argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to make a little progress. If I make good time, I may be able to give way, but I am conscious of the need to give the shadow Minister and other colleagues plenty of time to speak—about, I suspect, one aspect of this group of amendments in particular, but we will see We commend a number of additional amendments to the House. Lords amendments 34 to 37 limit the powers to set capital expenditure limits for NHS foundation trusts, so that they cannot apply for periods longer than a financial year. I reaffirm my commitment to ensuring that these powers on expenditure limits are used only as a last resort, as NHS England agreed with NHS Providers. I also ask the House to accept Lords amendments 50, 65, 104, 106 and 107, which are minor and technical changes required to ensure that the Bill functions as intended Although we have made progress on a number of amendments, we urge the House to disagree with the other place on others. First, we ask the House to disagree with amendment 90 on dispute resolution in children’s palliative care, and instead support the amendment we tabled in lieu. Our approach will require the Secretary of State to commission a full independent review of the causes of disagreements between the providers of care and persons with parental responsibility on the care of critically ill children, how these disagreements can be avoided, and how we can sensitively handle their resolution We also seek to reject Lords amendment 81. Although we agree on the need to make good progress on the Care Act 2014, it is not in the interests of good government to be forced to implement reform of this complexity and scale through a deadline set in primary legislation. We are getting on with implementing social care reform, and operational guidance is out for consultation. We have announced a small number of local authorities that will act as trailblazers to test the reforms from January 2023, but we must take time to engage with local authorities as they build the necessary infrastructure, and use these trials to refine delivery systems and guidance ahead of the national roll-out. We encourage the House to reject Lords amendment 81, which we believe affects the financial arrangements to be made by this House and, as such, is subject to financial privilege.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): I will address the care cap, because there is a fair bit to say. I was just addressing the noble Lord Lansley’s amendment. I apologise for missing the hon. Lady’s first point. We do not think it is necessary to have health inequalities explicitly among the triple aims, as we believe that the issue runs through everything that ICBs do and everything the Bill sets out. We therefore feel that the Bill is effective, and that each ICB’s ICS will have regard to health inequalities and will see them as central to its objectives Before I turn to Lords amendment 80, I will briefly address Lords amendment 51, which relates to consultation with carers during hospital discharge planning. We have heard about the strength of feeling in the other place on that issue. We wholly agree that we must ensure that, where appropriate, unpaid carers are involved in planning around discharge. Although the Government appreciate the intention behind the amendment and want to address the concerns raised, we want to do so in the most effective way, and in a way that does not create unintended delays to discharge. I ask Members to support our amendment in lieu, which would achieve much of what Lords amendment 51 sought to achieve. It will introduce a new duty on trusts and foundation trusts to involve carers during adult discharge planning. Unlike schedule 3 to the Care Act 2014, this duty applies to all carers where the patient has care and support needs following discharge; and it applies to young carers as well as adults. Our amendment in lieu and the new statutory guidance will ensure that patients and carers are involved in discussions about post-discharge care as soon as they start.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Edward John Comport Argar (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope that I can give the hon. Lady reassurance. When we refer to "carers", we intend that to be a broad term, rather than a narrowly drawn one. She is absolutely right to highlight young carers; they are carers. They also face particular challenges, because they often juggle school and similar things with caring. It is our intention that all carers will be covered by this duty on trusts and foundation trusts to involve carers during adult discharge planning. That would apply to all adults who are being discharged, where a carer is involved. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady some reassurance. We would look to ensure that these points were suitably emphasised in guidance and in the advice we give to ICBs and ICSs. As she will know, the Department works with NHS trusts and NHS England, and has various mechanisms for guiding and informing trusts. I recognise the importance of the issue We ask that this House rejects Lords amendment 80, and that it reintroduces the clause that the Government originally inserted on Report in this House, alongside further amendments to support the operation of charging reform that were originally tabled in the other place. The Government have set out their plan for a sustainable social care system. We want to end unpredictable care costs for everyone by introducing a universal £86,000 cap on an individual’s personal care costs. I pay tribute to the Minister for Care and Mental Health, who, since taking up her post last September, has made driving this agenda forward a personal priority. I should also pay tribute to her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), for her work in this area We entirely recognise and respect that there are strong views on this issue across the House, and it is vital that our approach is fair. The Government believe that the fairest version of the cap would be based on what people contribute towards their care, rather than our counting local authority contributions as well. It simply cannot be fair that two people living in different parts of the country, contributing the same amount, progress towards the cap at different rates because of the differences in the amount that their local authority is paying.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Charles Ashley Rupert Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the Government on their amendments on mental health. As a former Minister with responsibility for mental health, Madam Deputy Speaker, you know that I have long taken an interest in the subject, so I am delighted that parity of esteem is included in the legislation. It is a very important amendment Parity of esteem must mean something, however, and should not be a jumble of words. It was the case that too many voices on both sides of the House fell silent during the covid pandemic. That may have been due to the fog of war, but the scarring of that silence runs deep in the communities that we represent—there are some very ill and damaged people out there. It is fine for us to talk about parity of esteem, but we have to live it and deliver it, and I am afraid that we fell short for 18 months I welcome the amendment and the recommitment of hon. Members, but we were all found wanting when it counted. I have the witness statements of more than 2,000 people who suffered with mental health problems during the pandemic and who wrote to me detailing what that was like. One day, I will make those statements available to the Government and to the inquiry, but today, I just thank the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who joined me in initiating the amendments. I hope that the next time that the country and this place are challenged, we rise to it, because mental health is as important as physical health.
Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Peter Alexander Gibson (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that everyone should have high-quality, personalised palliative care, and that is why I am speaking in favour of Lords amendment 12 on palliative care. I wholeheartedly welcome the benefits that this Bill can bring to those in need of that care. I must mention the tireless campaigning of Baroness Finlay, as referenced by the Minister in his opening statement, and Hospice UK, which acts as the secretariat for the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end of life care, of which I am a co-chair along with Baroness Finlay. Without their campaigning, we would not have been able to welcome this step forward. I should also declare my interest as a trustee of a hospice, and I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests On the day of the publication of the Ockenden report and our discussion of good births, it is time that we started to talk about good deaths, too. There is far more that we need to do to ensure that hospices and palliative care providers have the tools they need to achieve this, and Lords amendment 12 certainly moves us forward. We need to ensure that the impact of the measures in this Bill are maximised. The Bill specifies appropriate palliative care, but we should expand on this to ensure that a fair minimum standard of care is provided. We should be providing statutory guidance to integrated care boards on the commissioning of palliative care, ensuring that the new requirements are clear. That point was ably raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey) Funding certainty for hospices is essential. Certainty can enable them to better plan, support the needs of their local community and give commissioning boards confidence in relying on them as an integral part of local services. Certainty of funding will allow hospices to invest, innovate and integrate with the NHS and care system. Before the pandemic, adult hospices on average received 34% of their funding from Government, with some receiving little or none. Hospice funding came primarily from charitable donations, with the sector needing to raise £3.1 million every day. The pandemic saw donations, retail sales and fundraising activities fall dramatically, at the same time as an increase in service delivery. I want to put on record my thanks to the Government for the support that was given to all our hospices during the pandemic—and, in particular, to St Teresa’s in Darlington—but we need to see some certainty of funding for our hospices to deliver on this promise I am pleased that the Government accept Lords amendment 12. It is an important step forward for hospices and palliative care, and I welcome it.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend should also be aware that many walk-in centres have closed. In my constituency, the superb Alexandra Avenue centre has had a 20,000 cap imposed on the number of patients it can see. This service is run by popular GPs, but it faces the risk of being outsourced, to a Virgin healthcare or someone else. It originally served 40,000 patients, and many of my constituents are genuinely worried for its future.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2022-03-09
Topic: Health
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): My son Ben died of an aortic dissection at age 44, leaving a wife and two young children. It is a condition that kills 2,000 every year needlessly—more than those who die on the roads—yet most people do not know anything about it until it devastates their family, as it did mine. So many of these cases are preventable by identifying those at risk and through early and accurate diagnosis. Will the Prime Minister commend the work of the Aortic Dissection Charitable Trust in working with all aspects of the patient pathway for this condition? In particular, will he commit to public funding for research into the diagnosis of aortic dissection and into genetic screening for it?
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. I wish the Labour candidate in Lewisham East well and will be campaigning with them. We will be sending a firm message to the Tories that privatisation of the NHS will end. The NHS is not for sale.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Rosemary Clare Duffield (Labour, Centre-left): I agree that services started to be cut under a Labour Government, but they have got so much worse that our hospital is now underused, unusable and unrecognisable Madam Deputy Speaker, you will hear the same thing repeatedly from my concerned Labour colleagues this afternoon. The impact of austerity on our health service has been truly dreadful. Trusts are beginning to look to PFIs to keep walls from crumbling, and the desire for a short-term fix has meant that private companies, such as Virgin, Serco and Spire, have stepped in, especially near me in Kent, to profit from sickness, which is fundamentally abhorrent So much must change. The privatisation of the NHS and supporting services must be stopped and funding must be fully restored to the levels it was at under the last Labour Government. If Conservative Members continue to erode our health service and encourage private companies to step in to fill in the gaps, there will be little left when they finally realise what they have done. With so many pieces given away, the NHS jigsaw will certainly never look the same again Labour Members are constantly accused of running down, criticising and putting down our health service. The fact is that we are telling the truth about the urgent state of our broken NHS, which is staffed by amazing, dedicated and selfless people who deserve so much better from this Government.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I will use this opportunity to focus on continuing the great work of my predecessor the right hon. Alan Johnson and his campaign to ensure that Hull has the much needed child and adolescent mental health unit in our constituency We all accept that mental health is a huge problem, and I was proud to play a part in the Education Committee’s joint report on failing a generation, which rightly criticised the Government’s Green Paper on this issue. But we have been waiting for this change for such a long time Alan became involved in the campaign for this unit after meeting a young mum and campaigner called Sally Burke. Her daughter, Maisie, had significant mental health problems, so significant that she was sent 140 miles away for treatment. My constituent was not able to see her daughter as much as she would have liked, which highlights the lack of provision in my constituency and the desperate need for it The people of Hull came together with the local newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail, and 3,500 people petitioned the Government to say that we desperately need this child and adolescent mental health services unit in our constituency. Members could imagine our joy and celebration when, in September 2017, we were told that the money had been found and that we were going to get the unit we had been desperately waiting and campaigning for The trust has got all the planning permissions ready, everything is organised and the land is there, waiting to go. We were told the building would start in October 2017 and that it would be finished and the unit would be opening in October 2018, and finally the people of my constituency would have access to the support they need Members could imagine my disappointment when I heard that the trust is unable to draw down the money that has been promised and that there are further delays. I raised this with the Chancellor on 17 April to ask why the money is stuck in the Treasury, and he asked me to write to him. So I wrote to him about it, and then I had to wait for a really long time, until I tabled a written question asking when he would reply to my letter. He eventually replied with the confusing response that the trust needs to submit more information on the business case for the unit. That deeply concerns me because the unit was promised back in September 2017 and we are still waiting The people of Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle are not fools, and they will not accept any more delays. They have been campaigning for this unit for years, and I will not let down my predecessor, the wonderful Alan Johnson, by not making sure I deliver on his legacy and getting the CAMHS unit we desperately need. I call on the Minister to take immediate action: stop faffing about and give us the money for our CAMHS unit, which was promised months ago. I promise I will not stop going on about it until he does.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): For now, NHS trusts remain the sole shareholder in their wholly owned subsidiary companies—yes, just for now—but those subsidiary companies will be easier to sell in future. The trusts have established those subsidiaries with long contracts under the misguided impression that such contracts protect the trust and the employees. What the trusts do not acknowledge is that the current Government, or a future Government, could order them to sell off a subsidiary company, contracts and all, and, if necessary, could change the law to make it happen We have already seen how these new subsidiary companies make their margins off the backs of now former NHS staff who face the prospect of less favourable contracts with no access to the NHS pension scheme, yet some trust executives claim they are transferring employees to protect them. That is absolute rubbish. We all know that when staff are transferred by TUPE, the receiving employer can have a reorganisation. It can create new roles and axe old ones, and it can require people to apply again for what looks like their old job with some subtle changes, with the terms and conditions varied, putting an end to the protections they once enjoyed. This creates the two-tier workforce many others have spoken about today. It means that some people are being treated better than others, with more rights, better pay and better working conditions I have even heard that some of these executives believe the changes could be in the best interest of the workforce. None of these executives faces the prospect of being reorganised out of their job or out of their final salary pension scheme with a 15% employer contribution. The executives will continue to get that pension, yet the people they have shifted into new organisations will get a 3% employer contribution to their pension In a few years’ time, it will be interesting to see just how many of the original staff are still in these organisations and how many of them are on the same terms and conditions enjoyed by NHS staff who are still employed directly I am proud that, just a week ago, one of the teams at the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust in my Stockton North constituency was shortlisted for the NHS 70th awards, but a few months ago even this trust succumbed to temptation and set up one of these wholly owned subsidiary companies, despite the accounts for an existing subsidiary company showing it needed a bail-out from the trust to survive Wholly owned subsidiary companies are not working. They are a mechanism to rid employees of their NHS pension and of collective bargaining. The companies are damaging to employees, and they are damaging to the service in the longer run. What they are really doing is severely damaging the morale of our staff.
Accrington Victoria Walk-in Centre — House of Commons, 2018-05-23
Topic: Health
Graham Peter Jones (Labour, Centre-left): Does the Minister accept that the consultation had flaws, and will she look at that? Does she accept that replacing 88 hours in a walk-in centre with 18 and a half or 19 hours of extended GP opening hours is a reduction in GP access, which goes counter to what was said in the consultations run by me and the CCG?
Tourism — House of Commons, 2018-11-01
Topic: Culture
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): Tourism should not just be beaches and city breaks. The wonders of Ealing include our world famous studios of Ealing comedy and Downton fame, the basement blues club where the Stones first played, and the Questors theatre, the biggest am-dram venue in the world. They should all be linked together in a cultural quarter, but our council is cash-strapped in its provision of even the most basic services. The Minister mentioned the effect of Brexit on the number of overseas visitors. [Interruption.] So my question is—[Interruption.] I was building up to the question, Mr Speaker; thank you for reminding me. What are the Government doing to put suburbs on the tourist trail?
Ukraine Update — House of Commons, 2022-03-09
Topic: Defense
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): On a no-fly zone, we have set out our position, and I am not going into hypotheticals and what-ifs. Nevertheless, at the moment the balance is that I do not think it would suit the Ukrainian disposition, given the amounts of heavy armour and missiles in the Russian stocks. The Russians have a massive advantage with shells and missiles, and they would not stop in a no-fly zone, whereas the few things that the Ukrainians have to reach the Russians at depth are in the air, and one of them would be hampered On the resilience and support to Poland, we put 150 soldiers out there and 100 soldiers when the Belarusian migrant crisis was happening. We have nearly 700 soldiers there now helping the country in terms of resilience and, indeed, with humanitarian issues, if needed. I spoke to my Polish counterpart yesterday, and I am hoping to visit next week. We will also look at air defence requests from Poland to protect its airfields. It has been an ally for more than 150 years. We stand absolutely by Poland, shoulder to shoulder. When it comes to military requests, it is really important that we put the military equipment where it makes a difference and where the Supreme Allied Commander Europe wants it. There is often a danger in these events that we spread our forces all around for reassurance, but do not necessarily achieve the military tasks that we need to achieve.
Ukraine Update — House of Commons, 2022-03-09
Topic: Defense
John Charles Baron (Conservative, Centre-right): In commending the Government for their robust response to this dreadful invasion and notwithstanding existing levels of support and our article 5 commitment to NATO, the Government are right to rule out a no-fly zone and also to emphasise that it is a difficult balance to ensure that any defensive support is calibrated not to escalate matters to a strategic level. With talk of Polish jets being donated in mind, what assurance can my right hon. Friend give that, whatever the outcome, this will achieve the right balance, because a wider war would not serve the interests of any population, let alone Ukraine?
Fixed Odds Betting Terminals — House of Commons, 2018-11-01
Topic: Health
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): We have heard from Members on both sides of the Chamber that lives are being lost and families are being affected. Last year, according to the NHS, record numbers of people were hospitalised through gambling addiction. Does the Secretary of State think that mental health provision for problem gamblers is adequate?