argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Health
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): The NHS was established to provide equal rights to healthcare, free at the point of delivery, irrespective of income or personal health. Yet as we emerge from the pandemic in praise of the NHS, this Bill is yet another step towards dismantling and privatising the system With the highest vaccination rates, thanks to the NHS, England also has the highest infection rate of the delta variant, thanks to the Government going into lockdown too late and coming out too soon. With 128,000 people dead, 695,000 currently have the covid variant and there are record waiting lists. The Government should be investing in more capacity now—in the workforce and in beds. They should be reinstating the 12,000 empty beds. Instead, the Government are putting £10 billion into the private sector over four years, with the framework contract, when the private sector has only 8,000 beds in total. Doctors will have to leave NHS hospitals to go to private hospitals, further disrupting NHS services Coming out of the pandemic, we need a healthcare Bill that re-energises the NHS and rewards our nurses and doctors who saved the country from calamity. Instead, this Bill allows private health companies to sit on boards, deciding where the NHS funding is spent. It allows further outsourcing, opening the door to more taxpayers’ money being siphoned off to the profits of private contractors. The NHS is being fragmented. Talk of patient choice is disingenuous, as funds must be transferred in the internal market, so it is a postcode lottery. There has not been patient choice in England since the internal market was introduced In contrast, in Wales, the Labour Government continues with a planned system that has delivered the highest vaccination rate in the world and a 90% effective test, track and isolate system, wholly delivered by the public sector through councils and health authorities. Wales has a lower death rate over a five-year average—13% in Wales vs. 20% in England, despite Wales’s older population. There is public procurement in place of crony contracts to Tory donors Wales has shown that public money is used most effectively in the NHS by public sector delivery, so more people are treated equally, irrespective of income and personal health, true to Aneurin Bevan’s founding principles. Instead, the Bill is a back door for United States companies, via trade deals, to further break up our system, on the road to health insurance, which hits the poorest and sickest hardest This is a rotten Bill. It is bad for Britain’s health, bad for our wealth and bad for our most treasured achievement —our NHS.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Health
Bellavia Janet Ribeiro-Addy (Labour, Centre-left): This month we marked the 73rd birthday of the NHS, and instead of celebrating it and giving it the homage that it deserves—the NHS, one of the very best things about our country—the Government have introduced a Bill that looks set to ramp up their long-standing attempts to continue to privatise it. I was proud to add my name to the reasoned amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) because we do not need private healthcare companies to sit on boards deciding how NHS funding is spent, further outsourcing of contracts without proper scrutiny, transparency and accountability, or the introduction of a model of healthcare that incentivises cuts and the closure of services Forcing NHS staff to implement yet another top-down Conservative reorganisation would take people away from the task of tackling growing treatment lists and coping with rapidly rising covid cases. We need to fill our 84,000 vacancies, and we need a 15% pay rise across the board for our NHS staff. It is hard to see how ordering a reorganisation such as this while ignoring calls for increased funding and a plan for social care could be anything other than disastrous This corporate takeover Bill—which is exactly what it is—will put private companies at the heart of the NHS and pave the way to sell off our confidential health data to multinational corporations. Nobody wants that. It will normalise the corrupt contracting that we have seen during the pandemic. The money that we spend on our healthcare should go to the services that we need, not to the pockets of Conservative party donors or corporate shareholders. Over the path of the pandemic, we have seen what this outsourcing and privatisation has meant in practice. Contract after contract awarded without competitive process. People being failed. Failing contracts. Delivery failed on again and again. Now the Government want to open up new ways for that to happen, just as they have done throughout the pandemic Let us consider what happened with Track and Trace, which was a complete disaster in the hands of Serco. The system has been so ineffective that, recently, MPs concluded that it had "no clear impact"—a £37 billion system with no clear impact. After a decade of cuts, it was our NHS and its staff and volunteers who led the vaccination roll-out. That was a success, but it was their success, not the Government’s success. That is a lesson that we can learn about exactly what happens when we give the NHS the funding it needs, but the Bill does nothing to do that. We do not need more overpaid consultants involved the NHS; we need to value the staff we already have, and put in the investment that made the vaccination programme a massive success. We must be clear—
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-07-14
Topic: Health
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): I pay tribute to everyone working in health and social care and to unpaid family carers. All of them have gone above and beyond in their caring roles during the pandemic. The Government’s response to that could have been to give NHS staff a proper pay rise, to publish plans to put social care on a sustainable financial footing, or to recognise fully the tremendous contribution made by unpaid carers. Instead we have this Bill, and a top-down reorganisation of the NHS that will concentrate power in the hands of the Secretary of State, offering no guarantees of better outcomes for patients and removing rights from carers It is welcome that the Bill brings an end to every NHS contract having to be put out to tender and that some changes in the Bill reference unpaid carers, but further changes are needed. Change is needed to put a duty on the NHS to have regard to carers and to promote their health and wellbeing. It is welcome that the Bill includes a duty on both NHS England and the integrated care boards to consult carers, but rather than just involve and consult them in relation to patients, the duty that is needed is for the NHS to consider carers in their own right, as proposed by the Health and Social Care Committee in its report It is worrying that the Bill undermines carers’ rights in relation to hospital discharge. Clause 78 removes carers’ fundamental rights by removing the need to assess a patient at the point of hospital discharge. The way that is done removes carers’ fundamental right to have an assessment to ensure services are provided to make sure the patient is safe to discharge into their care. This is an issue, as Carers UK quotes research showing that only 26% of carers were consulted about discharge and that a third were consulted only at the last minute The Bill proposes to extend the Care Quality Commission’s remit to cover the delivery of social care services. However, that excludes social care provided through NHS continuing healthcare. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found last year that people continue to be seriously let down by failings in how continuing healthcare is delivered. I ask the Minister to agree with the Continuing Healthcare Alliance that there should be an additional duty on the CQC to assess integrated care systems’ delivery of their continuing healthcare duties and to hold them to account where these duties are not being met The Care Quality Commission will have a remit to rate local authorities’ delivery of social care, but when £9 billion has been taken out of social care budgets and long-term reform is consistently delayed, the Government should recognise that inadequate social care services are a problem of their own making Finally, I question the timing of the Bill. Staff are exhausted and are facing another wave of covid infections over the summer. I urge the Secretary of State to recognise that and adjust the timeframes for implementing these reforms so that they do not end up distracting from the NHS’s real job of caring for patients.
Mandatory Vaccine Passports — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Questions: With reference to his Department's “COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021”, if his Department will publish scientific evidence in support of the efficacy of mandatory vaccine passports.
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): In his evaluation, has the Minister looked at the experience of a number of European countries where this is happening and British holidaymakers and visitors are using the system without any detriment? Has he looked at the views of Scotland and Wales, which are introducing certificates? Can he assure the House of his view that in the event of its looking as though this may be necessary, it must be better to have vaccine passes than once again locking down the hospitality, entertainment and leisure industries, given the impact not only on customers but on hundreds of thousands of jobs?
Office for Veterans’ Affairs — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Defense
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): It is about more than just money, as the Minister has just said, and that support is absolutely crucial for veterans all the time, but particularly at this moment as we come out of the pandemic. Research by the charity SSAFA has found that 77% of the veterans it works with felt that they were not fully prepared for civilian life. This is clearly an area in which we need to do more work, so can he set out precisely what the Ministry of Defence is doing in working with charities such as SSAFA to prepare veterans for civilian life?
Infected Blood Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister to his new post. May I also join him in thanking the previous Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), for all that she did to ensure that the cause of those infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal was at the heart of the work she carried out As the Paymaster General said, we are three years into the NHS infected blood inquiry, and at the start of the new review into compensation for those infected and affected. Will he say something, though, about what is happening to the bereaved partner payments that were announced in March, and about whether he is willing to look at the inconsistencies that still apply to bereaved partners and their families?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I join in welcoming the right hon. Member to his new post Whereas the NHS infected blood scandal was the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, the covid pandemic has been the biggest public health disaster in a century. In March 2020, the chief scientific adviser said if the UK could keep covid deaths below 20,000 that would be a "good result", and now of course there have been more than 135,000. If the covid public inquiry, which we understand will not start until next year, is to be a genuine attempt to look at the rights and wrongs of what happened, will frontline staff in the healthcare and social care sectors be involved in setting the terms of reference?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Questions: I was very pleased to hear the comments from the Minister earlier on small businesses securing Government contracts. I have been contacted by a number of businesses in Warrington—specifically, one that installs street charging for electric vehicles and another that supplies CO2 monitors to schools. Both are trying to secure business from Government, but they have had no response from the procurement teams. Can he advise businesses in Warrington and across the country on how best to approach Government?
Fleur Anderson (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your chairing of the G7 Speakers conference and welcome the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the team to their places. The next pandemic or major disaster could happen tomorrow. We have to learn our lessons from this pandemic and be much better prepared for it happening again. The covid-19 national foresight group has been capturing these live lessons, and it has concluded that a "strong and persistent theme" has been the "lack of strategy and shared plan" in the Government’s response. Its recommendations have spent nine months gathering dust. Will the Minister commit to implementing its recommendations, and would he meet the group?
Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister rightly recognises the toll on the mental health of children in this country over the past year. In Waltham Forest, many schools dug deep and paid for external counselling services for the children and are now facing big gaps in their budgets. Having said how important it is that no school in this country should be out of pocket, will the Minister commit today to fully reimburse those schools for the cost of counselling over the past 18 months to help our children get through the pandemic?
Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): As the Minister rightly acknowledged, the need for mental health support for young people has risen significantly during the pandemic, yet providers of that support such as the fantastic charity TADS in Barnsley are struggling to access funding. I acknowledge his commitment to funding, but how will he ensure that it gets to the frontline? What can he do to help charities such as the one that I represent?
Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Olivia Frances Blake Dagnall (Labour, Centre-left): Does the hon. Member share a concern that has been raised with me by midwives—that the term "continuity of carer" has been misinterpreted by some trusts, with multiple midwives seeing people in their early appointments to increase the chance that that person will see the same midwife in hospital?
Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Olivia Frances Blake Dagnall (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for highlighting counselling, which is such an important issue. Does he accept that the quadrupled risk of suicide among people who experience miscarriage should be taken into consideration in suicide prevention work?
Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): We have been pushing the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to make sure that pregnant women are a priority group. Will the Minister give a commitment today that pregnant women will be a priority group in any booster programme?
Baby Loss Awareness Week — House of Commons, 2021-09-23
Topic: Health
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I wish to raise a specific point about covid that I learned of from an obstetric consultant: the number of preemie births dramatically dropped during covid because women were at home. It was a doctor from Reading who told me this. He had to be dispatched somewhere else in the NHS because his services in dealing with premature babies were no longer needed as the number had dropped so greatly because women were at home. Will that form part of the strategy, to make sure that in terms of baby loss we are looking after women throughout their pregnancies?
Covid-19: Public Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): I join the Secretary of State in congratulating Stevie Clarke and the whole Scotland team on cheering up a nation over the past 10 days or so. As we said in the 1970s, we had a dream. That dream died, unfortunately, last night, and it will now have to wait until Qatar next year for the World cup In recent weeks we have heard scathing criticisms from the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser about the UK Government’s covid response, which has no doubt cost many lives. We have even learned that the PM described his Health Secretary as "hopeless". Most recently, their dither and delay in securing the borders of the UK has resulted in restrictions continuing beyond the initial date. Sadly, the people of Scotland have also been failed by the choices of the Scottish Government. We know from a recent freedom of information reply that the Scottish chief medical officer advised the Scottish Government to say nothing at all in response to the Edinburgh Nike conference outbreak last March. The Scottish public were kept in the dark. These are just some of the major issues, which include the two we have heard about from my hon. Friends this morning. Will the Government agree with calls for an urgent separate Scottish judge-led public inquiry into both Governments’ management of covid-19 in Scotland so that we can learn the lessons of covid and the grieving families can get the answers they so deserve?
Covid-19: Public Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): I am tempted to ask the Minister if he has ever filled any of London’s fountains with Fairy liquid, but that can maybe be kept for private discussion. [Interruption.] Exactly—only for cleansing purposes One of the most frustrating elements for many people is the inconsistency of the decisions that have been made. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has rightly criticised the First Minister both for mimicking the arrogance of the Prime Minister by failing to contact the Manchester authorities before announcing a travel ban and for its inconsistencies. Cases remain lower than they are in Dundee, yet Dundonians can travel all over Scotland while those living in Bolton, for example, are effectively banned from travelling to Scotland at all These varying decisions are having a devastating impact on key sectors. Take the wedding sector, for example. Yesterday I was contacted by a constituent whose wedding in Edinburgh is limited to 50 guests but will travel to London the following week to a wedding where guests are unlimited, and she was at the Glasgow fan zone last week with 3,000 other supporters. She is deeply frustrated, and I am sure the Minister can understand her anger. So does he agree that any covid inquiry should examine the consequences that have resulted from the refusal of both Governments to work together?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Bellavia Janet Ribeiro-Addy (Labour, Centre-left): When the covid-19 pandemic exploded, scientists warned that with rapid transmission more dangerous variants would emerge and that vaccines could lose efficacy in the face of mutations. Now variant upon variant has sparked surge testing, further lockdowns and the recent delay to the end of restrictions, with 41 people already reported to have the more virulent delta-plus variant. The Prime Minister held his vaccine donation as putting people squarely above profit, but that is lousy in the face of the fact that intellectual property is driving global supply shortages. Does he therefore understand why it is no use for the G7 to promise 1 billion doses at some point in the future when people are dying now, and when the success of our vaccination programme is under threat from emerging variants now? Will he reconsider his negligible vaccine donation policy and join over 100 countries in supporting the vaccine intellectual property waiver?
Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): When I was a care worker, I was lucky enough to work alongside care workers from across the world. We know the sacrifices that all care workers have made during the pandemic and how care home residents were put at risk by the Government’s covid response. There has now been over a decade of empty promises. When will there be a plan for social care that offers more for these heroes than just a badge, some bin bags for PPE and a failure of an NHS boss in waiting who does not value the efforts of overseas healthcare workers?
Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Instead of bringing forward plans to fix the social care crisis as the Prime Minister has promised, the Government intend to put in place a legal framework for a discharge to assess model, whereby NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care assessments can take place after an individual has been discharged from acute care, instead of before. The Government have told me that an independent evaluation of the implementation of the hospital discharge policy is currently under way, and that it is due to report this autumn. Will the Minister tell us why the Government are pressing ahead with this policy, despite not yet fully understanding the impact that it is having on patients and unpaid carers?
Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Matthew Raymond Western (Labour, Centre-left): From providers to staff to those cared for, the sector really feels abandoned, and has been abandoned, by the Government during the pandemic. In Warwickshire, we have lost 347 people during the past year or so. We have heard that two years ago the country was promised by the Prime Minister an oven-ready plan. There was nothing. Globally, we are the sixth wealthiest country. Other, less prosperous nations have resolved the issue. Why cannot we, and when will the Government publish their plan?
Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): If we are truly to see the full integration of health and social care, that will require us also to see the full integration of the funding of health and social care—free at the point of need, contributed by all. When the Minister brings forward her proposals, will she ensure that that is an option we can consider? Will she bring forward those proposals ahead of debating the health and care Bill, so we actually know what we are trying to debate in that piece of legislation before talking about social care?
Social Care Reform — House of Commons, 2021-06-23
Topic: Health
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister’s responses today further confirm that social care and the millions who rely on it are simply not a priority for her or this Government. It was recently reported that the Minister leaned on Public Health England to alter its proposed advice to care homes in the pandemic, from ensuring that those discharged from hospital tested negative for covid to not requiring any testing of patients at all. That led to more than 30,000 deaths. Will she take this opportunity to apologise to those who lost loved ones?