argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): I will check and follow up with the noble Lord in writing, but I know that having the lead in place means that they can then be the person to whom other staff in the school can go and with whom they can interact, to get guidance and help shape the school’s approach. It is not for the lead to be singly responsible, but they can get training that can then inform other staff as well I was just coming on to say that we have put funding in place. Our aim is that all schools will have a lead in place. More than 8,000 schools and colleges in England, including half of all state-funded secondary schools, have taken up this training offer so far. We recently confirmed further grants to offer training to two-thirds of schools and colleges by March 2023, with the ambition that, by 2025, all state-funded primary and secondary schools, as well as colleges, will have had the funding made available to train a senior mental health lead In addition to training for senior mental health leads, there are also the mental health teams to which I referred. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, asked for an update on our progress in delivering these. They currently cover 26% of pupils in schools and further education. Our ambition was to cover 25% by next year so we have already met that ambition; indeed, we have raised it to cover 35% of pupils in England by next year More broadly, when those specialist teams are in place, they need to be able to refer students to more specialist support where needed. That involves more money going into children’s mental health. I can confirm to noble Lords that there is record NHS funding for children’s mental health services. It will grow faster than the overall NHS budget and faster than adult mental health spending in the coming years. There is more to do, but increased funding and priority are being given to this issue by the Government, not just in schools but in the NHS where those specialist services need to be delivered I am grateful for the opportunity to set out again the priority the Government are giving to this issue, the progress we are seeking to make and the approach we think is right to support schools in supporting the mental health of their pupils. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will withdraw her amendment.
Pharmacy (Responsible Pharmacists, Superintendent Pharmacists etc.) Order 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-06-28
Topic: Health
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing forward the order before us today. I am interested to understand the background to why we are moving from ministerial discretion to regulated control. I think my noble friend will assure the House this afternoon that the concerns raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee have been addressed and that any changes will be brought forward by statutory instrument, in which case the committee and the House will have the opportunity to look at them. I join the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend, in paying tribute to community pharmacies for the work that they have done throughout the years, and particularly during the Covid pandemic What will the position of dispensing doctors be, who fulfil a role where community pharmacies do not reach? Quite a large network of rural areas is served by dispensing doctors. As the daughter and the sister of dispensing doctors, and as someone doing outside work with dispensing doctors, I think it is appropriate that we look at how they are potentially being asked, for example, to deliver a booster jab this autumn at the same time as the flu jab. That will pose enormous logistical challenges for community pharmacies, dispensing doctors and others. How do my noble friend and his department expect to address those challenges so that the rollout will go as smoothly in the autumn—particularly if it is combined with a flu jab—as it did in the previous three or four rounds?
Pharmacy (Responsible Pharmacists, Superintendent Pharmacists etc.) Order 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-06-28
Topic: Health
Michael Ian Grade (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the health or otherwise of independent community pharmacies can be judged by the rate of closures, which has been increasing over the last few years for a number of reasons, not least the overall deal with the NHS. That deal requires, for example, an individually owned community pharmacy to be deemed to have received the same discount on the purchase of drugs that Boots and the other big chains get on volume discounts. There is a serious crisis in this sector. Can my noble friend the Minister give us some idea of the rate of closure? If he does not have the statistics today, perhaps he could place them in the Library. Closure is an upward trend.
Draft Mental Health Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-28
Topic: Health
Caroline Chisholm (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, talked about patients being detained for too long, particularly those who have been sectioned. My right honourable friend Jeremy Hunt MP, down the other end, talked yesterday about how it would be good to put something in the Bill to say that those who had been sectioned had to be re-evaluated fortnightly, or at least monthly. This is a very good idea, because we know that there are problems with people, particularly those in the autistic community, who are detained for far longer than need be. Could my noble friend the Minister make sure that this is brought up in Bill meetings? I hope that it could go in the Bill.
Heatwave Response — House of Lords, 2022-07-21
Topic: Health
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): As ever, the noble Viscount speaks wise words. I shall take back what he said. The reality is that, despite the pressures that there were in various places, the NHS emergency call handlers dealt with record numbers of calls to 999. All those public servants involved have done an outstanding job. One thing that helped was that the advance warning process worked very well, and people were able to prepare. Indeed, the weather forecasters take a bit of a pasting in this country—it is a favourite pub conversation—but I think that they did pretty well on this occasion, enabling everyone to be put on the right footing. However, I agree with the noble Viscount that there are issues that do not necessarily always come to the forefront, and all of them must be swept in and considered as we prepare for future similar events. I have no doubt about that.
Heatwave Response — House of Lords, 2022-07-21
Topic: Health
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I can hear some chuckling about the 40 new hospitals, but I have no doubt that those facilities will be built and must be built. Setting the chuckling aside, the serious question put by the noble Lord is one that I shall take away and seek advice on. Obviously, it is not my department that is supervising that, but the noble Lord makes an important point, and I shall report back to him on it We must be responsive to the challenge of climate change. However, we must not forget that there are other challenges at the other end of the spectrum. We also need to continue to protect elderly people against the effects of cold in winter. It is very easy to obsess about extreme heat now, and rightly so, but other dangers also lurk in the natural world that we inhabit.
Women’s Health Strategy for England — House of Lords, 2022-07-21
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s work in this area and campaigning on this issue, and to the chairs of the pregnancy loss review, Samantha Collinge and Zoe Clark-Coates. That review’s work is still ongoing, but we were able to pick up an interim recommendation from it to allow us to start work on the introduction of the certificate. I believe the NHS will implement this and is undertaking the appropriate scoping work to make sure we get the implementation right. That will be taken forward as soon as it can.
Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev — House of Lords, 2022-07-07
Topic: Defense
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): As the noble Lord will know from his own detailed experience and insights on national security matters, all agencies take a very robust attitude in terms of ensuring full scrutiny. As I have already said, the Prime Minister will write to the Liaison Committee on the broader issues that the noble Lord has raised. I am sure the noble Lord will also realise from his own experience of being a very senior Minister that, yes, there are rules and obligations that we as Ministers have to adhere to. I mentioned previously the issue of integrity, and it is for all of us, whether we are Ministers, or in your Lordships’ House or in the other place, to uphold them—and equally, where there are meetings which take place, that they are minuted or documented to allow for an assessment of records. Let us await the response from my right honourable friend, and I am sure there will be details provided in that.
NATO Accession: Sweden and Finland — House of Lords, 2022-07-07
Topic: Defense
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, just for clarity, I should say that I said that we were on track to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade. I agree with the noble Lord: one of the points emphasised during the meetings with our NATO partners was to ensure that other countries do not just talk about it but put their money behind their commitments. The UK has continued to commit itself fully and will continue to meet its obligations under NATO.
NATO Accession: Sweden and Finland — House of Lords, 2022-07-07
Topic: Defense
Tariq Ahmad (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord on his first point on the border issue. Any country bordering Russia has concerns at the moment—I visited Estonia, which is part and parcel of NATO but, notwithstanding that, it has concerns. Indeed, to broaden that point, there are other countries, and the noble Lord will know of the key votes taken at the UN when this war was first initiated. We saw strong support—a vote of 141—but also a series of abstentions. However, some of those abstentions were what I would term qualified abstentions. There are many countries on the borders of Russia that are concerned, and they have their own Russian-speaking minorities. On the issue of defence spending, I hear the insight and expertise that the noble Lord provides in this regard and I will certainly share that with my colleagues at the Ministry of Defence. I agree with him on the principle that we need our defence forces to be fully aligned to the challenges of 2022 and also to play a bolstered leadership role within the alliances that we are part of—NATO is a central one.
Contaminated Blood Scandal: Interim Payments for Victims — House of Lords, 2022-07-20
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Sanderson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, we all agree that the victims of the infected blood scandal have waited far too long for justice. Interim payments are important but, as my noble friend has said, many other elements of the inquiry are important too, not least the official recognition it gives people of what they have been through, through no fault of their own, and the chance for all those infected and affected finally to be heard. Would my noble friend agree that, in this, Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry is fulfilling an essential role that had been ignored by many Governments for many decades previously?
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given to an Urgent Question asked in the House of Commons today. "Our ambulance service performs heroics every single day, and I put on the record my thanks to every single one of them for all their dedication and hard work. We have a duty to support this vital service and give it the resources and support it needs The latest figures from the NHS in England show that ambulance service response time performance has improved month on month, and that ambulance hours lost are also improving month on month. However, we fully acknowledge the rising pressures facing the service, and there are three significant factors influencing these. First, bed occupancy is currently around 93%, which we would normally see around wintertime. We know there are high rates of Covid admissions in hospital—that is either people ‘with Covid’ or ‘because of Covid’—and that puts pressure on A&Es’ ability to admit patients. We are roughly running on void beds of around 1,200 and part of this is because of the 16% increase in the length of stays. We also have pressures of delayed discharges: they remain flat, but a significant influence. We also have record numbers of calls to the ambulance service—100,000 more today compared with last year—so there is significant pressure on the system We also have to be mindful of the weather in the coming days. We have the Heatwave Plan for England, which was published earlier this year, and the hot weather plans that NHS trusts are able to put in place. We have also been providing sector-specific guidance setting out the best ways to protect people who might be at risk. As well as this specific support for hot weather, we are doing everything in our power to support the ambulance system more widely to make sure that it has the resilience it needs. We have allocated £150 million of extra funding to respond to ambulance service pressures in 2022-23, and we are boosting the workforce too. The number of national 999 call handlers had risen to nearly 2,300 at the start of June, which is a considerable increase on the previous September, and Health Education England has been mandated to train 3,000 paramedic graduates nationally per year during 2021 to 2024. On top of this, we have invested £50 million in NHS 111 in England for 2022-23 to give this vital service extra capacity, helping us to reduce demand on the ambulance service I will be meeting ambulance trusts over the coming days to make sure that we have the capacity and the resilience not just for these important few days but for the winter months too. This is an important issue that we are taking extremely seriously, and we will keep the House updated as the situation develops."
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, there are well-established and well-practised co-ordination and escalation procedures in place to manage cross-system and cross-government impacts at all levels. These are activated when appropriate and on the basis of subsidiarity. UKHSA public health advice is being regularly updated and communicated for everyone to stay safe in the heat. As noble Lords will know, today the UKHSA and the Met Office have announced that all nine English regions will be under a level 3 heat alert from Saturday 16 to Tuesday 19 July. The heat alert system runs during the summer. Depending on the level of alert, a response will be triggered to communicate the risk to the NHS, government and public health systems. Advice and information for the public and health and social care professionals, particularly those working with at-risk groups, are provided, including both general preparation for hot weather and more specific advice when a severe heatwave has been forecast.
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as the noble Lord will know very well, we have put increased funding into our social care system, but we also have in place a national discharge task force to drive further progress and support regional and local system arrangements. That has membership from local government, the NHS and national government. Local health and social care partners are already standing up the use of additional action to support discharge and improve patient flow. The task force is looking at a number of interventions—for example, identifying patients needing complex discharge support early and ensuring multidisciplinary engagement in the early discharge plan. There is more support going into social care, but there is also a specific piece of work with the national discharge task force.
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am not sure that the Government are responsible for Covid. The pressures that we have seen on ambulances have come since the pandemic; we were seeing a much more effective ambulance service prior to that. But we need to fix that so, as well as the specific action that we are taking to improve resources in ambulances, including more staff, more call handlers and more funding into the 111 service, we also have a long-term plan for the NHS that is putting record funding into the NHS. We have also created integrated care boards to ensure integration between health and social care in local areas.
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency — House of Lords, 2022-07-13
Topic: Health
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I know that both the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England have a strong working relationship with the organisations that the noble Viscount has mentioned. On the detail of that work in terms of the heat health alert, I will have to write to him.
National Security and Investment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-04-15
Topic: Defense
Gerald Grimstone (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Lord for that point. It is hard to give a black-and-white answer, because it would depend of course on the circumstances. Let us remind ourselves what the difference is. The export control regime, which is the licensing regime for certain controlled goods, is one important part of the safeguarding of our national security, and, of course, it sits well alongside the national security and investment regime. The two regimes are distinct and do not perform the same role. To give an example to clarify that, the export control regime does not provide the Government with the ability to scrutinise acquisitions of UK companies or the ability to direct the use of sensitive assets used in the UK, whereas the NSI regime would. In a nutshell, the precedence between these two regimes must and will depend on the circumstances that are being covered.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-05-13
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the Government, the Vaccine Taskforce and, of course, the NHS on the amazing vaccine rollout in the UK, but as we know, in a global pandemic nowhere is safe until everywhere is safe. Yesterday, analysis from UNICEF showed that we could share 20% of our doses with countries less fortunate than ourselves and still vaccinate all adults in the UK by July. The Prime Minister committed three months ago to share our excess doses. My noble friend referred to our contribution to COVAX, which was made seven months ago. Time is of the essence and we need to start sharing doses now. When will our excess doses start to be shared? Will it be just signing over the supply or an additional financial contribution?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-05-13
Topic: Health
Natalie Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my noble friend. She is right to keep the pressure on us to do this. The Prime Minister has confirmed that the UK will share the majority of any future surplus Covid vaccines from our supply with the COVAX pool when they are available, and that remains our commitment. We have been a leading donor to COVAX. At the virtual G7 leaders meeting in February we managed to encourage donors to commit a further $4.3 billion. This will be an important part of the discussions at the G7 summit that is coming up because we want to make sure that we have global access to vaccines, and that the people my noble friend rightly raises who need our help get it.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-05-13
Topic: Health
Alan Haselhurst (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, can the Leader tell us the current state of research into whether it is possible—or even advantageous—for a person’s second jab to be given with a different vaccine from the first? Such flexibility might accelerate the rollout programme still further and keep us ahead of the virus and its worrying variants.
Mental Health Act Reform — House of Lords, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is entirely right: when people experience a mental health crisis, they should be treated with consideration. Unfortunately, the police are sometimes at the front line of dealing with those with mental health difficulties. It is a stretch for them, and they should have the right training to be able to deal with a situation sensitively and they should have the right premises to be able to give people safe and secure environments. It is at the outer limits of their professional responsibilities, but we are doing as much as we can to put the training in place I remember from my own personal experience, when my father and my mother were sectioned, the consideration and thoughtfulness of those involved in both those processes. It is not all bad, but I take the noble Lord’s point.
Mental Health Act Reform — House of Lords, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right: the training is critical in this area; it could not be more important. We have invested £500 million in mental health services and support for the NHS workforce to address this. I cannot give her the precise number that she has asked for, but I shall write to her if I can track it down. However, we recognise the urgency of the situation and we hope that the impact of this money will be felt as quickly as possible.
Mental Health Act Reform — House of Lords, 2021-01-18
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the role of health review tribunals is critical, and more needs to be done to ensure that they reflect the communities they represent. I am not sure it is the role of mental health trusts to finance local advocacy groups, but he is right that they make a difference and hold the system to account. The broader issue of racism in the NHS is a cross-institutional challenge that must be addressed by all parts of the NHS, and we are committed to doing so.
Police National Computer — House of Lords, 2021-01-19
Topic: Health
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I am slightly surprised by the noble Lord’s question because there has been quite strong feeling in your Lordships’ House, particularly from the Liberal Democrats, that DNA information should be automatically deleted after a certain period of time. The DNA records that were deleted required "no further action". I totally understand the noble Lord’s point; I saw something about a conviction in Wales that went back years, and it was DNA that convicted that individual. On the holding of DNA, in most cases the data of unconvicted people has to be deleted.