argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Ambulance Response Times — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Helen Mary Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Prior to Christmas, a motorcyclist in my constituency with serious leg injuries was left lying on the ground in the rain for an hour and 40 minutes waiting for an ambulance. Local people had to bring out blankets and hot water bottles to try to keep him warm, but because no ambulance arrived, the police had to commandeer a council minibus to take him to hospital. Is the Secretary of State ashamed to stand at the Dispatch Box and tell the House that the NHS is not in crisis, when that is what is happening on the ground?
Ambulance Response Times — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Andrew Murray Burnham (Labour, Centre-left): Although focus has been on A and E, it is becoming clear that the knock-on crisis in the ambulance service is more serious than people realise. Evidence is emerging of services unilaterally abandoning national standards and putting patients at risk. We know of one ambulance service that left patients at the door of A and E without handing them over to A and E staff, and last night East of England ambulance service was forced to release an internal report on the downgrading of thousands of 999 calls, including calls made by terminally ill patients. The report covered only a sample, but it showed that at least 57 of those patients died after a decision was taken not to send an ambulance. Withholding ambulances from terminally ill people is the most cruel form of rationing imaginable. Will the Secretary of State today order a full, independent investigation into how that happened, and into every death or adverse incident?
Ambulance Response Times — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Andrew Murray Burnham (Labour, Centre-left): I raised a very serious issue, which came to light last night, regarding 57 terminally ill patients. As that was only a sample, it is not the whole story. I am surprised that the Secretary of State did not answer the very specific question about a serious failure in the East of England ambulance service. The truth is that this is not confined to the ambulance service in the east of England. Last year, we heard of a 77-year-old great-grandfather from Bolton who waited for more than four hours on a freezing pavement and a 92-year-old grandmother who tragically died after waiting for five hours in agony on the floor of her home in Muswell Hill Whatever the Secretary of State says, those are not isolated cases. New figures last week showed that in November a staggering 17,000 critically ill patients who were classified as needing an urgent category A 999 response waited longer than 19 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Will the Secretary of State agree that this chaos is now putting lives at risk and cannot carry on? Will he tell the House what precise steps the Government are taking to bring responses to 999 calls back up to acceptable standards?
GP Appointments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): I think many people up and down the country will be surprised by the Minister’s answer, including my constituent Lynne Taylor who had a chest infection but was sent to A and E by a locum because of a lack of appointments at her GP surgery. That was done on the phone without seeing her. The A and E doctors told her that she certainly should not have been sent to A and E. Will the guarantee of a GP appointment within 48 hours help patients like Ms Taylor who need to see their own doctor? Would that not also be a big step in reducing the huge pressure on A and Es?
GP Appointments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): One in four patients now wait a week or longer to see a GP. Last week’s official NHS survey revealed that almost 1 million people had to turn to A and E because they could not get a GP appointment. Will the Minister accept that his Government have made it harder to see a GP, and have caused the A and E crisis in the process? Will he respond to Labour’s call for GPs to be placed in major A and Es to help ease the pressure?
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Questions: What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; The Home Secretary talked about the £2 billion he has put aside for the NHS, some £1.5 billion of which is for clinical commissioning groups and specialised commissioning. Why are more than 50 CCGs in the south of England to receive a 3.6% increase in funding to the detriment of the north, where my own CCG is to receive only 0.24%, which is below inflation and a pittance compared with the south?
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): The College of Emergency Medicine says that the extra money the Secretary of State has given is not reaching A and E. What steps is he taking to ensure that the money does not stay with the CCGs, but actually goes into A and E
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Questions: What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; The Home Secretary talked about the £2 billion he has put aside for the NHS, some £1.5 billion of which is for clinical commissioning groups and specialised commissioning. Why are more than 50 CCGs in the south of England to receive a 3.6% increase in funding to the detriment of the north, where my own CCG is to receive only 0.24%, which is below inflation and a pittance compared with the south?
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): It is increasingly recognised that the causes of the A and E crisis include the closure of walk-in centres, such as the one in Little Hulton in my constituency and this Government’s savage cuts to council budgets, leading in Salford to 1,000 fewer people getting care packages funded this year. When will the Health Secretary start to take responsibility for his own Government’s policies and do something to ensure investment in social care to ease that pressure on A and E? The better care fund is not the answer.
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Questions: What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; What progress his Department has made on its long-term plans for easing pressures on A and E departments and preparing the NHS for the future.; The Home Secretary talked about the £2 billion he has put aside for the NHS, some £1.5 billion of which is for clinical commissioning groups and specialised commissioning. Why are more than 50 CCGs in the south of England to receive a 3.6% increase in funding to the detriment of the north, where my own CCG is to receive only 0.24%, which is below inflation and a pittance compared with the south?
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State did not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). Surely the unprecedented problems we are now seeing in A and E and the wider NHS can be traced back directly to the risks of the huge top-down reorganisation, which were set out for Ministers in November 2010, but ignored. One of the current Ministers and his predecessor said, as reported in the House: "We have every intention of publishing the risk register in due course, when we think the time is right."—[Official Report, 10 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 156.] Four years on, will the Secretary of State now publish this risk register and let people see for themselves what warnings he was given about current problems and how far he has been hiding the truth on the NHS?
Adult Autism Strategy — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Questions: With reference to his Department’s publication “Transforming care: A national response to Winterbourne View Hospital”, published in December 2012, if he will take steps to ensure that the statutory guidance implementing the adult autism strategy uses clear language and is mandatory.
Thomas Clarke (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will be aware that, under the Mental Health Act 1983, people with autism can be compulsorily detained for assessment and treatment although there is no evidence of mental illness. Will he join the National Autistic Society and others in endorsing the Justice for LB Bill campaign and seeking to end that wholly unacceptable practice?
Hospitals (Winter Demand) — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): In the Chancellor’s announcement last year of extra funding for the NHS, my clinical commissioning group got a 0.24% increase, whereas Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead got 3.7%. The Secretary of State blamed the NHS for this when he responded to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), but is it not because this Government have taken need out of the formula—a similar thing to what they have done in local government—which means the movement of money from the north to the south?
District Hospitals — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept the case made by commissioners and the trust in Morecambe Bay that, notwithstanding all the efficiencies and changes in services, the trust could not close its deficit, due to its near unique geography and health need, without significantly cutting vital services for the area?
111 Calls — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Margaret Olivia Hillier (Labour, Centre-left): The Public Accounts Committee examined this service in Devon and Cornwall and discovered, as it has in other inquiries, a lot of issues associated with cost shunting, because it does not cost 111 when it tells someone they need to go to hospital in an ambulance. So there have been "impressive figures" on the number of people who did not go to A and E as a result of their call, but is the Department monitoring the number of people who are sent to A and E by 111 but should not have been?
111 Calls — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State earlier complacently claimed that England has the best A and E service in the United Kingdom, but last week 86 hospital trusts in England operated below the Wales average. Suzanne Mason, professor of emergency medicine at the university of Sheffield, said that ambulance services in some parts of the country have been "brought to their knees" by 111. Does the Minister now think it was a mistake to scrap the nurse-led NHS Direct service? Will he urgently implement Labour’s proposal to get more nurses answering 111 calls, to relieve pressure on our chronically overstretched A and E departments
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): NHS Providers, which represents 94% of NHS foundation trusts, says that national tariff proposals that have forced hospital trusts to find efficiencies of 3.8% are excessive and, taken with other cost pressures, undeliverable. It will take £1.2 billion out of budgets from front-line NHS services. Do the Secretary of State and his Ministers understand the implications of that proposal, and will they act to stop it given the pressures on the NHS, especially on A and E departments?
Accident and Emergency Departments — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Louise Kendall (Labour, Centre-left): Ministers have been repeatedly warned about the impact that their social care cuts are having on elderly people and that that is a key cause of pressures on A and E. Today it has been revealed that public health officials have issued an alert about a statistically significant and "sustained" decline in life expectancy in parts of the north-west. They say it is extremely unusual and that "central government driven reductions in adult social care budgets" are a possible cause. Will the Minister confirm that alert, say whether life expectancy is declining elsewhere, guarantee that Public Health England will urgently investigate the matter and promise that its findings will be published in full?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Health
Questions: The Secretary of State will be aware that the London borough of Havering has the highest proportion of elderly people of all the London boroughs, but he may not know that the average age of an in-patient at Queen’s hospital is 86. Will he agree to look at the balance of future funding between acute care and community health care, so that elderly people can be supported at home and beds freed up for people waiting for acute operations?
Jamieson Ronald Reed (Labour, Centre-left): If it is not too late, let me wish you, Mr Speaker, a happy new year The care failings uncovered by the Care Quality Commission at Hinchingbrooke hospital are appalling and unacceptable. The inspection "found poor emotional and physical care which was not safe or caring." The response to call bells was so bad that some patients were told to soil themselves; drinks were left out of patients’ reach; and one member of staff was overheard telling a patient, "don’t misbehave you know what happens when you misbehave." Will the Secretary of State tell us when he was first told about the problems at Hinchingbrooke? Given that the CQC inspection happened in September, why was the trust put into special measures only last Friday?
Nuclear Management Partners (Sellafield) — House of Commons, 2015-01-13
Topic: Defense
Thomas Docherty (Labour, Centre-left): I visited the Sellafield site at the end of October to see the scope for storing submarine reactors; obviously, I will seek clarification from the Ministry of Defence about the time scale for that. I was impressed by the calibre of the locally developed management tier, including the head of operations, Andrew Hope. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that the world-class work force will be supported and enabled, so that nationally important projects can proceed?
Local Government (Review of Decisions) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-23
Topic: Health
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): I hear what the Minister says, but, as I have explained, the problem is the cost of complying with the health and safety legislation. What is the Bill going to do to address that underlying problem?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): Will the hon. Gentleman explain the logic of his party’s position? It thinks that nuclear weapons are an abomination, but wants an independent Scotland to remain part of NATO, which is an explicitly nuclear alliance founded on the concept of overall nuclear protection.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): I think that the Defence Secretary used wise words when, at the beginning of his speech, he said that we should not use this issue to play short-term politics. Let me gently warn him. We—he and I, and his party and mine—have worked constructively on this issue during difficult times in recent years. I hope that when the shadow Defence Secretary speaks, the right hon. Gentleman will take it from him—if he will not take it from me—that we remain absolutely committed to the statement that he read out. We remain absolutely committed to an independent minimum credible strategic deterrent delivered by means of the submarine programme that we started in government and will finish. A least-cost deterrent is, to our mind, exactly the same as a minimum deterrent. If the Defence Secretary wants to spend more than least costs, he should say so now.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): The Defence Secretary read out our policy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) reiterated it. Our policy is quite clear: we want a minimum independent credible deterrent based on continuous at-sea deterrence, and of course we want to provide it in the most cost-effective way possible. Indeed, when he reads Hansard tomorrow, the Defence Secretary will find that that is exactly what he said a few moments ago.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): May I apologise at the outset, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the fact that I have a long-standing constituency engagement and I will not be here for the wind-ups? However, I am confident that both Front Benchers will say only good things about me There is a well-known saying in the peace movement that a unilateralist is a multilateralist who means it, and I am one of those. Whatever I have to say today about nuclear weapons goes for all nuclear weapons, and when the British Government, of whatever persuasion, say they want to rid the world of nuclear weapons and when they signed the non-proliferation treaty committing themselves to do just that, I also expect that they mean it. As one of only nine nuclear-armed states, the UK cannot escape its duty to progress disarmament talks. So why would we seek to upgrade Trident for another 50 years without exploring what might be done to bring forward multilateral nuclear disarmament? Why do we not ask ourselves whether spending up to £100 billion on weapons of mass destruction is actually the best way to defend the people of this country, when we cannot raise millions out of poverty or fund our precious national health service? Why do we not ask? It is because too many politicians in this country—we just heard such a speech—remain locked in cold war thinking when much of the world has moved on.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is citing countries that are of course the minority—the nuclear-armed states. They all have the same attitude as him: they all have cold war thinking. Many of them have reduced their nuclear arsenals, but they remain more dangerous today.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): All the hon. Gentleman is advocating, of course, is conventional war, which can kill hundreds of thousands of people, as we see in Iraq. He is not making an argument. We need to look at where the real threats are and where real security lies. I will argue that real security lies in nuclear disarmament It is on the third scenario, state-sponsored nuclear terrorism, where nuclear deterrence is least credible. The UK has promised—this is official policy—a proportionate response to a state that sponsored a nuclear attack, and a mechanism is in place to trace the perpetrators. The nuclear material will be sent to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston for analysis before a retaliatory attack is ordered. Can anyone imagine what might happen in those hours or days when analysis was under way? When that is concluded, would the Secretary of State, in the cold light of day, give the order to fire even a single Trident missile? Of course, if he did so, he would immediately be charged with a crime against humanity, but he does not even have that power. He conveniently forgets, as he did throughout his speech today, that Trident is not independent and is assigned to NATO; it is the United States that would call the shots. So why is it, when 47 out of 50 sovereign European states feel more secure without nuclear weapons than with them, that this country remains so blinkered?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she appreciate that almost all my constituents and millions of Labour supporters up and down the country cannot understand why, when we are seeing massive cuts in our public sector and welfare state, we are going to spend upwards of £20 billion on a weapons system that will not make us safe and is not genuinely independent?
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): I will come on to suggest what the world community thinks about that. It is of course my opinion that we would be safer without nuclear weapons. If the hon. Gentleman were both to read the research on nuclear winters and the report of the accidents that have been recently published, he would realise that there is no safety in the possession of nuclear weapons, even if they are not used in anger It is instructive to look at how we view the world. We need to reflect on the deaths of those 17 people in Paris at the hands of terrorists. We were rightly outraged and right to mourn them, so how can it be that we are willing to contemplate the deaths of millions? Why do we have such moral certitude over the banning of chemical and biological weapons, land mines and cluster bombs but not nuclear weapons? It is also instructive to inquire how other countries and institutions view the nuclear weapon states such as Britain.
Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Joan Mary Ruddock (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman does not make a coherent case. Chemical weapons have certainly been used in recent times—we do not know whether biological weapons have been used—which means that nuclear weapons did not act as a deterrent, so his argument is not sound.