Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-06-18
Topic: Health
Questions: Will my hon. Friend take up as a matter of urgency the recommendations of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report on eating disorders treatment, which we have released today to follow up on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report from 2017, named “Ignoring the alarms”? Does she agree with us that too many people are dying from eating disorders, which still have the highest mortality rate of any mental health condition, and that much more must be done to train health professionals, support sufferers and their families, and enhance and accelerate treatment and care in the community?; What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to improve the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, in particular increasing the use of new technologies such as gel spacers, laser ablation and MRI in diagnosis?;   Kensington has an ageing population, many of whom will need residential care at some point, yet our council seems determined to move needy elders out of the borough, far from family and friends. Our last ever council-owned care home was sold off to a provider of caviar care, which lets luxury flats at £300,000 a year, with care, plus caviar, on top, for those who can afford it. Will the Minister explain what, if any, statutory obligations councils are under to provide affordable residential care for their residents? We are not all billionaires in Kensington.; Will the Secretary of State assure my constituents in Kettering that taking advantage of the local government reorganisation in the county to establish a combined health and social care pilot is one of his Department’s very top priorities?; With abortion rates for women over 30 rising, I am sure the Secretary of State will agree with Professor Lesley Regan, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who said:“Women must have access to effective contraception and sexual health services to enable them to take control of their health and fertility by preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.”Does the Secretary of State also agree with Professor Regan’s comments on the need to end the fragmentation of commissioning, and the underfunding of services that disproportionately affect women?; I welcome the successful trial of the new NHS app. How does the Department plan to use APIs to allow third-party developers to improve the app for patients?; In York, it has taken 46 weeks for children and young people to commence the diagnosis process for autism—and demand and the number of referrals is going up. It takes a further 12 months, once there is a positive diagnosis, for parents to even access the SEND—special educational needs and disability—course. Precisely what service improvements can families expect to see in the next 12 months, and how will they be achieved?; There are fears that NHS medical data could be on the table as part of a desperate post-Brexit trade deal with the US on digital services, where patient data would be mined by companies to develop medical technology that would then be sold back to the NHS. What guarantees can the Secretary of State give that private companies will not be profiteering from NHS assets in that way?; Over the weekend, I was contacted by a number of parents of severely disabled children with very distressing news. Up until now they have been receiving five pads a day, because their children, grown up or otherwise, are very severely disabled. However, they have been told by the clinical commissioning group that that has been cut to three. This is incredibly distressing. Some of the parents are on universal credit and the additional cost they will have to pay themselves will be £80 a month. That is unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and representatives of my constituents, the parents of these very disabled children from Eastbourne, so that we can try to sort this out before it really gets out of hand?
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Lady and other colleagues know from having worked on this important issue, we acted swiftly to change the law to make sure that medicinal cannabis was available. Those patients for whom it is clinically appropriate can now be prescribed medicinal cannabis. As she knows, whether to prescribe is a clinical decision, but those prescriptions are available and flowing and are being issued where it is judged clinically appropriate for the patient. We will continue to work on this to make sure we get it right.