incredibly important role and that will continue for as long as is necessary Lastly, vaccinations are of course the primary form of defence in our country. In one sense, we are fortunate with such a high level of vaccination. Over 80% of people over the age of 12 have been double vaccinated and 88% at least are single vaccinated—one of the highest rates in the world—but we need to go further and even faster. It is great news that our booster programme, at over 16 million jabs across the UK, is the most successful in Europe—now, I believe, over 26% of the population over the age of 12—but we want more and more people to come forward as soon as they are eligible. I cannot stress the importance of that enough. Today, as the hon. Gentleman said at the end of his remarks, is a sober reminder that we are still fighting this pandemic and we can all play a part.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Liam Fox (Conservative, Centre-right): The viral mutation process of genetic drift depends on the number of times a virus gets to replicate, so the wider the spread geographically and the longer it goes on, the more viral replications will occur and the more chances there will be for mutations—so there is a need to redouble our efforts to vaccinate populations right across the globe. My right hon. Friend mentioned the potential increased transmissibility of the virus, but there is another important element, which is the severity of the illness produced by a variant. What do we know about that so far and the potential, therefore, for an impact on the health service?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): As always, the analysis provided by my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. On the severity of the new variant, I am afraid we do not know enough yet. From what we can tell from what we might call a desktop analysis, the number of mutations that have been identified—double those for the Delta variant—does indicate that there is a possibility that it might have a different impact on an individual, should they get infected. But as I said earlier, there is a lot we do not know about it and we are working with our international partners to find out more.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): The shadow Minister mentioned the number of people who are unvaccinated. Please, Secretary of State, can we bring a nasal vaccine to market? Stage 2 trials are proving really positive, with high rates of efficacy. We have to throw the kitchen sink at this. I cannot understand why we are not making nasal vaccines, which would increase the uptake of vaccines in this country and across Europe, available.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to point to the continued importance of the vaccination programme. There are some 5 million people in the UK who have not received a single shot of any type of vaccine. He is right to talk about the importance of the delivery methods of a vaccine and, as he has mentioned, there are trials of nasal vaccines. However, I am sure he will understand that until such vaccines are approved by our independent regulator, we will not be able to pursue them.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much agree with every word the right hon. Gentleman says, especially about surplus vaccines. That is exactly what we have done: whenever we have identified vaccines we may not need, we have offered them either bilaterally or through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, or COVAX, programme. We will continue to play our role but, importantly, we will also continue to urge our international partners to do all they can as well.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
John Robert Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): I commend the Government for the speed with which they have taken this decision and I welcome the Scottish Government’s following suit, because in the past there has been concern about the lack of consistency across the UK. Does the Health Secretary agree that this is a useful reminder that the pandemic is still with us and we all have a responsibility to get vaccinated, which includes getting the booster?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I can tell my hon. Friend that there has been excellent co-ordination across the UK on this matter. As I mentioned earlier, Scotland and all parts of the UK will be aligning with what I have announced. The booster programme, as I say, could not be more important. The very latest figures are that 28.5% of the UK population over the age of 12 has been boosted, far and away more than any other country in Europe and, I think, second only to the United States, but that is still not enough. We need everyone to come forward, and if there are people out there listening and wondering what they can do, the single most important thing they can do, if they are eligible for a booster, is to go and get it. Go out this weekend and make it your booster weekend.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-11-26
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a very good question. This has moved so fast that so far we have had no indications about the potential impact of the new variant on children in particular. As soon as we have any information, we will want to share it The child vaccination programme in the UK is going well throughout the country, and has built up a significant momentum. As for whether second doses would be recommended, we will await the expert advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.