argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Stephen James Metcalfe (Conservative, Centre-right): I add to the chorus of approval for the decision to reduce self-isolation to five days. But can my right hon. Friend ensure that the NHS covid-19 app and the Government website are updated as soon as possible to avoid the confusion that seemed to exist around the reduction to seven-day isolation, so that people fully understand their obligations, when their isolation starts and when it can finish?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): Implicit in my right hon. Friend’s statement was the concept that we will all be held back by the decisions of the unvaccinated. If I may say so, he used some quite heavy language to bring pressure to bear on the unvaccinated, talking about standing on people’s shoulders and so on. Would it not be better, rather than creating what seem to me to be the conditions for coercion and division, to say to the unvaccinated, "You’ve made your choice to take a greater risk and we are not going to be held back as a society by your choices. You will have to bear the consequences"? Would that not be a more consistent and humane way to deal with them, and to deal with us all, without creating division?
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): First, may I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for the scrutiny he provides? As always, he makes important points that are worth discussing. He is right about the language I used earlier, because it is factually correct to say that. The reason this country is as free as it is now is the decision that nine out of 10 people have made to get vaccinated. Those people who decided not to be vaccinated when they could have been, because they are not medically exempt, for example, made a choice and that has consequences. It does not just have consequences for them; it has consequences for all of us My hon. Friend might be interested to know that when I visited the ICU ward looking after covid patients in King’s College Hospital in London last week, I was told by the consultant in charge that they estimate that 70% of patients in the ICU ward are unvaccinated. If those people had got vaccinated, they would not only have been safer, but space in hospitals, and not just in ICU wards, could have been used for others. There are 17,000 covid-positive patients in our hospitals. That could have been prevented if those who were unvaccinated or who decided not to take their booster shot had actually bothered to have their vaccination. Yes, getting vaccinated needs to be a positive choice: we need to encourage people and, with the exception of the health and social care high-risk settings, it should not be done by compulsion. I do not believe in that. I do not think it would work and I think it is unethical, but the people who have chosen not to get vaccinated should understand the consequences of their decision for the rest of society.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that the hon. Gentleman heard my earlier comments about the importance of making sure that patients are as safe as possible in health and care settings; I hope that he agrees and therefore understands the new vaccination rules to whose importance he refers The hon. Gentleman is right to ask about the planning necessary to cope with the changes. I can reassure him that even before Parliament voted on them, the NHS had started planning in anticipation of its decision. It is working with each and every trust, but is rightly putting in most effort into convincing the 6% of people in NHS trusts who have not yet had a first dose of the covid-19 vaccine to do so. It is working to convince them in a positive way to make that positive choice, with all the information that they need about the vaccines being safe and effective. It is offering them meetings with clinicians, including one-on-one meetings. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that approach.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Tobias Martin Ellwood (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much welcome the reduction of the self-isolation time to five days, which will be appreciated by the hospitality industry, particularly in Bournemouth. I am proud to say that I am a vaccinator in Bournemouth and that tomorrow I will be doing my duty along with thousands of others across the country. It is a critical job if we are to tackle covid-19 and a rewarding one The Secretary of State will be aware from his visits that the atmosphere in the temporary hubs is extremely professional but can also be quite quiet and sombre. Will he look at whether the licensing conditions for radio can be lifted? Maybe he could speak to the BBC, Classic FM or Virgin Radio—Chris Evans might even be listening to our debate today. I hope the Secretary of State agrees that radio would help to lift spirits as we go about this important national effort.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for today’s measures and for being a volunteer vaccinator. People like him up and down the country have come forward in their thousands, especially in the past few weeks as we have made the call for the booster programme. Those volunteers are working alongside the NHS, helped by the soldiers and the military, with whom my right hon. Friend also has direct experience I listened carefully to my right hon. Friend’s suggestion, which I think is a very good one. It is not something that I had given any thought to, but I think it is absolutely right that we contact those organisations and see whether they would like to be helpful to our army of vaccinators across the country. It is a very good suggestion; I thank him for it, and we shall try our best to act on it.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Health
Sajid Javid (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to thank not just JVT for his service, but those across our academic sector who have supported the Government, people and the NHS throughout the pandemic. I am privileged to work not just with JVT, but with so many of them, and I see every day the value they add and how they are helping us all to get through the pandemic The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of testing. It is not 300 million; the 300 million lateral flow tests were in December, but for the month of January we have planned at least 400 million, which is four times as many as in the original pre-omicron plan. That makes us confident that we have the lateral flow tests we need. The university sector and the education sector more broadly, including schools and colleges, rightly have a separate supply line. It is still run through my Department, but we work very closely with the Department for Education to make sure that the sector has the supply that it needs.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-10-30
Topic: Health
Questions: On behalf of those on the Conservative Benches, may I wish my right hon. Friend the best of good fortune in the 12 December general election? While we live in a period of some uncertainty, there are 426 people who have thalidomide and very much rely on the health grant to give them dignity, care and support. That grant comes to an end in a few years’ time. As chairman of the thalidomide APPG, and on behalf of those 426 recipients, I urge my right hon. Friend to end their uncertainty as soon as possible by signalling a renewal of that grant. That would give them the peace of mind that, I hope the whole House agrees, they most certainly deserve.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Not for the first time, the Prime Minister is talking nonsense. Of course we need to import medicines from various places; I just want it to be done in an open and transparent way. I do not want secret talks between Government officials, on behalf of Ministers, and big pharma corporations in the USA Last year, 34,000 cancer patients waited more than two months for treatment. Although early detection is obviously very important, the longer people wait, the less chance there is of their surviving cancer. The Prime Minister knows that, I know that, the whole world knows that—why can he not get it, and put the necessary resources into the NHS to cut the waiting times?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-10-30
Topic: Health
Questions: On behalf of those on the Conservative Benches, may I wish my right hon. Friend the best of good fortune in the 12 December general election? While we live in a period of some uncertainty, there are 426 people who have thalidomide and very much rely on the health grant to give them dignity, care and support. That grant comes to an end in a few years’ time. As chairman of the thalidomide APPG, and on behalf of those 426 recipients, I urge my right hon. Friend to end their uncertainty as soon as possible by signalling a renewal of that grant. That would give them the peace of mind that, I hope the whole House agrees, they most certainly deserve.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Coming from a Prime Minister who withdrew his own Bill, that seems a bit odd. My question was about somebody whose mother had died and who believes that that is because of the shortage of staff within the NHS. I had hoped that the Prime Minister would have shown some empathy and answered that question, because GP numbers are falling, there is a 43,000-nurse shortage in the NHS, and the NHS has suffered the longest spending squeeze ever in its history. The choice at this election could not be clearer. People have a chance to vote for real change after years of Conservative and Lib Dem cuts, privatisation and tax handouts for the richest. This Government have put our NHS into crisis, and this election is a once-in-a-generation chance to end privatisation in our NHS, give it the funding it needs and give it the doctors, nurses, GPs and all the other staff it needs. Despite the Prime Minister’s denials, our NHS is up for grabs by US corporations in a Trump-style trade deal. Is it not the truth—[Interruption.]
Engagements — House of Commons, 2019-10-30
Topic: Health
Questions: On behalf of those on the Conservative Benches, may I wish my right hon. Friend the best of good fortune in the 12 December general election? While we live in a period of some uncertainty, there are 426 people who have thalidomide and very much rely on the health grant to give them dignity, care and support. That grant comes to an end in a few years’ time. As chairman of the thalidomide APPG, and on behalf of those 426 recipients, I urge my right hon. Friend to end their uncertainty as soon as possible by signalling a renewal of that grant. That would give them the peace of mind that, I hope the whole House agrees, they most certainly deserve.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Despite the Prime Minister’s denials, the NHS is up for grabs by US corporations in a Trump trade deal. Is it not the truth—the Government may not like this—that this Government are preparing to sell out our NHS? Our health service is in more danger than at any other time in its glorious history because of the Prime Minister’s Government, his attitudes and the trade deals that he wants to strike.
Public Prosecution Service and Legacy in Northern Ireland — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Defense
George Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise that my right hon. Friend has arrived to his position fairly recently, so this is more of a trail of what has gone before. None the less, there is a genuine and deep concern among many of us. I served in Northern Ireland, and lost people in Northern Ireland. I remember Captain Robert Nairac being tortured and murdered. His family never found his body—no one ever told them. We have had to put up with that for all these years, watching others who committed those murders go free. I simply say to him that, for me, this legislation—this requirement to protect our veterans—is not just an add-on. For me, it is part of my life. Can the Minister please tell us whether that is how the Government see it, or is it something to be shoehorned into the future?
Public Prosecution Service and Legacy in Northern Ireland — House of Commons, 2022-01-13
Topic: Defense
Conor Burns (Conservative, Centre-right): I will be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend and talk about that in a degree of detail, but I keep coming back to the central point that it is important, before the Bill is brought forward, that we are confident it achieves the Government’s ambitions for it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View knows from his previous incarnation as a Defence Minister, that requires sign-off across Government and we need to be absolutely certain that we will not end up creating inadvertently another mechanism by which innocent people are dragged through processes they should not have to face.
Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Health
Robert Butler (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that will happen. I defer to the Minister for the expert technical advice, but my understanding is that generally the data that arises will be published. The prime purpose of the collection of the anonymised data is to enable HMPPS staff to ascertain patterns of drug use, to look in particular at what types of drugs or substances are used more widely and then to come up with programmes to tackle the problems. I apologise that I cannot give my right hon. Friend a precise answer; I commit to writing to him with the appropriate response if the Minister is unable to answer him in her speech. I hope he will accept that commitment for the moment It is worth highlighting that even prescription medicines are abused by some residents in approved premises. Occasionally, that can prove lethal. A recent internal survey of approved premises staff found that more than 50% of them felt that prescription medication was a problem. This merits a few words of explanation, because I am talking not about medicines prescribed to the resident who has been tested but about prescription medicines that have been obtained by the person who takes them without a prescription—for example, from foreign companies via the internet—or that have been given to the resident by somebody else to whom they were prescribed. Prescription medicines are of course appropriate for those to whom they have been prescribed, but they can pose a real danger if they are taken without medical advice or in combination with other medicines. If that happens, the consequence can sometimes be fatal because of the level of toxicity reached in the human body.
Women’s Mental Health — House of Commons, 2019-10-03
Topic: Health
Jeffrey Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; she is being very generous. A number of my constituents have been in touch about perinatal check-ups. My constituent Catherine told me of her experience: "I asked for a 6 week check with a GP—this was, at best, brief. Physical symptoms were looked at, but nothing was checked with regards to my mental health. There needs to be a standard physical and mental health check for ALL new mothers." Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to do better?
Women’s Mental Health — House of Commons, 2019-10-03
Topic: Health
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): It is pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing it Although the issue of women’s mental health is wide-ranging, I will limit my contribution to maternal mental health, an issue that is close to my heart given that I am eight months pregnant with my second child. In response to a recent survey by the National Childbirth Trust, 50% of women reported that they experienced mental health or emotional difficulties at some time during their pregnancy or in the year after their child’s birth, yet many women are reluctant to admit to having difficulties. Society tells us that being pregnant and having a baby should be a wonderful, joyous time, but for many the reality can feel quite different. All too often, women do not discuss their problems because they feel embarrassed, ashamed or worried that health professionals would think they were not capable of looking after their baby I think it is important for me to say that I was one of those women. With my first son, I suffered from pre-natal depression, which led to an exacerbation of anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. At the time, I did not have enough knowledge of the condition to do anything about it. It is not something that gets talked about, so I did not know how to ask for help. This time around, I have been able to spot the triggers and deal with any problems before they escalate. I also had the confidence to tell my history to my GP, who was able to give me some options. At times, preventing the onset of pre-natal depression this time around has felt like a daily battle, but it is one that I am pleased to say I have won. However, for too many new mums, their mental health difficulties remain hidden, with research by the NCT showing that nearly half of new mothers’ mental health problems are not picked up by a health professional A simple solution would be to ensure that the six-week mandatory post-natal baby check included a mandatory maternal check. However, despite National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, a six-week maternal check is not included in GPs’ contracts, which means there is no specific funding for it. As a result, the NCT found that a third of mothers had three minutes or less for their maternal six-week check; a fifth of mothers were not asked about their mental health at all at their six-week check; and half of mothers who wanted to discuss an emotional or mental health problem at their six-week check did not feel able to do so. With rushed appointments and without the right questions being asked, it is not really surprising that many women keep their problems hidden.
Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-01-21
Topic: Health
Neil Peter Hammerton Hudson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. He brings up the point about the different types of drugs that are available. I was not going to bring this up, but he has made the important point that some of the drugs that are misused in society are used in a veterinary setting, perhaps for analgesia and anaesthesia—ketamine, for instance. It is important that legislation is passed that mitigates, reduces and cancels out the inappropriate use of drugs that are so beneficial in human and veterinary medicine, but create such a blight for people if they are misused. They are dangerous and potentially fatal.
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Health
Ruth Rosamond Edwards (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to have role models from neurodiverse conditions in all areas of life, and that that will encourage others to believe they can also fulfil their ambitions and dreams?
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee — House of Commons, 2019-07-18
Topic: Health
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Statistics are obviously absolutely vital if this country is to develop good policy on a whole range of different subjects, not least medicine. However, statistics are sometimes used by scurrilous politicians trying to purvey a particular version of events that is a long way away from the official version of the UK Statistics Authority, and we have seen recent instances in which it has told off Ministers and others. Did the Committee consider any means of punishing offenders who have tried to muddy the waters with false facts?
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Health
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): As a fellow member of the Health and Care Bill Committee that looked at the new integrated care systems that are being introduced, my hon. Friend will know that they have been delayed slightly until April this year. Does not that present an opportunity for the Minister to write to all the chairmen and chief executives of the interim boards, or those who have been appointed to the new interim care boards about the Bill; and, hopefully, for them to act in due course so that they are prepared for the guidance that is coming and can inform the wider board about that at the earliest opportunity?
Down Syndrome Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Health
Joanna Mary Gideon (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend. It is absolutely right that the integrated care boards and the Health and Care Bill need to accommodate what is suggested in this private Member’s Bill. The integrated care boards, as I have said, will have a huge breadth of responsibility. Unless we are quite specific on certain duties, they may get lost and that cannot be allowed to happen.
National Health Service Co-Funding and Co-Payment Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Health
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): No, I will not give way. I just want to make my point Today is World Cancer Day. This morning, the Secretary of State launched a new document, talking about a 10-year plan for cancer. That reminds us that the NHS is free at the point of delivery, but it is not often free, or even available, at the point of need. Those are two separate propositions. Often, when people talk about how wonderful our NHS is, they omit to point out that, very often, the NHS is not available at the point of need. That is highlighted by the fact that there were 50,000 fewer cancer diagnoses across the UK during the pandemic, and that, during that time, NHS cancer treatments fell by some 6%. We have information now that compares OECD figures, and it shows that, in the United Kingdom, in 2019—before the pandemic—the rates of fatalities from cancer were 216 per 100,000 people. In the United States, which has a very different system from ours, it was 178 per 100,000 people. In Australia, it was 180 per 100,000 people, and, in Mexico, it was 118 per 100,000 people. The OECD average across 38 countries was 191, so we are an outlier in this country with our NHS in having much higher death rates from cancer than comparable economies and, indeed, much higher death rates than economies that are much less successful economically than our own We also have a pretty poor show in terms of diagnostics. We have fewer diagnostics with computerised tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography scanners—CT, MRI and PET scanners—than the average OECD country, by which I mean the 38 countries to which I have referred. The average in the OECD is 45 scanners per 1 million population. In this country, it is only 16 per 1 million population. Is that not a scandal? When we look at the gargantuan waste within certain aspects of the NHS machine, it brings home the gravity of those figures and why we need to draft more resources into the NHS, including resources from the private sector.
National Health Service Co-Funding and Co-Payment Bill — House of Commons, 2022-02-04
Topic: Health
Christopher Robert Chope (Conservative, Centre-right): Wait a moment That could include, for example, all those facemasks with ear loops that had been ordered at a cost of £155 million. If the NHS did not want them, because it insists on having better-quality facemasks with head loops, surely it could have sold them off to try to get some income from the private sector, but it did not: it just wrote that money off. Similarly, because of an official error in drawing up the specification for hospital gowns, it wasted £70 million on them There is no reason to be complacent about the state of our NHS. That is not to say that there is not some fantastic work carried out by people who work in the NHS across the country. In many respects, the NHS is a centre of excellence.