argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Rationing of Surgery — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed that is the case This policy is totally discriminatory and is having further detriment for those with co-morbidities. It is creating problems, not solving them. All surgery carries a risk, and it is for clinicians to assess that risk. As the Royal College of Surgeons says, "It risks preventing a patient from seeing a consultant who can advise them on the best form of treatment, which may not be surgery. Surgery may be needed to help someone lose weight." That point was also made by a patient who was able to mobilise after a joint replacement. This is why clinical decision making is needed. Patients have to be part of this too Public health programmes need restoring so that patients can properly engage with people to help to optimise their health. The passive approach of the CCG is setting patients up to fail. David Haslam, chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, said that rationing of surgery concerned him. He says that the NICE osteoarthritis guidelines make absolutely clear that decisions should be based on discussions between patients, clinicians and surgeons, and that issues such as smoking, obesity and so on should not be barriers to referral. These are the experts The Vale of York CCG has gone down this route, and others are now following, with 34% of CCGs looking to ration on the basis of obesity or smoking. Harrogate and Rural District CCG and East Riding of Yorkshire CCG target smokers and those who are overweight with a six-month delay. Wyre Forest, Redditch and Bromsgrove, and South Worcestershire CCGs ration on the basis of pain impact. South Cheshire CCG requires a BMI of less than 35—not 30—as does Coventry and Rugby CCG. The policy is spreading. Although York is the worse example of rationing, every clinician knows that it is wrong and contravenes their professional duty of care I am blowing the whistle on this today because the policy is directly discriminatory, clinically contraindicated and financially perverse. I would be the first in this House to advocate health optimisation programmes supporting smoking cessation or providing help to improve diet, exercise, wellbeing and lifestyles, but to leave someone in pain or without a child brings our NHS into disrepute This evening, I have made a clear case for why the rationing of surgery must end. As the Secretary of State said to the Health Committee, it is time to step in.
Afghanistan — House of Lords, 2021-09-07
Topic: Defense
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I have to say to the noble Lord that we were working on preparations. The preparations for Operation Pitting, for instance, involved intensive work by many government departments over recent months. It was the huge effort, bravery and commitment of our Armed Forces personnel, diplomats and civil servants in Kabul that enabled us to evacuate more people than any other country, other than the United States. The specific evacuation plan for Afghanistan was revised in January 2021 and kept under review until it was enacted. So we were making preparations as the situation unfolded.
Rationing of Surgery — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): The reality is that since the policy has been introduced clinicians have not had jurisdiction over which pathway their patient should follow and which they believe is in their best interests. They are being diverted off that path due to the policy. Clinicians are therefore saying that they should be able to determine the right assessments and treatments for those patients. Also, as part of the NHS constitution, patients need to be part of the co-production of their own healthcare in the future.
Pregnant Women: Alcohol Consumption — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of guidance from the chief medical officer on the consumption of alcohol by pregnant women.
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): We know that too many women may be unaware of the health risks from drinking during pregnancy. The chief medical officer’s review of the alcohol guidelines—the hon. Gentleman knows, because we have spoken about it—includes consideration of the Government’s advice on drinking during pregnancy. The UK chief medical officers are meeting to discuss this in September, and we expect to consult on the new guidance in the autumn.
Pregnant Women: Alcohol Consumption — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of guidance from the chief medical officer on the consumption of alcohol by pregnant women.
Jane Ellison (Conservative, Centre-right): The message is actually very clear, as we have labelling on over 90% of bottles. As the hon. Gentleman knows from the debates we have had on the subject, it is a difficult area and there is no consistent evidence of adverse effects from low to moderate pre-natal alcohol consumption. I have talked this through with the chief medical officer: we have to get the balance right between warning women and responding to the important stats the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, without causing unnecessary worry for the around 50% of women who do not plan their pregnancy and might have drunk alcohol before they realised they were pregnant.
Mental Health: Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Alistair James Hendrie Burt (Conservative, Centre-right): Improving children’s mental health services is one of my highest priorities. We want to achieve this by integrating mental health services for children and young people through a major transformation programme backed by additional funding; by expanding the children and young people’s access to psychological therapies; and by working with the Department for Education to develop single points of contact for mental health in schools.
Mental Health: Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Henry Edward Millar Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the West Sussex youth cabinet that is looking into the issue of mental health provision for young people. Why does the Minister believe this area has been chronically underfunded for so long, and will he give me an assurance that this will not be the case in the future?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government’s priority for the NHS this Parliament is to put Mid Staffs behind us by transforming the NHS into the safest healthcare system in the world, and in particular, through seven-day hospital care so that we end the tragedy of up to 6,000 lives lost because people do not have access to consultants or diagnostics at weekends. It means recognition that safer care costs less, not more, which is why we are cracking down on expensive agency staff who cannot give the continuity of care that is best for patients.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): What I can assure the hon. Lady is that we inherited deep-seated problems in the old South London Healthcare Trust and we have dealt with them. We have more doctors and nurses looking after her constituents, and care is getting better as a result of the difficult decisions we have taken.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Questions: Part of my constituency is served by Eastbourne District General Hospital, which is run by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. The trust was recently deemed “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission. Residents are obviously concerned, and both East Sussex County Council and Polegate Town Council have gone on record as saying that they have lost confidence in the hospital’s management. Will the Minister look into the matter urgently, in order to reassure my constituents?
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that those were woeful and inadequate questions. What I said after the election was exactly the same as what I said before the election, which was that a number—[Interruption.] Yes, we will have about 5,000 more GPs by the end of the Parliament, which is just what I said before the election. I said that a total of 10,000 more people would be working in primary care. I also said before the election that the woeful problems in general practice would be dealt with only if we unpicked the terrible mistakes made by Labour in the GP contract. That is why this year we are bringing back named GPs for every single NHS patient.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Emma Nicholson (Conservative, Centre-right): On behalf of the whole House and the whole population, I congratulate the Minister on his magnificent work during the entirety of the pandemic and, of course, all his colleagues and everyone in the National Health Service. It has truly been a real world-beater and we are all so grateful. I have a matching point on Covid-19. I had understood, maybe wrongly, that males are affected slightly differently to females. Given that hospitals now accept self-identification of males and females, does this impact on the statistics or indeed on the treatment that everyone receives?
Eurotunnel — House of Lords, 2019-03-04
Topic: Health
Desmond Browne (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, no one believes that this £33 million was paid to Eurotunnel to secure medicines post Brexit. Anyone who knows anything about the legal process knows that, at the door of the court, the Government’s lawyers told them, "We need to settle this case"—and they settled it for £33 million to Eurotunnel. The question, which has been posed to the noble Earl twice now, is: did or did not Chris Grayling, when he personally signed these contracts, sign them against any advice that the process that had been undertaken and was challenged in court was anticompetitive and could not be protected against a legal challenge? If all the legal advice was that the process could be protected, are the Government ever going to use these lawyers again?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right to make the connection between Covid and flu. We regard the winter as presenting two pandemics, and we will treat them with equal energy. Flu and Covid have the same net effect on the healthcare system, which is to be a huge drain on resources. So we are putting a huge amount of effort into the vaccine and boosters for Covid and the vaccination against flu. They can be taken together, and the advertising and promotion distribution to identify priority groups will be extremely energetic. That is the most important thing we can do to protect the NHS. Our second priority, though, is getting the beds to which the noble Baroness referred used for elective surgery. We do not want to see the NHS heaving under the pressure of Covid and flu. We want to see it addressing the backlog.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I cannot promise to have a simple algorithm to make the calculation that the noble Lord refers to. I will ask the system if such a thing exists, but I have never come across such a thing. The challenge he alludes to is entirely right: the vaccine pressure on the virus will create the circumstances in which variants are possible. That is why we are investing heavily in sequencing, not only here in the UK where everyone positive is now sequenced thoroughly and studied, but also offering that around the world through NVAP—the new variant assessment platform—to try to understand what is going on in markets around the world. To date, we think that we have tracked down all the current routes that the virus is taking, and we are satisfied that they are met by the vaccine, but we keep our eyes peeled.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the registration of people going into events is an onerous responsibility for the hospitality industry and we have to make a proportionate assessment of what kinds of burden we are putting on the economy and society. With more than 60% of the population now having been double vaccinated for over two weeks and with the vaccination programme going along at 500,000 a day, it is the moment to start backing off on some of these obligations. That means dismantling some of the infrastructure of test and trace, which we seek to do in a proportionate and logical fashion.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Angela Frances Browning (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the prediction of increased infectivity, what internal guidance is being given post 19 July within the NHS? Will GP surgeries, A&E and outpatient departments revert to their former practices, or is the guidance that they should retain face masks, distancing and hand gel use?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I am always grateful for the challenge of medics in the Lancet and elsewhere. I would like to reassure them that this is not a question of libertarian ideology but a question of assessing the risks faced by the country. We have discussed masks several times in the Chamber. I would like to reassure the noble Baroness that masks simply are not a panacea; were the whole country to wear masks for the rest of their lives, we would still have pandemics because they offer only marginal protection.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Lord’s expertise on mask specification is well known in the Chamber and I bow to his greater knowledge on this. Of course, healthcare workers, social care workers and anyone exposed to those known to be carrying coronavirus should have entirely appropriate and significant protection. I do not know the precise mask numbers, but I would be glad to write to the noble Lord to confirm the current guidelines.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not accept that at all. The noble Lord does this debate no favours by using that kind of language. The argument I make is extremely reasonable. It is supported by the Chief Medical Officer and the other scientific advisers we have in government. I would like to ask the noble Lord to reflect on the manner of that question.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s frustrations, but he is illustrating the delicacy of the inflection point we are currently at. Only 60% of people are in his fortunate position of having had two jabs for over two weeks. That is a huge reservoir of tens of millions of people who are unvaccinated. There is also a very large number of people—3.5 million in total—on the shielding list who have some kind of vulnerability. The noble Lord could be carrying the disease even though he has been double vaccinated. Of course I aspire to the destination the noble Lord described, but we cannot rush it. We are taking it in a proportionate and logical fashion, and we are absolutely keeping our eye on the kinds of down side risks the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, described.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
Richard Balfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome the fact we are losing our obsession with Covid and learning to live with it. Earlier this week the Minister mentioned the NHS winter plan and said that it would be published. When will it be published and will there a be an arrangement for it to be debated and regularly reviewed so that we can see how we catch up with the huge backlog of health conditions that need dealing with?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for my noble friend’s kind comments. On the NHS winter plan, he is right that I implied that it would be published. I have looked into this and my understanding now is that it is not a document due to be published imminently, as a winter plan was published in the autumn of last year. There are plans in place and I am working hard to try to provide my noble friend with whatever information I can.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I did not quite say that I did not know how many people use the app; I said that we do not know who is using it. We keep an eye on it and, to date, its use has not dropped, but we are naturally concerned that trust in the app will deteriorate and that is why we are looking carefully at the advice that comes out of being pinged. Some 19 million people have the app. It is an enormously valuable resource, and one that we believe has made a big impact Predicting long Covid and infections is extremely difficult because we do not know what the infection rate is going to be. We are in a race against the virus. I hope that very soon the impact of the vaccine will bring R below one and the disease will start going down instead of up. But I cannot tell the noble Baroness, exactly when that date will be.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-07-08
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I know that my noble friend is sceptical of almost everything to do with the Government, and I am not quite sure how to address that question—but I will take it seriously. The bottom line is that children are a vector of infection, and, during the tough days before the vaccine, they were the ones who spread the disease around, accounting for a very large proportion of the numbers. As a father of four, I can tell you that it was extremely frustrating to have our children sent home, but, none the less, it was an important and impactful aspect of our fight against Covid.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-06-29
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend’s comments are very much appreciated and taken on board. On his question about daily lateral flow testing, he is very perceptive and correct. This is an area that we have been exploring for some months, and we are working extremely hard to bottom it out with rigorous clinical trials—clinical trials are difficult to nail down, by their nature, but we have invested substantially in them. He is right that, for schools, for international travel and for contacts—those three things—daily testing may well offer an alternative to 10-day isolation. That would be a huge relief to many in the country, and it is something that we are very focused on delivering.
Somalia — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Defense
Grant Shapps (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The brave troops of the AMISOM command have been doing an incredible job, and I pay tribute to all the countries he mentioned for their involvement. When our military personnel turn up, they will be helping with engineering and logistical support. I have discussed that with our embassy and with UNSOA, the co-ordination force on the ground. It is absolutely right to pay tribute to the very brave work being done by all involved.
Syria — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Defense
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): The UK is heavily involved in that particular strand of coalition activity—intercepting financial streams—and, of course, the coalition is also taking kinetic action to try to disrupt ISIL’s revenue-generating activities. However, because we target cautiously, to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties, there is a limit to the kinetic action that we can take.
Listeria: Contaminated Sandwiches — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Health
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make a statement on the listeria outbreak related to contaminated sandwiches in hospital trusts.
Lisa Cameron (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What is happening in hospitals? Surely we should be role-modelling fresh and healthy produce? Giving people packaged produce, including sandwiches, to eat gives them the wrong message about health and rehabilitation. Surely we should be role-modelling correct behavioural choices at every opportunity when somebody goes into hospital? Will the Secretary of State speak to the Government’s behavioural insights team to consider taking that forward? In my experience, kitchens in hospitals do exist. If he looks deeply into the issue, he will find that staff and visitors often have restaurants in hospitals. However, fresh food from those restaurants is not always made available to patients. We need to tackle and stop that inequality, particularly when patients are fragile, frail and elderly.
Secret Documents — House of Lords, 2021-06-30
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not going to speculate on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the documents or their ultimate transmission to the BBC; that is for the inquiry team to determine. I am also not going to discuss the content of the documents, for obvious reasons. As the noble Lord raises issues already in the public domain in relation to HMS "Defender", and as he will be aware that there was a Written Ministerial Statement on 24 June, I can confirm that HMS "Defender" was proceeding entirely in accordance with international law, behaving entirely appropriately and conducting innocent passage through a stretch of water open to international navigation.
Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Defense
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his team on their prompt and compassionate action on this problem and on dealing with this challenge. What consideration has he given to potentially pre-ordering steel for infrastructure projects, particularly on issues of national security?
Paramilitary Groups (Northern Ireland) — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Defense
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement and the panel on its assessment, which offers partial reassurance, but does she agree that that reassurance must be qualified by the fact that, unlike state actors, paramilitaries do not obligingly leave an audit trail that can easily be assessed by intelligence services, however excellent they are?
Paramilitary Groups (Northern Ireland) — House of Commons, 2015-10-20
Topic: Defense
Theresa Anne Villiers (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that these are very sensitive matters and that it is not appropriate for me to go beyond the assessment. Naturally, the risk of seepage between the Provisional IRA and dissident republican groups is always a risk about which our intelligence services and the PSNI are acutely aware. One of the reasons these groupings remain a threat to national security is the danger that their expertise might find its way into the hands of dissident republicans. That is a risk that we all need to be aware of.