argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS Long Term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on his speech. I will focus on obesity and my colleagues will focus on other areas Chapter 3 of the plan proposes improvements in cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory disease and mental health. But the disease of obesity is often the root cause of these and is one of the top-five risk factors for premature death. Obesity services are mentioned in chapter 2, but the problem is that there is no recognition that obesity is a disease, the prevention and treatment of which is vital to avoiding a wide range of other diseases. Bringing professionals of many disciplines together to work on this in primary care settings is essential to success. This is not all down to the NHS. Local authorities have a big role to play, along with CCGs. However, because of their progressive underfunding, many have had to withdraw services. From 2016 to 2017, the percentage of CCGs reported as commissioning tier 3 services went down from over 68% to 57% I was pleased to read that the NHS will provide more access to weight management services in primary care for people with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or hypertension with a BMI of 30-plus. But do you have to wait until you get sick to access these services? I was also pleased that the NHS has noticed the remarkable success of the GP Dr Unwin, who got hundreds of his type 2 diabetic patients into remission through low-calorie and low-carbohydrate diets, and is now going to run a pilot scheme of its own. However, professionals working in the field are clear that obesity is not just a lifestyle choice which can easily be reversed by exercising more or eating less—it is much more complex than that. Will the NHS follow the proven cost-effective model of the Fakenham weight management service, which uses a multi-disciplinary team to give personalised tier 3 services to suitable patients? They provide specialist nurses, dieticians, exercise professionals, consultant endocrinologists, psychotherapies and pharmacotherapy, and can refer some for bariatric surgery, which is also very cost-effective Recognition of this disease would remove the stigma and mental illness experienced by sufferers, and focus attention on treatment and research. The mechanism of obesity disease is not yet fully understood, but genetics play a part. It appears that the brains of sufferers respond differently to hormones generated in parts of the gut which tell the brain that the person is full and does not want any more to eat. So far, a few drugs have been developed to mimic this normal response, and these have been helpful to many patients. Patients who have undergone bariatric surgery show this phenomenon dramatically. Their diabetes disappears overnight and they lose weight rapidly but do not feel hungry Whatever the cause, will the Government make the commissioning of tier 3 weight management services mandatory, because then all CCGs would have to provide them? This could save a lot of misery, and save the NHS millions.
NHS Long Term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Health
Claire Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on securing this debate. Like him, I think that there is a lot to welcome in the long-term plan, particularly the commitments to increased investments in mental health, primary care and community care, as well as the emphasis on prevention and health inequalities However, there is also much to worry about—mainly things about which the plan is silent. The NHS does not operate in isolation, and I am concerned—like many other noble Lords—that many of the laudable aims of the plan are being directly undermined by cuts elsewhere to public health and social care budgets. For example, the plan’s commitment to a more concerted and systematic approach to reducing health inequalities is welcome, but it comes at a time when public health funding has been reduced in real terms by some £700 million in five years, according to the LGA. So my first question to the Minister is simple: do the Government plan to reverse these cuts to public health? Adult social care is facing a £3.6 billion funding gap by 2025. With such a focus on prevention in the plan, it simply does not make sense to underfund social care. In fact, according to the National Audit Office, one-fifth of emergency admissions to hospitals are for existing conditions that community or good social care could manage. Unless we invest sustainably in social care and public health, the funding in the plan will not be well used. Given the vital role social care will play in the success or failure of the plan, it is a great shame that the Green Paper was not published alongside it. Could the Minister give a firm commitment on when the social care Green Paper will be published While proper funding is vital, services cannot operate if we do not have the workforce to run them—a point that has already been clearly made this afternoon. The National Audit Office has warned that the NHS will not be able to use its new funding optimally, precisely because of staff shortages. This is a particularly pressing issue for adult mental health services, where more than 20,000 mental health positions in England are currently vacant. These positions are simply not being filled fast enough. According to the charity Mind, mental health trusts employed more than 179,000 staff in August 2017. A year on, this figure had risen by only 1,500—nothing like the additional 21,000 mental health practitioners the Government themselves said were needed to treat the additional 1 million people by 2021. Could the Minister give a date for when the NHS workforce plan will be published Finally, I will draw attention to the continuing issue of out-of-area placements for mental health in-patients, about which the plan says little. At the end of June 2018, NHS Digital reported some 680 active out-of-area placements, of which 95% were deemed "inappropriate". Could the Minister say what precise plans the Government have to tackle the use of out-of-area placements in mental health services?
NHS Long Term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-01-31
Topic: Health
Paul Scriven (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): A plan for personalised and predictive systems of healthcare linking together genomics, big data, artificial intelligence and digitisation—is this real or just fantasy? This is the NHS, which recently said no fax machines by 2020, yet the plan trumpets that by 2024 all secondary healthcare organisations will be digitised. This statement may in time be found to be a different type of artificial intelligence The NHS will embrace these new ways of working but the Government need to be realistic on the route map and the investment needed to do this. To make this happen the NHS needs to attract, train and retain a digital literate workforce and have open-source systems that have operability across the health and social care systems. I see nothing in this plan about digital linkages between health and social care Also, the NHS must be trusted on cybersecurity. Last year, every trust tested by the NHS failed on agreed cybersecurity standards, yet the plan says that there will be fully digitised secondary care by 2024. What risk assessment has been done on this target when it comes to data and cybersecurity? What work is ongoing and with whom to ensure operable seamless systems between health and social care The plan states that within three years community staff will have access to mobile digital services. A 2018 survey showed that in community nursing this could not happen as in 81% of cases poor connectivity at the patient’s home stopped it. In 33% it was thwarted by uploaded data that could not talk to other systems it needed to. What other non-NHS departments and mobile network companies are part of this plan to make mobile digital working happen and is the three-year timescale realistic This service change will need a workforce that is digitally literate, yet the plan has only eight lines on a digital workforce: unfortunately, it gives a top-down approach through the digital academy. Let us be clear: for this to work, the NHS needs at every level a workforce that is digitally literate and equipped to exploit the personalised and predictive care system that the plan articulates. What workforce planning is happening over and above the digital leadership academy to ensure full digital skills for healthcare staff To date, £2.8 billion investment is agreed for IT and digital change until 2021. However, the Health Service Journal in 2018 reported that government estimates showed that £13 billion of investment was needed, of which 60% is revenue not capital. What investment over the £2.8 billion has been agreed for the plan’s digital transformation? The plan is ambitious for a digitised personalised and predictive care system but it needs to be based on realistic plans and firm investment to make it happen. I hope the Minister can answer the questions I pose to show that this is the case and not just aspiration wrapped in hope.
Ukraine — House of Lords, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, on the final question, the short answer is yes. We are working very closely with our colleagues in the Department of Health regarding the requirements in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. To be very open, I asked what the specific needs were for Poland in terms of beds, medicines, et cetera. As the noble Baroness will be aware, we have delivered a sizeable amount of humanitarian and medical support to near-neighbouring countries. I do not want to paint a false impression; undoubtedly, the challenge remains getting into Ukraine in a safe and secure way, as I have indicated already. On the issue of cancer patients, the noble Baroness will be aware that the United Kingdom itself evacuated 21 paediatric oncology patients from Warsaw for treatment by the NHS in the UK and will continue to work very closely with Poland and other partners to ensure that those who need urgent treatment, either in country or in the UK, will be facilitated.
Armed Forces Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-13
Topic: Defense
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There is a debt of gratitude that we owe to members of the armed forces, and we have seen that acutely over the last few days as they mobilised to help with the vaccine booster campaign. I received my booster on Friday, and there was certainly a large armed forces presence there. As well as thanking members of the NHS, I would like to extend my gratitude to members of the armed forces who are contributing to that campaign over the next few weeks As we renew the Armed Forces Act, it would have been great if we had done so with some provisions that delivered a real impact for members of the armed forces. I suppose the litmus test for this is: will members of the armed forces notice any real difference as a result of this legislation? I think that for the majority the answer, sadly, is no, and that is disappointing The Lords amendments today are a final attempt by those in the other place to flesh out the provisions of this Bill, and to attempt to improve what had been billed as a great opportunity to improve our offerings to those who serve. It is disappointing that the expertise of Members of the other place, which was mentioned by the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), has essentially been disregarded. That is not how this should work. I am not a great fan of the other place myself, but I must admit that there is real legal and military expertise there that was not listened to or paid attention to, which is disappointing What would we have liked to see? We would have liked to see improvements in service accommodation. As the Bill progressed, the SNP put forward very modest amendments on this, such as asking that the basic standards of accommodation for social housing should also apply to members of the armed forces. That was a reasonable amendment, but it was thrown out. We saw no movement on visa fees for Commonwealth service personnel. There was the idea that they should serve for 12 years before we even consider this, but that is utterly unrealistic; it is not a reasonable position for us to take.
Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-20
Topic: Defense
Donald Thomas (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Will the Minister bear in mind, before deploying military forces to deal with possible civil unrest arising from Brexit, that the deployment by Winston Churchill as Home Secretary of troops to Tonypandy, who never got involved in that strike, is so built into people’s memories that it was resurrected only a week ago?
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I visited a drug consumption room in Geneva, right next to the central station in that city. Has the Minister visited a drug consumption room? It is important to make Government policy on the basis of evidence and what actually works in other countries.
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister, as every Minister does these days, describes the strategy announced last week as world-beating. I suggest we maybe wait to see how it works before we make those claims. I also suggest that he also looks at what is actually working in the rest of the world. Can he explain why this world-beating strategy still insists on putting the medical and health needs of drug users in second place at best to treating them as criminals to be ostracised and punished, rather than sick people who desperately need to be helped?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
Questions: In 1976, Janet Commins was killed in Flint in my constituency. The wrong person was initially convicted and served a significant prison sentence. In 2016, DNA evidence came to light that finally led to the conviction of Stephen Hough for her death, but on a plea agreement from murder down to manslaughter, for which he received a 12-year sentence. He is due out under the 50% rule in 2023, and Janet’s family are rightly concerned. Can my right hon. Friend confirm what options may be available to stop an early release and ensure that her violent killer is not let back on to Delyn’s streets?; Now then, for far too long foreign dangerous criminals have used the Human Rights Act to avoid deportation. Unlike the Labour party, the vast majority of Ashfield residents want to see dangerous foreign criminals deported as soon as possible. Will my right hon. Friend please advise us on what plans he has to put the rights of UK residents first and those of foreign criminals second?; The Justice Secretary is absolutely correct in his determination to drive up the employment rates of ex-offenders. Does he agree that today’s unemployment figures, which show a further fall in unemployment and record numbers of job vacancies, underline the scale of the opportunity that we have to get many more prisoners into a job from day one, which is good for the economy, good for business and good for the whole of society?; It is no good blaming covid. The Crown court backlog was 41,000 before the pandemic, and the wholly inadequate announcement that the Justice Secretary gave a moment or two ago means that it will be 53,000 after the pandemic. When will the Secretary of State admit that the Government’s approach is simply nowhere near that which victims of crime have every right to expect from their Government?; Large numbers of my North West Durham constituents work at HMP Frankland, HMP Low Newton, HMP Durham and the young offenders institution at Deerbolt. One issue that they face is prisoners on drugs and psychoactive substances assaulting members of staff. Will the Minister outline what measures the Government are taking to tackle this scourge?; What consideration has the Secretary of State given to the need for a specific offence or amended sentencing guidelines for those who desecrate or conceal a murdered body, to reflect the extra suffering faced by bereaved families?
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister confirmed earlier that he had not visited a drug consumption room in any of the European countries where they have been operating for years. Will he come instead to my constituency to see where people are injecting—on waste ground, in bin sheds and in lanes away from Christmas shoppers—so that he can see what the alternative is under his plans?
Breast Cancer Screening — House of Lords, 2018-05-03
Topic: Health
Graham Stirrup (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, the Minister referred to IT and QA failings, and has recently been answering questions about data security. An independent review into the breast cancer screening programme is clearly important and welcome, but how confident is he that the sorts of failings he has talked about do not exist in other areas of the NHS? Given the fact that the QA process failed in the current instance for eight years to pick this up, how can he have any confidence at all in automated processes elsewhere?
Afghanistan — House of Lords, 2021-08-18
Topic: Defense
Winifred Ann Taylor (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I join those paying tribute to the 457 and to all those who have helped to make the last 20 years safer for all of us. Like others, I do not believe it was in vain, but I have some questions that I would like the Minister to consider and answer. My first question is: what went wrong with our intelligence collection and analysis? It is inconceivable that the West would have gone ahead with this withdrawal in this way if we had known that this catastrophe would have unfolded as it has. There must have been a comprehensive intelligence assessment at the highest level, both in the UK and in the US, with whom we work so closely. Therefore, we have to ask what went wrong and we need to have a full and urgent inquiry into this. I was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee at the time of 9/11, the Bali bombing and the Iraq war. At that time, the ISC was allowed very good access to see what had happened and to consider the intel that was available. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, as it is now called, must undertake an urgent and comprehensive inquiry into what can only be called an intelligence failure. There are reports that the Government want to curtail the power of that committee. I hope that that will not happen, because it must be allowed to work in an unfettered way. I hope that the Minister will today confirm that that will be allowed My second question relates to the quality and the nature of the training that was given to the Afghan armed forces and to those involved in nation-building and developing the economy. When I was a Minister in the MoD, when I visited Afghanistan I was told that the quality of our training across the board was second to none. If that was the case, why was there no resilience and why did the forces of the state collapse so completely and so quickly? A senior military figure said today that it may be because we were trying to replicate our own systems and approaches. That is the kind of issue that needs thinking about carefully, and Parliament has an important role in examining such questions Parliament must also have a role in ensuring that the welfare of our Afghan veterans is considered yet again. This will have been a great shock to all those who served. We must consider the repercussions of this on their mental health, because they need perhaps more support than ever, given what has happened in the last few days.
Public Health — House of Commons, 2021-12-14
Topic: Health
James Neale Hanvey (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way. I wonder whether he shares my concern about reports over the past couple of days that there has been an absence, or a lack, of lateral flow devices to be sent out for testing. What is also alarming is the lack of support for the domestic diagnostics market and the manufacturers in this country of lateral flow devices that are much more accurate and reliable and superior to the current Government lateral flow devices. If these devices are to make a difference, we must have the best quality devices in place.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Health
Questions: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister will know that we will not be able to stop the endless waves of illegal migrants crossing the English channel until we break free from the constraints of the European convention on human rights, which impedes our ability to tackle this tragic situation and protects even the most violent criminals from being deported. Does he agree that it is time to take back control and fulfil our 2015 manifesto commitment to get rid of Labour’s Human Rights Act and bring in a British Bill of Rights?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s remarks on disability, and of course our thoughts are very much with all those who are recovering from Storm Arwen. Like the Leader of the Opposition, of course we commemorate World AIDS Day Mr Speaker, I am sure your thoughts and the thoughts of the House are with the family and friends of Siobhan Cattigan, the Scotland rugby player who unfortunately died over the weekend at the age of 26, having won 19 caps It is deeply regrettable that, once again, we are forced to spend so much time in this House discussing the Prime Minister’s misconduct, but when the person in charge so blatantly breaks the rules, it needs to be talked about. Last Christmas the Prime Minister hosted a packed party in Downing Street, an event that broke the lockdown rules that everyone else was expected to follow. He might deny it, but I spoke to the Daily Mirror this morning and it confirmed what happened. The newspaper has legal advice on the potential illegality. At a time when public health messaging is so vital, how are people possibly expected to trust the Prime Minister when he thinks it is one rule for him and another rule for everybody else?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Health
Questions: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister will know that we will not be able to stop the endless waves of illegal migrants crossing the English channel until we break free from the constraints of the European convention on human rights, which impedes our ability to tackle this tragic situation and protects even the most violent criminals from being deported. Does he agree that it is time to take back control and fulfil our 2015 manifesto commitment to get rid of Labour’s Human Rights Act and bring in a British Bill of Rights?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That is a disgraceful answer. The Prime Minister did not even listen, because I mentioned Storm Arwen The real reason why all this matters is that we find ourselves at another very difficult moment in this pandemic. This is a time when leadership matters, when truth matters and when trust matters. Only this morning, leaked SAGE advice confirmed that the UK Government’s current international travel restrictions will identify significantly fewer cases. It is exactly the same advice that the Prime Minister received from the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on Monday, and he has ignored that advice Since then other countries, like Ireland and the US, have moved rapidly on international travel to protect their people. Will the Prime Minister finally convene a four-nation Cobra meeting to tighten travel restrictions, or will he continue to ignore the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and his own SAGE advisers and imperil the health of the public of these islands?