argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS Funding Bill (Money Bill) — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord asks a very good question. The answer is not in my mega briefing pack, but I will be very glad to get back to him if I find an answer The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Warner, asked, quite rightly, about maintenance, which is brought up during every hospital visit I make. We recognise the challenge that maintenance presents to the existing estate and the Government have recognised the need for further capital investment in the NHS by announcing, over the summer of 2019, a £1.8 billion increase in NHS capital spending, including £850 million for 20 more hospital upgrades. We know that more capital funding will be needed and this will be dealt with in the near future The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, asked about capital for North Manchester General Hospital and the prospects for a green light for the project. As part of our health infrastructure plan, 21 new-build projects across 34 hospitals are receiving £100 million seed funding to help plan their schemes and move on to the next stage. I am delighted that Manchester NHS will benefit from £4.6 million seed funding to help plan and redevelop North Manchester General Hospital I move from the Bill to the central thrust of the debate, which was not about the Bill itself, but about what was not in it. I start with mental health, because Peer after Peer addressed this subject. I reassure the House that spending on mental health in the NHS long-term plan is an absolutely massive priority for the Government. This historic level of investment—£2.3 billion by 2023-24—will ensure that this Government can drive forward one of the most ambitious mental health reform programmes anywhere in Europe. It will ensure that 380,000 more people per year will have access to psychological therapies; that 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illness can access better support; and that 345,000 children and young people will be able to access services I cannot say exactly how many of the nurses that we will recruit will be mental health nurses. That data is not available, but I can say that we are transforming community-based mental health support so that more people can be treated closer to home. We are ensuring that the NHS is delivering the commitment to increasing investment in mental health provision. As a result, we have required all clinical commissioning groups to meet the mental health investment standard. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, had some detailed and significant questions about how the mental health investment standard was being applied. Rather than try to give a half answer now, I suggest that we meet to discuss her data in detail. I should be glad to understand more about her concerns.
NHS Funding Bill (Money Bill) — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness makes an important point and her work in this area is well known. It would be, however, slightly outside the remit of the Bill to go into that in great detail. I do not have the answer she is looking for but should be glad to meet her to discuss this important matter. I share her concerns and my interests in the area are entirely aligned with hers My noble friend Lady Penn put us all on the rack regarding the mental health White Paper. I would very much like to give her the absolute date and concrete publication arrangements for it but that is slightly beyond me. However, I reassure her that it will be within the next few months; spring is the hoped-for arrival time.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, makes his point extremely well. I cannot believe that there is anyone in this House who does not have a relative, friend or loved one who is in the same situation. When we look closely at this virus, it causes enormous anxiety. It is part of the Government’s role to ensure not only that information is provided and distributed effectively and energetically, in the way he described, but that this is done in a reasonable, paced way that does not create panic and alarm. The Government lean towards early action on the virus, pre-empting issues and having the right information, data and measures in place. That has been the philosophy of our response from the very beginning. The communications that he described, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, are exactly the kind of materials that we are working on right now. They will be distributed with the energy and determination that he described.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend is quite right that the quarantine arrangements at Arrowe Park have worked extremely well. This has meant that Britain has been one of the more advanced countries in handling this period of containment. I pay tribute to those involved at Arrowe Park and at Heathrow and Gatwick for handling those flights. It would be misleading of me to stand at the Dispatch Box and suggest that quarantine arrangements are going to be possible ad infinitum for everyone returning from an at-risk area. There will be a moment—as has already happened in Italy—where the containment of the virus in this country will no longer be possible and we will move on to a new phase. Quarantine has worked well so far but it is not, on its own, going to be the solution to this problem.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure the House that there is an enormously energetic effort being put into testing kits. The testing arrangements to date have worked well. There is a 24 to 48-hour turnaround for testing. Work is being put into a dramatic increase in the number of tests necessary. Energetic work is being conducted by commercial organisations into smaller, portable testing kits—the size of this Dispatch Box—that could be put in wards to have an immediate turnaround for testing. This will greatly facilitate the management of this epidemic. I salute those involved in the 24/7 race to produce new technology and large numbers of these testing kits. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I have warm words for Public Health England, which has done a fantastic job. I cannot remember the third thing that she asked.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord, Lord Patel, has expressed it all very well and with infinitely more authority and knowledge than I could have done. He has described very well the dilemma facing policymakers, because we simply do not know the behaviours of the virus. We do not know exactly how infectious it will be; we do not know which demographics it will target; and we do not necessarily know how mortal it will be. We hope for the best but are planning for the absolute worst. The noble Lord is right: the clear guidance for high-risk groups is critical. As I have already mentioned, there is a plan for a substantial awareness campaign, but its effectiveness will rely on the saliency of the subject matter. At this stage of the cycle, the British public are not necessarily tuned into the risk or at the point where they are seeking to address their behaviours, although I suspect that that moment is approaching very quickly. I reassure the House that all the preparations have been put in place. The creative is incredibly impressive and the detail is being thought through, and I believe that the impact will be profound.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord asks a perfectly fair question but I am not a qualified virologist. Certainly, I do not know the answer to that and I am not sure that even the virologists are certain about it at the moment, but it will be investigated.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has put it very well. Testing is absolutely critical to the correct treatment of this virus. There is a race on to find cheap, easily applied and speedy testing arrangements. That will help us avoid the kinds of complex arrangements that Nick Robinson vividly described. The NHS is proceeding incredibly energetically. Financial arrangements are not holding back any of the work that is being done, and resources are being thrown at that in a very big way.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
Geoffrey Borwick (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, my noble friend has spoken a lot about the tests. Can he give us an estimate of their accuracy? Is there a large number of false negatives or false positives in the test results?
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend asks a very reasonable question. It raises the issue of heat tests at airports—which I know that he did not ask about—which is a subject of concern. Certainly, temperature tests provide a large number of false positives, and that is why they have not been applied at British airports. However, the saliva tests being used in clinical conditions at the moment are thought to be very reliable indeed, and the number of false positives is very low.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Baroness asks a detailed question on an important part of our response. British scientists have done an enormous amount to investigate an antidote to the virus; £20 million has been put into research into those arrangements. We are absolutely at the forefront of trying to find some kind of antidote. The regulatory arrangements for that are not in my brief, so I cannot answer her question directly. I reassure the House that British scientists are absolutely working hard; they are well resourced, and any regulatory arrangements that are needed to find the right medicines for this virus will be put into place.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is right to emphasise this point. The clinical treatment of the virus is in part through the medicine itself. We have to be realistic about whether a medical solution to the virus will be found before the peak epidemic. One is instinctively optimistic that such a thing can happen, but it cannot be guaranteed. However, there are also the procedures and arrangements for nursing and looking after patients as they go through the cycle of the virus, and such best practice is absolutely the priority of the Chief Medical Officer. Arrangements have been put in place to spread that best practice through the trusts and CCGs that provide front-line care.
Wuhan Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lady is correct, inasmuch as we should be prepared for and able to envisage the possibility that the virus may spread through a large proportion of the country. The Government are looking at all possible scenarios. However, I do not recognise the numbers that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has provided, and the Government are not yet providing forecasts for the virus. Certainly the worst-case situation could be of the order that she describes, but that estimate is not based on scientific forecasting On the question of our arrangements for the possible impact, that is difficult to predict because we do not know the speed with which it would spread through the population. Creating some kind of herd immunity, whereby a large proportion of the population has had the virus and is therefore inoculated, is clearly the objective—well, not the objective; rather, it is one of the results of the virus passing through, as flu viruses do regularly. It is expected that it will be a one-off experience, so herd immunity will actually provide resistance to future visits by the virus.
Covid-19: Government Response — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): "Track, test and isolate" does not necessarily depend on doing millions of tests. South Korea, which has an extremely effective regime, does only 20,000 tests a day. That is because its whole society has worked hard to get the prevalence of the infection as low as possible. I celebrate the fact that the British public have committed to the lockdown, but I cannot disguise from the House the fact that the lockdown needs to continue to get the prevalence rate lower.
Covid-19: Government Response — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The right reverend Prelate is entirely right to focus on care homes. It is an awful aspect of this disease that it attacks the most vulnerable who live in enclosed environments such as care homes. They have been an absolute priority for the Government. One aspect of our response is to massively increase testing in care homes. The increased capacity that we announced last week has been shifted massively towards care home testing. We are using mobile units and satellite drop-offs to increase the screening of patients and care home workers.
Covid-19: Government Response — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely acknowledge the situation and the testimony of the noble Lord. The response by British companies to the ventilator challenge was incredible and, at times, overwhelming. No discourtesy was meant to the firm that he mentioned and I completely take on board his comments about the importance of courtesy, respect and a proper feedback mechanism in such circumstances.
Covid-19: Government Response — House of Lords, 2020-05-06
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I return to my comments to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. In the Lords at least, Ministers have been on the Front Bench answering questions on Covid every day since the Lords reopened. Subjects have ranged from social security and housing to, in my case, the Department of Health and Social Care. We remain accountable for the measures that we have put in place. The media also have a huge role in that scrutiny. We remain committed to keeping Parliament open, despite the lockdown regime, and completely respect the importance of parliamentary scrutiny.
Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat an Answer to an Urgent Question asked in the other place earlier today. The Answer is as follows "Madam Deputy Speaker, the coronavirus outbreak continues to advance around the world. The number of cases in China and South Korea keeps rising, but at a slowing rate. However, the outbreak in Iran, Italy, Switzerland and now France and Germany is growing. In Italy alone, we have seen 1,492 more cases overnight and 102 more deaths. Here in the UK, as of this morning, there were 319 confirmed cases. Very sadly, this now includes four confirmed deaths. I entirely understand why people are worried and concerned, and we send our condolences to the families The UK response is guided by our four-point action plan. We continue to work to contain this virus, but we are also taking action to delay its impact, to fund research and to mitigate its consequences. Throughout, our approach is guided by the science. That is the bedrock on which we base all our decisions. Our plan sets out what we are prepared to do, and we will make the right choices of which action to pursue at the right moment The scientific advice is clear: acting too early creates its own risks, so we will do what is right to keep people safe. Guided by the science, we will act at the right time and we will be clear and open about our actions and the reasons for them. These are the principles that underpin the very best response to an epidemic like this Turning to research, I can report that we have made available a further £46 million to find a vaccine and develop a more rapid diagnostic test. We will continue to support the international effort. Here at home, the NHS is well prepared with record numbers of staff, nurses and doctors. I want to thank all those involved for their work so far The number of calls to the NHS 111 service has increased and we have recruited an extra 700 people to support that effort. The 111 online service is now dealing with more inquiries than voice calls. To date, Public Health England has tested nearly 25,000 people and the time taken to test is being reduced as we bring in a new system for faster results Responding to coronavirus will take a national effort and everyone must play their part. Of course, that means the Government, but it also means everyone washing their hands more often and following public health advice. There is much more that we can all do both through volunteering and through support for those who are most vulnerable. We will shortly bring forward legislative options to help people and services to tackle this outbreak. The Bill will be temporary and proportionate, with measures that last only as long as is necessary, in line with clinical advice I can also report that over the weekend we initiated action to assist the 120 passengers on the "Grand Princess" cruise ship off the coast of California in coming home. We will stop at nothing to get this response right and I commend the Statement to the House."
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-27
Topic: Health
Peter Richard Grenville Layard (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Government are great believers in the principle of "nudge" and have greatly expanded the nudge unit. The fundamental principle of nudge is that, by quite small differences in institutional arrangements, you can produce big differences in outcomes. One principle of nudge is to give people an opportunity to protect themselves against their worse natures. That is exactly what this is about: offering people an opportunity to protect themselves against their own weakness. It is difficult for me to understand why the Government are not willing to use this elementary psychological principle. Would the Minister consider consulting the nudge unit before insisting that this ideological line that is being pursued is consistent with modern psychology?
Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Health
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, how many intensive care facilities are at upwards of 90% of utilisation and what can be done to increase the amount of facilities for people who need respiratory aid? What additional intensive care units could be created and what other facilities could be made available?
Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): Enormous effort is being put into increasing the number of intensive care facilities, particularly in the area of respiratory support. Different types of respiratory support unit are being put in place and the number is increasing on a multiple rather than an arithmetic scale It is not just the kit that is an issue but the people needed to operate it, because these units and the respiratory machinery are extremely technical. We are putting enormous effort into ensuring that the right people are in place to work the machines.
Coronavirus — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is entirely right. The CMO’s effort is now to identify those groups who require the greatest priority of assistance. We are not sure, and the CMO has not declared, at exactly what age that should start. He is considering publication of the exact details of the priorities in future. It seems that it is not necessarily gender-specific but that the state of your immune system is the key driver. In some areas, of course, men have very bad habits when it comes to things such as drinking and smoking. The CMO has made it clear that if you want to do one thing to avoid getting the virus, it is giving up smoking.
NHS: New Junior Doctor Contract — House of Lords, 2016-04-18
Topic: Health
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (Labour, Centre-left): Does the noble Lord agree—I am sure he does—that the great majority of junior hospital doctors, whatever the situation, are deeply altruistic people and remain so? They see this strike as part of that altruism, as is very clear from talking to them, and I am sure the Minister would agree about that. Does he not feel that one risk is the long-term damage not just to the health service but as regards people who are thinking of coming into the health service in the future? The young people whom I see in universities and even in schools are now asking me, "Should I actually be doing medicine?". Does the noble Lord agree that some kind of compromise at this stage would be better, as it might well save money, rather than cause more anguish and more money to be spent in the long term?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-07-01
Topic: Health
Emma Pidding (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as we have sadly seen in Leicester, it is clear that this virus still lives in our communities. We know that testing is key in helping to keep the pandemic under control. Does the Minister agree that anyone who has been in close contact with someone testing positive for coronavirus should be able to get a test, whether they have symptoms or not? At present, this is not the case. In Buckinghamshire, for example, there is only one testing facility that offers this.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-07-01
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): I reassure my noble friend that anyone who has reason to believe that they may have been infected by the virus is eligible for the test. The resources we have put into testing are now enormous. There are nearly 300,000 tests a day. Those in Buckinghamshire who are too far away from the drive-in testing facility should apply for an at-home testing kit.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-07-01
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): To be clear to the noble Lord, the dashboard was made available on 22 June. It has a very large amount of local information, including information from 111, hospitals and the test and trace programme. The analysis of the data will be enhanced using the latest technology in order to give the most granular information possible. Those enhancements will be rolled out very shortly.
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-07-01
Topic: Health
Sandip Verma (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I declare my interest, as listed in the register, as a social care provider in Leicester. I am currently in Leicester and I have listened to noble Lords very carefully. Perhaps I may quickly pick up on a number of points. We in Leicester consistently pointed out to our local authorities and to the mayor and his councillors that they should look at areas where we believed there would be peaks in outbreaks of the virus, particularly in factories. We were totally ignored. We have raised the communications issue over and again, and we have been totally ignored. Now that the data is coming in and is being shared properly, will my noble friend confirm that there will be strong and swift enforcement in areas where we know that breaches have gone on, are going on and continue to go on, so that other parts of the community stay well protected?