argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in my constituency, one of the largest trusts in the country, has recently been taken into financial special measures. Does my hon. Friend agree that the failure of King’s is a canary in a coalmine for the NHS, and must be a wake-up call for the Government on the level of resource that our outstanding NHS staff need so that they can deliver for patients? Will he join me in calling on the Health Secretary to ensure that King’s emerges from financial special measures with the additional funding it needs to deliver safe, effective, world-leading care for patients?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. She has been a passionate defender of King’s, speaking out in this House on numerous occasions. Before Christmas, we saw the resignation of Lord Kerslake as the chair of King’s, when he spoke out about the real pressures facing our NHS, which were dismissed at the Dispatch Box by the then Minister when we had a debate in this House.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Lady is a former Health Minister, so she will know that in her local hospital trust 771 patients have waited longer than four hours on trolleys, unable to get a bed. She talks about the winter money. We were calling for winter emergency money back at the general election, and we repeated those calls in September. That money did not come through until the November Budget, and hospital trusts were not told their allocations until a few days before Christmas. That is no way to prepare for the winter. I suspect that when she was a Health Minister, she would have been saying that to the officials in her Department.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): I refer to the comments made to the Health Committee by Jim Mackey, the head of NHS Improvement back at the start of October, three months ago: "It is true that we are running tighter than any of us would really want to and we have not had the impact from the social care investment this year that we had hoped for; so, it will be difficult—it will be very tight—over winter." This Government knew what was coming, yet they have let the whole country down.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend, who is an excellent member of the Health Committee, speaks with great eloquence, pointing out the hubristic response of Tory Members in saying that this was not predictable or preventable. This winter crisis was entirely predictable and entirely preventable.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Gloria De Piero (Labour, Centre-left): Two hundred and thirty-three patients were left in ambulances for more than 30 minutes outside King’s Mill Hospital in the week of 25 to 31 December. That is more than 40% of those arriving by ambulance in that week. Does my hon. Friend agree that those patients and their families deserve an apology and a promise that that will never happen again?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. I have absolute praise for the staff at King’s Mill—it is where my first daughter was born, in fact. The way in which patients have had to wait for ambulances outside King’s Mill is entirely unacceptable, and this Government need to do something about it.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Let me make a little progress, if I may. I will try to take as many interventions as possible, but this is only a half-day debate and I know that many people want to speak We have heard the stories of ambulances backed up outside hospitals. Ambulances have been diverted from gridlocked A&E departments 150 times. Our hospitals are overcrowded and our bed occupancy levels are running at unsafe levels. In the run-up to Christmas eve, over one third of England’s children’s care units were 100% full, with not a single spare bed. We have had reports of whole children’s wards being used for adults. In fact, we do not know the full scale of the crisis because this year NHS England is not reporting which hospital trusts have issued the OPEL—operational pressures escalation levels—alerts revealing hospital pressures. I hope that, given the Secretary of State’s keenness on a duty of candour, he will explain why the OPEL data is not being collected and published nationally for England, as it has been in recent years But of course behind every single one of these statistics is a real human story. We have heard stories of elderly, fragile patients treated in the backs of ambulances in the freezing January weather, or elderly patients, sometimes confused, languishing on trolleys in corridors, such as the 80-year-old epileptic man with severe dementia who was stuck on a trolley for 36 hours waiting to be treated at the Royal Stoke. His daughter, Jackie Weaver, said: "it was absolutely horrendous. You couldn’t get past for all the trolleys".
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Ruth Smeeth (Labour, Centre-left): We had 67 people sitting on trolleys. We ran out of corridor space. Two hundred people medically fit for discharge had nowhere to go. The pressure on my constituents and those of my hon. Friends in north Staffordshire was appalling, but so was the pressure on the staff who had to cope with looking after those patients. My constituents deserve better and the staff deserve better. We need money for social care—and we needed it last year.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a moving contribution to the debate. Those people in Stoke whose relatives have been waiting so long on corridors will see the Prime Minister saying, "Nothing is perfect," but the truth is that we do not want perfection—we just want a bit of dignity and humanity in our health service.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): This time last week, I went out with an East Midlands Ambulance Service crew for a shift, and they told me that over the Christmas period they were waiting two hours and more outside A&E at Lincoln Hospital. They also said that they were not even just sitting in the ambulance—one of them, a paramedic, was going inside and cannulating patients, working in resuscitation, and clerking patients. Will my hon. Friend comment on that and on what we will do about it in government?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I do welcome examples of good practice, but I share the hon. Lady’s frustration, which she has put up on her website, about the money taking so long to reach the frontline: "while the money has been approved, the current frustration is the time it is taking for the Trust to gain access to the money." I agree with her: this money should have been announced sooner for our national health service.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): If I may, I will make a little progress. I have been generous, but I will try to take as many other interventions as possible We have heard about Stoke, but what about the story of 87-year-old Yvonne Beer, who suffers from dementia? She was at Worcestershire Royal when, forced to wait 10 hours in hospital to see a doctor, she had to be tied into a wheelchair with a scarf after her bed was taken away. We learn that Southmead Hospital in Bristol has had a capacity of 104%. Yesterday, a leaked memo revealed: "Acute Medical Unit physicians have been on their knees with workload pressure", and that the "biggest risk remains patients in corridors in the Emergency Department with no allocated doctor, no allocated bed and no treatment—some of these are very sick indeed".
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Stephanie Louise Peacock (Labour, Centre-left): In my local hospital in Barnsley, general and acute bed occupancy reached 100% on 31 December, despite the incredible effort of the staff. Does my hon. Friend agree that safety targets are simply not being met, and that that is not good enough?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. Bed occupancy rates at such a level are unsafe. I know the Secretary of State is committed to patient safety—he has made it one of his signature issues—yet he is presiding over a health service in which bed occupancy in acute hospitals is routinely well over 85% We have heard about the pressures in South Yorkshire, but what about the pressures in West Yorkshire? Of the hospital ward in Pinderfields where people were left lying on the floor, a witness said: "The man who was lying on the floor at the bottom of my husband’s bed was being sick. He was asking for a trolley to lie on but there wasn’t one to give him." Of course, their plight was dismissed in the House on Monday by the then Minister, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), who told us there were enough chairs to sit on.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Paula Michelle Sherriff (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure my hon. Friend will join me in thanking the staff for their gargantuan efforts this winter and over the festive period. Just this week, I spoke to a nurse at the very same hospital, who advised me that staff had had to clear out the cleaning cupboard to put in a bed for a patient to receive an infusion. Does he share my horror at that? What on earth is our NHS coming to under this Government?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity to clarify the situation for the House. Perhaps he should have done so on Monday. I do not know, but he may well still have been in place as a Health Minister if he had said that on Monday There have been huge pressures on the North East Ambulance Service, because of which it has been asking some patients, where appropriate, if they have alternative transport options, such as a family member. The East of England Ambulance Service has said that some patients were being sent taxis to get them to hospital, with paramedics stuck in ambulances queuing at hospitals for more than 500 hours in the past four days. Of course, clinicians have spoken out. Richard Fawcett of the University Hospitals of North Midlands warned that his hospital had "run out of corridor space" He also felt compelled to apologise for, in his words, the "third world conditions".
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I agree entirely. I am entirely happy to have a conversation about how to increase funding in the national health service, but I have huge scepticism about whether this Government—having overseen eight years of desperately tight funding allocations for the NHS, with cuts to community health services—are prepared to engage constructively in such a conversation On the specific case that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling), whom I cannot see in his place—I apologise if he is in the Chamber and I have not spotted him—has called for an inquiry. He has actually warned that if that incident was a result of underfunding, we need to put more funding into ambulance services, and I share his concerns.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): If I may make a little progress, because I have been generous, I will then try to take more interventions. I am conscious, however, that this is only a half-day debate The consequences of this crisis are not only for those in urgent need, but for everyone using the NHS. Let us be clear that this panic cancelling of elective operations means that patients will suffer. Not only will patients suffer longer waits for operations while in pain and distress, but they will wait for appointments with the uncertainty of not knowing what is wrong with them, and the knock-on effects on NHS services and the wider society are huge. Already, patients are facing a waiting times crisis with 4 million on the waiting list.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Let me make a bit of progress A lost month will mean that thousands of patients across the country are stuck with their lives on hold. To call this "routine care" misses the fact that these are big issues for the individual patients affected. The young man awaiting heart valve surgery, who will have arranged time off work and for his family to be around to care for him, now has to cancel it all and does not know when his operation will happen. He also runs the risk of a deterioration in his heart function, which could lead to further hospitalisation in an emergency, adding to the pressures on our emergency services.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, I will. I of course thank the NHS staff. Of course, if the hon. Lady wanted to thank the NHS staff, she could have supported us when we brought in motions to give them a fair pay rise, but I do not think she did so.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman will know that the system is in such a state because of years of sustained underfunding. His answer would be a cross-party commission, a sort of royal commission, and I have huge respect for his contributions to these debates, but let us be clear that for eight years the NHS has not been getting the level of funding it should be getting in historical terms.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Down in Sussex, patient transport was privatised and given to a company called Coperforma. Seven months after the contract was awarded, the company was stripped of it for its appalling practices and for completely underperforming in every way, shape and form. It now transpires that Coperforma has been given more money for seven months than it would have received if it had performed properly for a full year. Is that not indicative of the way in which the NHS is being run?
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I will take that as my second telling off from you today, Mr Speaker. Given your guidance, I will try not to take any more interventions, but on the particular point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), the privatisation of patient transport services to Coperforma in his area of Sussex was an absolute disaster for patients and for the ambulance drivers, who I met—they went for eight weeks, as I recall, without pay. He has been campaigning on the issue, as has the GMB trade union, which I congratulate on the campaign it has run. We now learn that, having ended the contract, money is still going to that firm, which is an absolute scandal. I hope there can be a full inquiry into what has gone on, and I praise my hon. Friend for leading the campaign I have talked about the real impact of cancelled operations—for example, on someone waiting for a hip replacement who is forced to stay at home, unable to walk properly, and who, due to the pain, will no doubt at some point need to see a GP again in an emergency, which again adds to the pressures on the service. Perhaps someone in need of a cataract operation has had that operation cancelled and is now at risk of falls because they cannot see. Such a person could well end up in A&E, again needing a hospital bed. These are real people who rely on the NHS and whom the Government are letting down. The domino effect of not providing proper, timely care increases the crisis and pressures on the wider NHS.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I did say that I would try to make progress. It is clear that a lot of Members want to speak, so I will continue if I may. I have been generous in giving way Now we are beginning to hear that it is not just routine non-urgent operations being cancelled. Today, The Times reports of a hospital in Oxford considering delaying the start for chemotherapy due to staff shortages and lack of capacity—a four-week delay on all new patients needing chemotherapy—and there are proposals for those on the first cycle to have full chemo, but then discriminate against those on cycles 2, 3 and 4—second, third and fourth-line chemo—giving those patients a reduced number of cycles, which is a two-tier chemotherapy system.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Let me make some progress In The Guardian today, we read the story of Carly O’Neill, who went into hospital for her cancer operation and who was waiting in her gown with wristbands on in the hospital, only to be told her operation would have to be cancelled because there was no bed available.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Let me finish the point How about my constituent Mr Geoff Brooker, who was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder? He has had his planned operation cancelled twice this winter. When Mr Brooker was asked about the Secretary of State’s apology, he said: "He may have apologised for postponements but it was as if he was apologising for the cancellation of a jumble sale." My constituent went on to say that Ministers were "uncaring" and he blamed "poor planning". He added: "If operations like mine are postponed then it’s likely it will cause deaths. The decision could even be the death of me" There we have it: cancer patients having operations cancelled and trusts looking at delaying chemotherapy, yet these Ministers sit there with their NHS badges on their lapels. They should be ashamed of what is happening in the NHS today.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. The memo was emailed to oncology department staff in the last few days. If the trust is now backing down on that, all of us across the House will welcome it, but the point still stands: the trust was looking at delaying chemotherapy by four weeks and it referred to a lack of staff and capacity. As we know, this trust has cut many, many beds in recent years, including cancer beds and renal beds, and we know that it is under huge pressures.
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I will make some progress The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) rightly said that we do not want to make this more of a crisis, but the Secretary of State knows that cancelling elective operations as an impact on hospital finances. It means a loss of revenue for trusts that are already struggling to meet their deficit targets. Rather than allowing waiting times—
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I am not going to take any more interventions, I am afraid Rather than allowing waiting times to escalate further, why will the Secretary of State not commit today to giving hospitals emergency funds, so those cancelled operations can be rescheduled as soon as is reasonably possible and hospitals do not lose revenue and get further into problems with their deficits The Secretary of State knows that cancelling electives impacts on training of the next generation of surgeons and junior doctors, who are warning that they could lose out on as much as a sixth of their six-month training because the operations are not there for them to do. Will he tell us, if these cancelled electives continue, what is his plan to ensure that our junior doctors and surgeons can catch up on the training they need? Our patients deserve the best-trained surgeons and junior doctors in the world. Cancelling those electives impacts on their training. Will he tell us his plan for dealing with that We all agree that every penny counts in rising to the challenge of the winter crisis caused by Downing Street. I know the Secretary of State will tell us that we have had the—
NHS Winter Crisis — House of Commons, 2018-01-10
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I said that I would not take any more interventions The Secretary of State will tell us about the winter funding, but we also know that the winter funding came far too late. NHS Providers has warned that it came far too late in December, and I am sure that many hospital trusts will be telling him privately in his morning phone calls that it came too late. Hospital trusts have to turn to expensive private staffing agencies to get through this winter due to the Government’s failure to invest in an adequate workforce to enable the NHS to deliver the care the nation needs. In many places, NHS trusts are effectively held to ransom by staffing agencies Last month, NHS Improvement refused a freedom of information request to publish how much these private agencies are costing individual trusts. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is unacceptable and that we should know how much extra money set aside for winter is going to private agencies? Will he undertake to produce a league table naming and shaming every single agency and stating how much they have been getting from each and every trust, so that we can have clarity on this matter The Secretary of State will no doubt tell us that the problems we are experiencing have arisen because we have an ageing society. Of course, we see pressures on the service because of the demographics not just in winter, but all year round. Patients with less acuity, often with sometimes three or four comorbidities—in particular, those being treated at this time of year—put huge pressure on the service throughout the year However, these demographic changes in society did not just drop out of the blue sky in the last few weeks. We have known about these trends for years and years, which makes it even more criminal that the Government have presided over eight years of underfunding in the NHS—£6 billion of cuts to social care—and have acquiesced in a reduction of 14,000 beds. We will probably see more bed reductions if we pursue the sustainability and transformation plans across the country. We have seen delayed transfers of care increase by 50% these last years On social care, the Secretary of State may have those words in his title now, but he has no plan to deal with the severe £6 billion cut we have had to social care in recent years.