argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Hospitals: Listeria — House of Lords, 2019-06-17
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel. He is absolutely right that one reason why such fast action was able to be taken was that it was possible to confirm by whole genome sequencing that cases at Manchester and Liverpool were linked by an identical strain in a week. Previously, that would have taken an awful lot longer, so we can be pleased that action was taken much quicker In terms of lessons learned, the noble Lord is right that we need to look at how to ensure that local authorities undertake inspections and audits of sites that are approved and that we also collect samples every six months and take action on any results of concern. We must make sure that the NHS follows food safety advice from Public Health England and the Food Standards Authority. Public Health England has confirmed that serving sandwiches in hospitals—I apologise. I am going to faint.
Export Licences: High Court Judgment — House of Lords, 2019-06-20
Topic: Defense
James Stopford (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his questions. He refers to the report from my noble friend’s committee; I was aware of it but I have not read it. I know that reports from such committees are highly regarded throughout the country and further afield. I will take back to the department his points on the report, particularly regarding any possible changes to Her Majesty’s Government’s response to it The noble Lord also mentioned the position on extant licences. As I said, we will review all licences in the light of the court’s judgment. He went further, asking about entering into more sales contracts; I do not have an answer for him on that, so I will have to write to him. We are not issuing any new licences but, as the noble Lord will be aware, these licences last for between three and five years, and many licences could have been issued some time ago. Also, many licences do not end up in arms sales.
Huawei — House of Lords, 2019-04-25
Topic: Defense
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): To pick up on the noble Lord’s first point, I do not place a huge amount of importance on the Chinese law that he referred to, which requires companies to co-operate with the Government. If anyone thought beforehand that that law did not exist, they were unwise. On his point about security and the leak, I can only re-emphasise that when security matters are discussed at government level, they should be kept confidential. There is an assessment of that going on at No. 10 at the moment, but I have no details of it because it has not been completed.
NHS Mandate — House of Lords, 2019-04-25
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I refer to the comments by Simon Stevens in the PAC yesterday, when he laid out how he sees the situation for the NHS: "We have an agreed direction in the long-term plan … We have the budget set for the next year, and we have the NHS annual planning process … wrapped up. 2019-20 is … a transition year into stepping into the new five-year long-term plan" As the noble Baroness knows, planning guidance for 2019-20 was updated in January when the long-term plan was published. For all practical purposes, this document sets the decision-making for local NHS decision-makers during this year. The national implementation programme for the long-term plan, which will set the longer-term milestones for delivery of the plan until 2023-24, will be published at the end of this year. The mandate and its accountability framework is an important accountability mechanism and strategy document for the NHS. It is taking longer partly because of the close working of NHSE and NHSI and the transitional nature of this year It is important that this document does come out, for the purposes of strategy and accountability, but it is most important that it is got right. That is why it is taking slightly longer. I look forward to the debate this House will have when it is published. I am sure that the noble Baroness will hold us to account in the usual manner.
NHS Mandate — House of Lords, 2019-04-25
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for his question. I can tell him that, while the accountability framework has not yet been published, it has been decided that it will be a high-level framework that will set two objectives: to ensure the effective delivery of the NHS long-term plan, and to support the Government in managing the effects of EU exit on health and care. Of course, the long-term plan includes improvements to a number of services and this will be followed by the national implementation programme for the long-term plan, which will have milestones for delivery of that plan up to 2023-24. I hope he will be reassured that eye health is included in that. If he would like to follow up specific points with me regarding the concerns his group has raised, I would be very happy to meet him later.
Sri Lanka — House of Lords, 2019-04-24
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord speaks with authoritative experience in this sphere. I would not want to prejudge or pre-empt the investigation which the Sri Lankan Government are now embarked on. We have to leave that to run its course and then, as I said earlier, reflect on its determination and conclusions. On the general question whether it is helpful to share security intelligence, yes, it is. The noble Lord will be aware that that is at the heart of much of our defence policy within this country. That is why we value greatly the alliances and security-sharing relationships which we have, whether it be through NATO, with allies or with our colleagues in the EU.
Saudi Arabia — House of Lords, 2019-04-24
Topic: Defense
Annabel Goldie (Conservative, Centre-right): I respond to the noble Lord by observing that the UK operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world. That includes looking at risks relating to human rights violations as a key part of our assessment against the consolidated criteria. I reassure him that defence exports are under careful and continual review.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baronesses for their contributions. I think the most helpful thing would be for me to talk a little about the next steps in the development of the local plans, which answer a lot of the points that have been raised. A significant engagement exercise went into the development of the implementation framework as it stands. It identified a real desire to deliver on the total breadth of the long-term plan rather than to pick and choose, a request for systems to take into account local needs and the different starting points in order to deal with variability, and a request for help on sequencing: what they should prioritise and where they should start from The framework seeks to address these issues and asks the systems to develop the five-year plans, which they will implement over this period. It also sets out the approach to STPs and ICSs, which are asked to develop their strategic plans by November, covering the period from now until 2023. By the end of the year they will be aggregated as part of the national implementation plan. As has been noted, that will take into account the Government’s spending review decisions on workforce education training. Social care will be part of it, and it will also play into the upcoming publication of the prevention Green Paper and the social care Green Paper. Relevant decisions will also need to be made about public health and capital investment, as set out in the Statement There are key points that need to be taken into account. The NHS has been asked to ensure that these are clinically-led plans and that they are locally owned, so that communities can have meaningful input; that there is realistic workforce planning—the people plan will be part of that process; and that the plans are financially balanced, because that is the only way we can ensure genuine delivery of the long-term plan and that the concerns raised by both noble Baronesses are taken into account.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness, as ever, asks a very perspicacious question. She will know that as part of the GP contract negotiations, pensions and other issues were raised, and are still under discussion. Similarly, issues around secondary care doctors are in discussions with the Treasury. These discussions are quite technical but the issues are under consideration. I am unable to give her a complete answer now, only to tell her that we are very alive to the issue and trying to find a way through.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very important to pay tribute to the extraordinary work that NHS staff are doing across the system and in the wider healthcare system—we should thank them for that. The noble Lord is right that there is great financial stress in the system. A lot of work has gone into trying to alleviate it. That is why the NHS is one of the few parts of the public health system which received a significant increase in the £22 billion increase As for the public health system, training and the capital and social care investment, this will be part of the SR negotiations. I am sure the noble Lord will be aware that the Department of Health and Social Care will be making a strong case for increasing those parts of the system, because we believe it needs to increase just as much as he does.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Lucy Neville-Rolfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have two questions for my noble friend. First, I very much welcome the inclusion in the plan of a section on improving productivity. My experience is that the best way to improve productivity is the intelligent application of additional capital, and not just, to quote from page 29, "its better use". Picking up on some of the comments already made, may I ask the Minister how the NHS will make a step change in providing or attracting, and using, capital within the system Secondly, a huge medium-term threat is antibiotic resistance, which gets the briefest mention on page 15. Is there a plan to nail this as part of the approach to improving the NHS?
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend for a very important question. We have just published our new plan to tackle antibiotic resistance; it is an incredibly sophisticated proposal. We have already had some success in bringing down antibiotic use in humans and animals, but there is still a significant way to go, as antibiotic-resistant infections within the system are still rising. That is why we cannot relent in our ambitions, and why it is so important that the commitment to implement that strategy is in the long-term plan and the implementation plan. Although it has a brief mention, there is a whole strategy that it refers to, and it is comprehensive, so I am optimistic about that part On intelligent application of capital and ensuring that it increases productivity, my noble friend is right. That is partly why there is such a focus on ensuring that there is a radical reshaping of how the NHS delivers health and care using technology: so that services and users can benefit from the advances, and so that we can have a democratisation of information, which will be one of the key ways that we will manage demand and ensure that the NHS is sustainable.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): As ever, the right reverend Prelate is insightful in his question. He is right that although we have made a lot of progress in improving services, we were coming from a low base. One of the challenges is not understanding why there is such an increase in the challenges we face. This is why the NIHR has dramatically increased the amount of funding it provides to mental health research, and why other important organisations, such as the Wellcome Trust, are prioritising mental health research as a matter of urgency.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness has communicated an important message and it is one reason why we have prioritised perinatal mental healthcare. Specifically, services for young girls, who are particularly at risk of self-harm and suicide, recognise this risk. I would be interested to see the findings of the task force she mentions to ensure that those concerns are communicated.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, is right to raise the importance of this. If we want to get innovative technologies and treatments to patients as soon as possible, we must ensure that we are one of the fastest in the world at regulating and assessing those technologies. However, it is also a matter of uptake. We have dramatically improved that process but we can and must always strive to do better. This is part of my job and I will make sure that I keep working harder at it.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Bernard Francisco Ribeiro (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome the development of the five new medical schools that are going onstream. Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to be at Chelmsford when the Duke of Kent opened the Anglia Ruskin University medical school. But it is quite clear that a lot of medical graduates are leaving the profession, for whatever reason. There is also good evidence that those who come in at graduate entry last the distance a lot better than those who perhaps come in much younger. Your Lordships may ask, "Where is the evidence for that?" What efforts are being made to look into why people are giving up medicine early, and what is the possibility of increasing the number of graduate entries?
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend for his question. The core of the work my noble friend Lady Harding is doing is to analyse recruitment and retention patterns in the health service, obviously not just among core clinicians but across the whole system, to identify best practice for improving the workplace environment to recruit and retain. I am not sure whether she has done specific work on the difference between direct entry and graduate entry but I will be happy to find out for my noble friend.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord raises two hugely significant issues, which probably deserve a full debate. On clinicians and NHS systems being prepared to respond most effectively to those facing terminal illness, and their families, we have improved but there is much more to do—not just for the health service but for us all as a society. We need to become more open and comfortable with discussing that; some work has been done but more is needed. On mental health services providing support for families as well as individuals, we are still some way from where we would like to be but it is recognised as something that needs to be done.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Caroline Chisholm (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I want to ask my noble friend the Minister about GPs’ training in mental health. I think it has been acknowledged that when parents take their children to the GP, quite often that is for a physical ailment but it turns out that the child could have a mental problem. It is difficult for GPs to pick that up, perhaps partly because of a lack of training and partly because they have only 10 minutes to see the child.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend raises a hugely important issue. We are seeing an improvement in the quality of training for GPs; the RCGP has been playing an important role in this, especially in raising specialist areas such as perinatal mental healthcare through the champions that it spreads through its system. We are seeing the impact on the ground, with CCGs meeting the mental health investment standard and rolling out specific access waiting times, so it is having an impact. But there is always more to do and the royal colleges have a specific role to play in raising awareness and the quality of training.
NHS Long-term Plan — House of Lords, 2019-07-01
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord and he is absolutely right, which is exactly why one of the core priorities in the long-term plan is the creation of integrated care systems, so that there can be a holistic approach to health while recognising that a lot of ill health is driven by social determinants. If we do not address what are often perverse incentives within healthcare systems, we will not be able to address the problems that we all know have been experienced through multiple Governments and generations. In addition, in the prevention Green Paper we have already announced a desire to bring in much more social prescribing, making it much easier for general practitioners and others within the system to address some of those wider challenges that lead to ill health and transform the system. We have already seen some fantastic pioneers of social prescribing transform the healthcare in their area, such as those in Tower Hamlets, and we want to see that thriving across the country.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: Health
Caroline Chisholm (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I cannot agree with these amendments. As we pointed out during the progression of the Bill, we live in a global world, with more people travelling internationally for all kinds of reasons. There is obviously a huge demand for healthcare systems between countries, giving the traveller peace of mind that the foreign country they are in can respond to healthcare needs As was also mentioned, we already have simple reciprocal agreements with non-EU countries. The domestic implications are limited, and our current powers to charge domestic overseas visitors, and the regulations under such powers, provide for domestic implementation. Importantly—
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: Health
Caroline Chisholm (Conservative, Centre-right): No, let me finish. The Bill will not replace or limit the prerogative power to enter into international healthcare agreements. My understanding is that agreements will still be subject to appropriate parliamentary scrutiny It is surely right for us to take advantage of the Bill and look at the opportunities it can offer us. We are not trying to shoehorn something dastardly into it. It could offer all kinds of things. It seems to me that planning ahead is a refreshing thing to do. Many of the arguments raised have nothing to do with protecting or giving peace of mind to travellers. As a nurse, my main priority will always be those needing care. The Bill allows them reciprocal healthcare outside the EU and just that. Should there be a Division, I hope that noble Lords will keep in mind those people who, under the Bill, will be able to travel globally with renewed peace of mind about their healthcare.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: Health
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, although I do not agree with it, a lot of scepticism about the scope of the Bill has been eloquently expressed at every stage of the debate on this group of amendments so far. However, I remind noble Lords of the human consequences of restricting the Bill in the way proposed by these amendments. I think we all agree in general on the benefits of reciprocal healthcare agreements—many noble Lords have paid testament to those—and we all want to see continuity of arrangements with the EEA and Switzerland. So far, so good. However, we have also debated and agreed in principle—in Committee, at Second Reading and in this group—on the desirability of having such arrangements with more countries. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, talked in Committee about the opportunities of travelling to the USA, which people with long-term conditions can no longer do because they are now uninsured Let us be very clear what is at stake. Accepting the amendments in this group would mean that we miss out on a golden opportunity to achieve a shared goal. What are the reasons for that? I do not agree with them, but very good reasons have been given about the kind of procedure and scrutiny that ought to be applied to the new reciprocal healthcare arrangements that we may strike with countries outside the EEA and Switzerland. This is not a disagreement about the principle of having such arrangements; it is a disagreement about the process of agreeing such arrangements. However, the consequence of these amendments is not to deal with these issues by changing procedure, scrutiny and process, but instead to strike them out on principle. That does not seem to me the right approach to very well substantiated and perfectly reasonable, but ultimately procedural, concerns. By changing the Bill in this way, we will lose the opportunity to deepen relationships with key partners such as New Zealand and Australia, as my noble friend Lord Ribeiro said. We will miss out on the opportunity to give people with long-term medical conditions the chance to travel outside the EEA to visit family or to work, and for young people to broaden their experiences. We will miss out on the opportunity to deepen—
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: Health
Robin Bridgeman (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am privileged to follow my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, and I am sure that Peers from all sides of the House will have been impressed by the thoughtful letter which the Minister has sent to us all. In it, there are a number of concessions, which will be subject to later amendments in this debate. The insertion of a sunset clause is a valuable safeguard, as are the requirements that arrangements are limited to a public authority, and the statutory duty to report to Parliament on an annual basis. All of these are important concessions. Finally, on the Henry VIII clause, the Minister’s letter refers to removing the powers in the Bill to make regulations containing consequential amendments to primary legislation. Individual healthcare waits for nobody.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: Health
Andrew Lansley (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend will forgive me if I ask for a point of clarification. If Amendment 9 is passed, after the sunset clause is implemented, powers could only be made in relation to a healthcare agreement. However, Clause 3 says that a healthcare agreement can concern either healthcare provided outside the United Kingdom and paid for by the United Kingdom, or healthcare provided in the United Kingdom with another country paying. It does not require reciprocity. Is that quite the restriction my noble friend was suggesting, since it could still be unilateral, not reciprocal?