Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-07-19
Topic: Health
Questions: Making a diagnosis of dementia is important to allow appropriate treatment, support and time to plan for the future. Pre-pandemic, the diagnosis rate for dementia in England was meeting the two thirds target, but today it is 61.9%. In Wales, data capture and quality is poor, but the equivalent rate is thought to be just 50%. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps he is taking to improve the situation?; As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sickle cell and thalassaemia, I and the chief executive officer of the Sickle Cell Society were due to meet the Secretary of State’s predecessor to discuss the experiences of and health failings for people living with sickle cell and, indeed, sickle cell patients. Will the Secretary of State meet me—if he is still in post in September—or urge his predecessor to meet me and the CEO of the Sickle Cell Society?; Despite repeated questions from me and other hon. Members, immunocompromised people still do not have access to the prophylactic drug Evusheld. It appears that some heads might need knocking together, so will the Secretary of State convene an urgent meeting with AstraZeneca and the UK Health Security Agency to ensure that test results can be released? If the results are positive, will he get on with ordering supplies and rolling them out, so that immunocompromised people can finally get on with living their lives?; I wrote to the Secretary of State’s immediate predecessor on 16 May and followed that letter with one to the Prime Minister about the case of a young man in my constituency, Elliott Simpson. Sadly, I have not had a response. Elliott was misdiagnosed with a water wart in a telephone consultation with a GP. When Elliott finally got to see someone face to face, he had late-stage skin cancer. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines do not currently allow him to receive the necessary life-saving treatment. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Elliott’s family to discuss what can be done to get this young man the treatment that he desperately needs?; An estimated 117,000 people are reported to have died while on NHS waiting lists. A record 6.6 million people are waiting on the NHS for treatment, and they are in pain and suffering and, in many cases, fearful for their lives. This is a direct consequence of more than a decade of mismanagement and incompetence. What will the new Health Secretary do to give the British people the guarantees that they need to make sure that more do not die while waiting for treatment on the NHS?; [R] I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am asking specifically about intractable epilepsy. Three NHS prescriptions have been written for the appropriate medicine, so we have proven that that can be done and that the medicine can be provided free on the NHS. When can families and friends, who scramble every month to raise thousands of pounds to pay for private prescriptions, reasonably expect to receive this medicine on the NHS?; Today, the Office for National Statistics reports that real pay is dropping at the fastest rate since records began in 2001. However, it is reported that the Government are going to punish our hard-working NHS staff even further by forcing through a real pay cut of between 5% and 6%. Will the Minister please dispel that by confirming that NHS staff will be awarded an inflation-proof pay rise?
Alicia Alexandra Martha Kearns (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to raise the case of 10-year-old Lucas from my constituency, who has a rare form of cancer called DIPG—diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. The only drug that would prolong his life has to come from Germany. The family have raised the funds to pay for the drug, but they are now being charged £530 per shipment in import duty. Will my right hon. Friend please help me to lobby the Treasury for an exemption, because it should not be making money off the back of this poor boy’s lasting difficulties?