argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Medical Innovation Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-01-23
Topic: Health
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. Obviously, I must take account of his expert view, but the fear that I was about to articulate is that if you require a doctor to register the details and results of whatever innovative treatment he or she may have administered on some kind of data-capturing scheme in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that would constitute part of the requirement for the doctor to demonstrate that he or she has acted responsibly, and thus not negligently. Therefore, if the amendment were accepted, the result could be that a failure to record would be part of the picture when deciding whether a doctor had acted negligently If that point is accepted—I expect the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to take me to task on it—my submission is that that would be a disproportionate requirement.
Barts Health NHS Trust — House of Lords, 2015-03-19
Topic: Health
Zahida Manzoor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the culture within the NHS appears to be changing, and not for the better. Is the Department of Health looking at that, as well as at the issue of PFI across the NHS, and is it doing so not in a piecemeal fashion whereby things are identified only when they go wrong?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Defense
Questions: The closure of RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk represents a staggering £0.2 billion loss to the Suffolk economy, including the loss of more than 700 civilian jobs. I know that the Minister for Business and Enterprise, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) is chairing the taskforce on trying to continue economic activity in some form at RAF Mildenhall, but will the Minister tell me what steps he will be taking to help fill the massive economic void that will result from this regrettable closure?; According to recent reports in The Times, Ministers are presiding over not only a stalling reserves recruitment programme but a crisis in recruitment to the regular forces. Can any of the Ministers reassure the House that the targets for recruitment to the regular Army forces will be met this year?; Returning to the question of the issuing of a national defence medal, will the Minister join me in paying tribute to my constituent, Mr Martin Halligan, who has done an inestimable and unstinting job on promoting the campaign for the medal nationally? Despite the review that has taken place, will she take on board the feeling expressed by many current and former service personnel that the issuing of such a medal would not undermine previous protocols and conventions or take away from specific acts of courage, leadership and honour, which are rightly recognised at present?; Pupils from Corbridge middle school in my constituency are shortly to go to the world war one sites, under the battlefield tours programme. What support is the MOD giving to schools, charities and families whose ancestors were involved as we go forward with future commemorations?; Boko Haram slaughter the innocent, sell girls into slavery and impose mediaeval government and fear in wide areas of Nigeria. The local military are seen in many cases as being corrupt and perhaps to have involved themselves in human rights abuses. What role is the MOD carrying out to support Nigeria in tackling Boko Haram?; May I put on record my thanks to the Minister for the Armed Forces for his visit to BAE systems in Warton and Salmesbury aerodromes, which are key employers in Lancashire? Will he update the House on defence export prospects for the Hawk trainer aircraft, as its production line has recently opened in my Fylde constituency?
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): May I try to goad the Secretary of State so that he stops trying to bamboozle us all about the real deterrent we need, which is a properly armed, conventional group of 100,000 men and women to defend this country? Is it not about time that he took our mind off reservists and talked about how many men and women we have under arms in this country?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2021-05-13
Topic: Health
Gisela Stuart (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to start tackling the NHS waiting list backlog created by Covid, but can I urge Ministers not to lose sight of the extra demands that will be created by the consequences of long Covid? We do not yet know how extensive those demands will be, and we will not resolve and deal with Covid unless we also address such needs.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-12
Topic: Health
Frank Field (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I can willingly agree to that last request. I think if we put it to a Division we might not win, so what is the point of closing doors when the Minister was busy opening them? I am immensely grateful to her for that As the House can see, many people can do two things at once—both speak and keep their masks in place. I fail that test. But I want to thank those who have participated—the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher, Lady Walmsley, Lady Thornton, Lady Masham, Lady Jolly, Lady Bennett and Lady Penn, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—for their contributions in taking this debate further. If I may, I will end on a cheerful note. Let us suppose that, in the next few days, the Prime Minister finds the time to look at this issue and decides that the Government’s line will be different. We know that the people who have had to defend the line tonight would then put another case to us, and I hope that that case will be put very shortly Safety is, of course, crucial. However, we have just experienced the introduction of the Oxford vaccine and other vaccines. Presumably they went through randomised controlled trials, so those can be accomplished very quickly. I hope that, when the Prime Minister changes his mind, we will move to testing the safety of these products as quickly as we have the vaccines. Just as the vaccines offer us hope of life after Covid, I hope that we will see a quick response for those millions of people who are not free to obtain their cannabis on the NHS but who, like me, are lucky enough to be able to buy it. I hope that we will move very quickly and resolutely. One way of levelling up is to make these products—once their safety has been established—free for everybody on the NHS.
Corby Fire Services — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Defense
Andrew Sawford (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister is talking about additional funds. Does she understand why my constituents and I will be perplexed when she suggests that the Government have given Northamptonshire county council and the fire service additional funds, since the chief fire officer and the county council’s cabinet member for finance have come to me to say that they are cutting the engine because they do not have any money and have to make cuts? To me, those two things do not add up. Will the Minister explain?
Copycat Websites — House of Commons, 2015-01-08
Topic: Health
Yvonne Helen Fovargue (Labour, Centre-left): The top advertised search result for the European health insurance card if someone searches for "health card" or "national health card" is a site that charges £49 for its so-called services. Will the Minister act to put a stop to that practice by giving similar powers to those of Transport for London and blocking transactions from that site, tackling the problem at source?
Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Mitochondrial Donation) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-02-24
Topic: Health
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way, but I do not think that she speaks from experience. Sadly, I have to say that I do speak from experience. I have run a very large infertility practice for a very long time, and we found donors very easily when it was concerned with these sorts of serious conditions. There was never a problem about finding donor eggs for this kind of problem.
Maternity Services in Morecambe Bay — House of Lords, 2015-03-03
Topic: Health
Narendra Babubhai Patel (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I have to admit that, as an obstetrician, when I read this report, my immediate response was intense anger, anger at this systems failure on a grand scale. None of these things should have occurred. This is not an example of failure of a mild degree or of a relationship. This is failure on a major scale. No maternity unit in the country would tolerate these kinds of tragedies occurring in their own unit I commend the report. I have worked with the chairman and several of the expert advisers. Dr Kirkup worked with me when I carried out the inquiry on cancer services in Gateshead. He was a member of the team and I know the others, particularly as they come from my own hospital. Professor Stewart Forsyth was neonatologist with me, and I know James Walker, whose father is responsible for all the successes I have had in obstetrics and none of the failures. His name was also James Walker What can we do? There is the idea of mandatory reporting of unexpected maternal deaths and stillbirths. We have a stillbirth rate in the antenatal period that has not reduced in this country for 40 years. We have unexpectedly high numbers of normally formed babies who die in the interpartum period but who should not die. If that kind of tragedy ever occurred in my unit, there was a major investigation immediately afterwards. Mandatory reporting may highlight this issue because we need to address it I will focus on one recommendation of the several that are addressed regarding the professional organisations in medicine and midwifery. They need to step up to the plate and respond positively to this report on what their role will be in making maternity services safer in this country. The noble Earl referred to an airline-type investigation for root cause analysis. I accept that that is absolutely necessary but it requires experience and training and it must be done soon after the event to learn the lessons that might be applicable to other maternity units. I am encouraged to hear that NHS England will carry out a review of maternity services and I hope that it will be an in-depth review with the specific purpose of making maternity services safer. It should not be about demarcation issues with which we got ourselves tied up previously between different professional groups. It should not be about relocating services. It should be about making maternity services safer I have lots of questions but they are not for today and I will save them for another time. I hope all of us—no matter who the Government are—will now work to make maternity services in this country among the best possible.
NHS Funding Pressures — House of Commons, 2015-03-10
Topic: Health
Daniel Grian Alexander (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): The Government have protected the health budget in real terms throughout the current Parliament. Of course a strong national health service needs a strong economy, and the Government plan to deliver that strong economy, along with a fairer society. The NHS budget has already increased by £12.7 billion during this Parliament, and in the autumn statement we announced an additional £2 billion for front-line NHS services. That money is intended to meet demand pressures in the next financial year, and also to help to start the process of transformation that was outlined in the "Five Year Forward View", which is probably the most important representation that I have received on NHS funding in the last year or so.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-25
Topic: Health
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, the sun is out and it is echoed in the school playground outside my windows. Traffic is on the road and families are meeting each other. I have witnessed notable discrepancies in understanding much of the guidance among the population. Regrettably, we are again debating these health protection measures retrospectively. I agree with the deep concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Hunt, and I have the following questions First, how are the Government supporting local authorities to implement guidance and monitor capacity, including access to PPE for care homes, the use of masks and social distances? Secondly, on day-care centres for adults living with learning disabilities, what assessment has been taken to mitigate their distress, including carers who may have experienced it during lockdown, in particular, to ensure that social work support and resources are available to staff to assess any abuse that they may have experienced? Thirdly, on track and trace among the most affected communities, do some of the tracers recruited have additional languages to ensure that language is no barrier to their engagement? Next, how are the Government ensuring that information on track and trace is reaching the most affected communities Next, on mental health, what steps have been taken to support front-line NHS care staff, as well as teachers and social workers, many of whom have experienced extreme distress as they continue their services? What access do these staff have to mental health resources and talking therapy? Similarly, in my locality women-led organisations such as Account 3 are currently providing a critical lifeline to women from difficult and disadvantaged family circumstances. They have experienced a high level of demand for services and not enough funding. Will the Government acknowledge their valiant role and efforts in mitigating some of the disproportionate impacts? Can the Minister let me know in writing what financial support may be available to them Undeniably, some minority communities have been profoundly affected by Covid-19. This has been substantiated by Public Health England’s reports, which have evidenced structural inequalities as a significant factor. Have the Government—
National Health Service — House of Lords, 2016-01-14
Topic: Health
Nicholas Baines (Bishops, Unknown): My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Much of what I was going to say has been said and I do not intend to repeat it. I have surveyed some of the National Health Service foundation trusts in my diocese and there are common threads, both of opportunity and concern: financial, operational and clinical. Yet it ought to be said that some of the administrations of these health services are doing heroic work at a time of enormous complexity and constraint. Again, as has been said about the need to raise morale among staff, we should at least thank and congratulate those who are making the system work despite the challenges As demands rise, constraints are harder to deal with. I will throw into this that questions around PFI will have to be addressed at some point because of the deficits that some of our trusts are facing. One obvious issue here is that collaboration across key organisations at a system or place level is made difficult when each is bound by an independent regulatory regime and independent internal governance arrangements The relationship between health and social care was raised earlier. Social care is means tested. If you want to shift people out of acute beds in hospitals and into social care, there has to be a smoother route for doing it; obstacles should be handled or dismantled Finally, in relation to questions about the future, I will raise the question of chaplaincy—not as a bit of special pleading but because chaplaincy recognises the holistic nature of the care of people. In a debate such as this, we very easily talk about money, finance constraints and administration systems, but looking at the whole needs of people, so that they cease to be just medical cases or numbers or bed throughput, will be increasingly important.
Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-11
Topic: Health
Michael Wills (Labour, Centre-left): I wonder whether I could just push the Minister a little bit further on this process. She says that the Government do not have the evidence to take the measures for other sectors that they are currently taking in relation to the NHS. She said that the Francis report has produced the evidence that the Government feel they need to proceed. I accept that. It is a perfectly reasonable approach. However, if she accepts that whistleblowing is so important in all these other vital sectors and that there is a loophole in protections that the Government are seeking to plug—clearly they accept that there are loopholes because they are seeking to plug them in relation to the NHS—why will the Minister not commit now to launching an inquiry to see whether such evidence exists? The Government did it with Mid Staffs; they have done it with other scandals; they know that there is a problem here; they know that it is important to tackle this problem. Why do the Government not commit now to collecting the evidence to see how best they can move to plug these loopholes?
Covid-19 Update — House of Lords, 2020-03-17
Topic: Health
Manzila Pola Uddin (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): I hesitate to add to the Minister’s burden of taking matters to his friends at the Department of Health, but there are extreme shortages of things such as Calpol, thermometers and epinephrine autoinjectors, such as EpiPen and Auvi-Q. I hope that, despite all the Government’s assurances, Ministers and others will bear in mind that this is very important equipment and medicine, particularly for the young and vulnerable.
GP Appointments — House of Commons, 2015-07-07
Topic: Health
Questions: What recent estimate he has made of the proportion of patients who waited for at least one week for a GP appointment in the past 12 months.
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State mentions recruiting 5,000 extra GPs, but I note in a recent speech that that was downgraded from a guarantee to a maximum. With 10% of trainee posts unfilled and the BMA’s recent survey suggesting that a third of GPs will leave in the next five years, is that not going to be difficult? Has the Secretary of State had any consultation with the BMA and the royal college to ask why they are leaving?
Maternity Services in Morecambe Bay — House of Lords, 2015-03-03
Topic: Health
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, back in 2006 the Minister and I had the unhappy experience of being in opposition when the NHS Redress Act went through your Lordships’ House. We are both on record as saying at the time that we felt that it was a fairly inadequate piece of legislation. I think the 44 recommendations in this report are searing evidence that that is in fact the case In the wake of the reports by Dame Carol Black, Sir Robert Francis and Sir Bruce Keogh, does the Minister agree that it is now time for a thorough root and branch review of the legislation underpinning the NHS complaints system? I have very little time in which to deal with the great many points in this report, but I wish to ask the Minister about two, which are important. First, in recommendation 27, the regulatory bodies, the GMC and the NMC, are asked to reconsider the guidance to professionals about what to do if they suspect that clinical standards or services are not being fulfilled. It seems to me that in this case there was a failure at every level in that respect. That is unacceptable. Secondly, the report points to the breakdown of the relationship between the CQC and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. They had no communication and the consequence was that the families had nowhere to go to seek redress. It is difficult because that ombudsman is both the parliamentary and the health service ombudsman for Members of Parliament to make recommendations about ways in which the health service might be reformed. Will the Government act quickly on the recommendation of this report that there should be a memorandum of understanding between the CQC and that ombudsman?
Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-11
Topic: Health
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. However, I am disappointed with the Minister’s response because I thought that at the least he would have been prepared to give this matter further consideration between now and Third Reading. With my noble friend Lord Winston here to talk about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, also present, I knew that we would have an interesting debate. The point is that, however effective or not the HFEA is at the moment, the one thing that unites us all is that we do not want to see its regulatory function weakened. My noble friend Lord Winston spoke about London becoming the centre of a healthcare market, and the Minister welcomed that. When I took through the 2001 regulations that extended the purposes of research in the original 1990 Act, which was based very much on the extraordinary work of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, we clearly had in mind that there was research potential for the UK. That was one of the factors behind taking through those original regulations. The argument that we put forward then was that the UK would be able to attract research investment because, despite some of the doubts that noble Lords have expressed today, we were considered to have a first-rate regulatory function. I put it to the noble Lord that he is putting that reputation at risk by allowing ambiguity in the nature of the regulatory process My noble friend talked about the dangers of commercialisation in this field and he is surely right. It is interesting that the chief executive of the HFEA has recently been quoted as recognising the responsibility to take action against rampant commercialisation of IVF in the UK. That statement is very welcome. My noble friend has argued that at the moment it does not have the powers to do anything about it, but the noble Lord comes here with a proposal to weaken its already inadequate powers. That is quite remarkable The Government are very keen for the mitochondrial donation regulations to be approved on 24 February. I support them, but has the noble Lord considered the risk to that decision from the impact of this Bill? This will be a big issue when we debate those regulations. When the noble Earl, Lord Howe, comes to make proposals for the regulations, he will say that your Lordships can have confidence in passing the legislation because of the robustness of the HFEA. However, I, who support those regulations, will have to get up and say that actually the noble Earl is incorrect because of what the noble Lord here is proposing to do.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2020-07-22
Topic: Health
Ben Morgan Lake (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): Face coverings will become mandatory on public transport in Wales next Monday. A zero VAT rating has been applied to most PPE since 1 May but at present, it does not apply to non-medical face coverings. Will the Prime Minister therefore extend the zero rating to these items so that members of the public, especially those on low incomes, are not financially penalised for following the rules?
NHS England: Major Incidents — House of Lords, 2015-01-28
Topic: Health
Hector MacKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, will the Minister help the House: is it right that one of the matters to be considered is the possibility of reputational damage to the trust if it declares an emergency? That is nothing to do with clinical decision-making locally. Consulting the duty officer of NHS England before declaring an emergency is nothing to do with local clinical decision-making either. Perhaps the Minister can help the House.