Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2022-03-30
Topic: Health
Rosena Chantelle Allin-Khan (Labour, Centre-left): The Opposition congratulate the Lords on their hard work on the Bill, which is much improved from when it left the Commons. We support the Lords amendments, which are sensible and proportionate and will go some way to tackling health inequalities that are still sadly far too prevalent Over the past two years, we have seen the very best of our NHS. Publicly owned and free at the point of use, it is the best of us and has protected our families for generations; I hope it will continue to do so for many years to come. Unfortunately, the Government are set on a power grab, and refuse to act to tackle workforce shortages and ever-growing waiting lists. Waiting times for cancer care are now the longest on record, patients with serious mental illnesses are being sent hundreds of miles away for treatment, and one in four mental health beds have been cut since 2010. We deserve better. Our NHS deserves better We can all agree that the amendments in this group are wide-ranging, so I will be covering a range of subjects. A number of amendments in the group speak to women’s health. We have seen time and again that the Government are dismissive of women’s health and have ignored the needs of half the population. In its original form, the Bill was far too scant on tackling health inequalities; it is only because of colleagues in the other place and Labour votes that we are making ground on tackling them at all Along with the rest of our health team, I am proud to support the continued provision of telemedical abortion services in England. Maintaining the existing provision of at-home early medical abortion following a telephone or video consultation with a clinician is crucial for women’s healthcare. Not only did that preserve access to a vital service during the pandemic; it enabled thousands of women to gain access to urgently needed care more quickly, more safely and more effectively. Women’s healthcare must reflect the needs of those whom it serves. Scrapping telemedical abortion services would drastically reduce access to that vital service, and would simply serve to increase the number of later-term abortions. Everyone should have access to safe and timely healthcare. I say to Ministers: please do not ignore clinical best practice and the expert opinions of organisations and royal colleges We welcome provisions to ban hymenoplasty, and the power to create a licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures. Those too were a result of Labour votes, because the original Bill did not even mention them. Ministers must stop treating women as an afterthought in healthcare provision. However, we are glad to see that the Government have accepted the Lords amendment to remove coroners’ access to material held by the Health Service Safety Investigations Body On the NHS frontlines, I see at first hand the pressure placed on staff. Staff must feel protected, and must be encouraged to come forward. It is crucial for the Bill to promote a learning culture, so that any investigation can establish what training and procedures need to change in order to prevent any future mistakes. Only by enshrining that culture can we ensure that staff will feel comfortable about coming forward We welcome Baroness Hollins’s amendment to introduce mandatory training on learning disabilities and autism for all regulated health and care staff, and we are pleased to see that the Government support it. Everyone deserves access to safe, informed, individual care, and hopefully the amendment will go some way towards reducing health inequalities that are faced all too regularly by people with learning disabilities and autism.