argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-17
Topic: Health
David John Barrington Burrowes (Conservative, Centre-right): New clause 31 stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). It concerns the Government’s intent to devolve more powers to local representatives, but proposes pushing the boat out a little further into terrain that, nationally, we have been a little bit tentative about. Devolved powers are allowed to make a decision on Sunday trading. Whether local areas should be able to decide on Sunday trading, and other such issues, is a debate for another day—or, hopefully, not at all New clause 31 concerns the minimum unit pricing of alcohol. At one point, the Government and the Prime Minister took the view that the case had been made back in 2008 by the Department of Health. Such pricing would assist directly in tackling health harms relating to the excessive use of alcohol. At that time, the Government were consulting not on whether, but how much. However, the ups and downs of coalition government and other concerns, not least from those on the Government Benches, led to the measure not seeing the light of day. This is an excellent opportunity to bring it back to the light. We can allow local authorities to have the power to set a minimum unit price for alcohol sold within their areas As has been said, local authorities already have some degree of power to set a price under the licensing regime. I understand that in Newcastle two bars have become the first in the United Kingdom to be licensed to sell alcohol at a minimum price in excess of £1 a unit. I am not sure how popular those bars will be, not least because I am now publicising them, but that is part of the licensing regime in Newcastle. The bars have been licensed subject to a condition that alcohol is sold at set prices that equate to a minimum price of £1.25 per unit of alcohol—nearly three times the 45p per unit price that was subject to the Government consultation My understanding is that that price was agreed to keep the street as the city’s premier street. This initiative by the city council, with the full co-operation of the applicants, is designed to maintain the quality of the city centre, control crime and disorder, and improve health. It seeks to end the availability of irresponsibly priced alcohol by controlling multi-buy promotions that lead to irresponsible drinking. That is the approach being followed, in a somewhat limited way, by Newcastle. I understand that Ipswich also had a licensing and prices regime to tackle the impact of excessive alcohol, in particular in relation to super-strength ciders and lagers The Bill seeks to reduce the bureaucracy that gets in the way of empowering local areas to do what should be reasonable: to help to have a significant impact on the health harms affecting their local area.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-17
Topic: Health
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am interested to hear my hon. Friend’s speech. One of the main problems in my constituency is people preloading with alcohol: buying from a supermarket, drinking it at home and then going out for an evening. He talks about premium prices applying to bars. How would his suggestion work if I could drive literally just a couple of miles down the road to a supermarket, buy my alcohol, come back and drink it at home?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-17
Topic: Health
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Might not one slight problem be the potential incentive to do it the other way around, meaning that the one place without a minimum alcohol price ends up with lots of supermarkets looking to locate within it?
Assisted Dying Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-10-22
Topic: Health
Ranbir Suri (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I refer to the Assisted Dying Bill debated in the House of Lords on 16 January 2015, when my noble friend Lord Tebbit sought to settle the matter at hand by quoting the generally accepted definition of suicide from the Oxford English Dictionary: "suicide, n. The … act of taking one’s own life, self-murder" He went on to say: "Can we settle the matter now?"—[Official Report, 16/01/15; col. 1017.] Suicide is just not self-murder. It is more than that: it is a crime against our maker, almighty God, and nature. This should not be the choice of the terminally ill patient. We have to accept the will of almighty God. The holy scripture of Sikhism says that whosoever has come into this world has to go on their allotted day. Terminology and technicalities should not be the ammunition to carry out the execution We are obliged on moral grounds to prevent assisted dying and should not aid a terminally person wishing to die by facilitating them to give away the right to administer their own death. We should not use feelings and compassion as the catalyst in deciding to take the life of a terminally ill patient Progress in every industry is continuously being made through new inventions and ideas, whether it is medical, engineering or the quest to travel further into the galaxy. It should be of paramount interest for medical science to adhere to and honour human morals in the pursuit to stop assisted dying and endorse research into developing ways to improve a terminally ill person’s quality of life and reduce suffering—the preservation of life as opposed to the termination of it We should not take advantage of somebody’s vulnerability and interfere with the psychological implications of assisted dying, which have an impact on not just the patient but those who care for them, be they family, friends or carers. We do not have the right to take anyone’s life. That is a decision taken by God only. Medical ethics do a great service to society; they have always protected life and endeavoured to prolong it. The taking of a human life in any way is morally, ethically, religiously and humanistically wrong. Dignity in dying should be respected in all circumstances, as I have read in the many letters and emails I have received.
Assisted Dying Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-10-22
Topic: Health
James Peter Hymers Mackay (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is not unusual for me to speak on this subject, as you have heard. I have been involved in it for a long time and do not want to bore you by repeating anything. First, assisted suicide is against the law, as a general law in the land. In this Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, with great clarity and skill, described the situation with which she wants to deal. It is a situation in which a person has an inevitably progressive condition that cannot be reversed by treatment That applies to the disabled, as well as to others, and to people who have it for a long time. Six months has been chosen as the breaking point for this Bill, but I do not understand exactly why that has been chosen, particularly when it is extremely difficult for doctors to tell how long a person will live. We had plenty of evidence about that in the inquiry that I was honoured to chair long ago. It is very difficult: death may come very quickly or be postponed for some time. In the Bill’s description, disabled people are covered, and that is the reason that those who are concerned about it for the disabled have a base This Bill is designed to show general compassion, but the other matter I want to mention is people who have a terminal illness which has been diagnosed but will take a long time before their anticipated death. They will have pain, sometimes very severe pain, but they are not included in the Bill. It is difficult to say that that shows compassion The other thing I want to mention is that this principle makes it very easy to enlarge the scope of the Bill simply by deleting the "six months". Since the six months does not appear to be particularly principled, that must be quite easy to do. Therefore, if we were to pass this legislation, we would have to anticipate that it would be quickly followed by an attempt to get rid of the six months. As I said, if it were to happen at all, there is something to be said for allowing it to include people with a progressive illness that takes much longer than six months.
Assisted Dying Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-10-22
Topic: Health
Kevin Shinkwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have listened with care and respect to the passionate arguments expressed on both sides. My contribution to this crucial debate stems from my personal experience of having been unable to talk, swallow or even breathe independently following lifesaving neurosurgery. My neurosurgeon would not give me odds even on survival, never mind recovery To say that I felt vulnerable would be an understatement. However, the one thing that did not compound my pain, anguish and complete loss of autonomy was the fear that the law presumed to pose the question of whether my life was worth living. That is the fear that has been so powerfully articulated by my noble friend Lady Fraser, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Grey-Thompson Sadly, nothing that I have heard today comes close to addressing that fear. In fact, I know that had the Bill been law, it would have compounded my acute sense of vulnerability. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have felt like a burden. If I had known then what we know now about the highly relevant assisted dying developments in Canada, I would have felt that a price had been placed on my head It is a simple fact that keeping those of us with severe disabilities alive costs money—lots of it. Rebuilding this broken body in which I live has cost an awful lot of money The British Islamic Medical Association rightly states that "when it comes to assisted dying, there are no opportunities to rectify well-intentioned mistakes or benefit from hindsight." Let us not make a very well-intentioned mistake. Instead, let us protect those in vulnerable situations, such as I found myself in, by opposing the Bill.
The National Health Service — House of Commons, 2019-10-23
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Well, I am afraid that it was the Labour party that set up independent treatment centres. I am a surgeon, and one of the issues was that such centres were sucking away the routine elective work that contributes to training future surgeons, and leaving the NHS to deal with the complex, chronic, expensive cases. Before the Health and Social Care Act, the NHS usually managed to find enough money down the back of the sofa that, at the end of each year, it would have about £500 million left. After the changes, it was £100 million in debt, £800 million in debt, and then £2.5 billion in debt. That is because money is sucked out in all these different ways, leaving a lack of funding that leads to rationing, which is pushing people to have to pay for more of their own care. We are hearing about that with co-payments—paying for a second cataract operation or for a second hearing aid. My Choice, which the Health and Social Care Act also brought in, raised the cap from 2% to 49% of income that an NHS hospital could earn through private patients. The highest amount at the moment is over 27% The idea that that does not impact on NHS patients is nonsense, because surgeons have limited capacity in terms of who they can operate on during the day, so if someone is able to jump the queue within the NHS, they are taking someone else’s place. As we saw with Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, price lists have been pinned up in clinics suggesting to people that they might want to pay £7,000 or £8,000 for a hip or knee replacement, and there were also a lot of cosmetic and minor operations. I would gently suggest, as a surgeon, that surgery is not a sport. Either the patient needs an operation clinically, in which case it should be provided by the NHS, or they do not, in which case they should not be able to buy it from the NHS. Under the principle of My Choice, hugely high thresholds are being set. In the case of some CCGs, a person has to have had two falls before they can have a cataract operation, or they have to be in pain, even in bed, to get their hip done. That is driving families to club together to address that. That is not right. If someone needs it, the NHS is meant to provide it free at the point of need, and if they do not, every single operation is a risk and should never be done to attract income for an NHS trust.
The National Health Service — House of Commons, 2019-10-23
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Well, it has not been sucking money for the past six or seven years because it was only declared open in February. I totally agree that it is a huge setback that, due to a failure within the health board’s tendering process for the build, it did not recognise the need for the level of ventilation in an intensive care unit. I would gently suggest to the hon. Gentleman that I do not think he would have wanted our Cabinet Secretary to simply go ahead putting babies and children in an intensive care unit where the ventilation was not considered safe In Scotland, so far our funding for the NHS has doubled in the past 10 years and will actually increase further next year. But it is not just about funding; it is about structure. What is happening in NHS England is fragmentation. It is not just that NHS hospitals are competing with private companies; they are competing with each other, and that undermines collaboration. We need to have collaboration, with the patient at the centre. Anything that fragments or undermines that collaboration is weakening the quality and safety of care.
The National Health Service — House of Commons, 2019-10-23
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As people in the Chamber may know, my husband is German and therefore I know that system in Germany relatively well. I would point out that the hospitals do not collaborate there either. As it is about income for the hospital, surgeons and clinicians will not always refer a patient on even though they know there is an expert down the road. I would not particularly defend that. I lost my sister-in-law two years ago, and the bills were still coming in for almost a year. That is quite a stressful and upsetting system. Not everything is covered. Patients still, as in many insurance systems, have to cover a gap, which can be significant and quite painful for them. These systems could not generate the epidemiological data, or anything like the treatment and outcome data, that is generatable in all four of the UK health services, because they do not have a nationwide system When I was back on the Health Committee for a short time this spring, we heard talk about the changes to the Health and Social Care Act. It is critically important that those go ahead, because there are perverse incentives within that legislation. At the moment, the tariff is paid to a trust only if patients are admitted. That is a perverse incentive against managing people in the community, or even prevention. It is important that section 75 is done away with completely so that there is not pressure on commissioning groups to put things out to tender, because that is a wasteful process. I remember reading about £500 million wasted in Nottingham, where there were preparations for a tender, then the private company did not go ahead and then it did go ahead All this is taking money away from patient care. That is the basis of the argument about publicly provided services. I am sorry, but the quips about drugs and so on by the Secretary of State were childish. Was he suggesting that nurses and doctors go into the North sea to drill for oil, or that that is the suggestion from the Opposition Benches? It is not the suggestion from anyone on the Opposition Benches that drugs would not be purchased. It was just a childish response. Having private companies pulling NHS England apart undermines it, fragments it and makes it not patient-centred, and being patient-centred should be the goal of every single health service across the UK.
The National Health Service — House of Commons, 2019-10-23
Topic: Health
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones). I assure him that I, too, will be referring to the ongoing injustice to the 1950s-born women. However, as this is themed as an NHS debate, I want to pay particular tribute to all the healthcare staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Southern General Hospital in my constituency. Indeed, I want also to thank the healthcare staff at St Thomas’ Hospital, just over the bridge, because I know they provide healthcare support to Members from across this House What a fascinating debate this has been so far. I was particularly interested in the view we received from Conservative Members that austerity is over—I have been getting told that austerity is over at every Queen’s Speech and every Finance Bill since I got here in 2015—but the best moment was when the Secretary of State decided he was shocked and dismayed that Opposition Members would not trust the Government not to privatise the NHS or to make it part of an international trade deal. Why would we suggest that? Would it be, perhaps, because there are senior members of the Government whose political inclinations are not too dissimilar to President Trump’s? [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Well, it is a fact—or would it be because some of them give away by their personalities that, to use that Glaswegian expression, they would sell their grannies for a tanner, as the Democratic Unionist party has no doubt found in the past week?
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I can of course give my right hon. Friend that assurance, but there is a note of hesitation in my response. That is partly because professional standards, as my right hon. Friend knows, are not a matter for politicians—they have to be set independently by the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council—and partly because if we are going to improve the reporting culture, which in the end is what the report is about, we have to change the fear that many doctors and nurses have that if they are open and transparent about mistakes they have made or seen, they will get dumped on. That is a real worry for many people. Part of this is about creating a supportive culture, so that when people take the brave decision to be open about something that has gone wrong they get the support that they deserve.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): The disparity in excess deaths between vulnerable groups at Southern Health is truly shocking, but of course responsibility for looking after the people in question spans health and social care. Is my right hon. Friend content that we have in place the informatics that will allow outliers to be identified, and therefore rectification to be under way? One assumes that that could easily be done by NHS England, but at the moment the informatics seem to be problematic in this respect.
The National Health Service — House of Commons, 2019-10-23
Topic: Health
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In response to my question this morning about compensation for the victims of the contaminated blood scandal, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General suggested that the Government were waiting for "the determination of legal liability, to which the inquiry’s deliberations relate", but surely he must recognise that under the Inquiries Act 2005 a public inquiry cannot determine liability, so how can I call for the Minister for the Cabinet Office to correct the answer that he gave?
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I am afraid that that probably does happen. We all, in all parts of the House, passionately believe in and support the NHS. It should never come down to lawyers. When there is a problem, we need a culture where the NHS is totally open and as keen as the families are themselves to understand what happened, whether it could be avoided, and what lessons can be learned. If nothing else, that is the big lesson that we need to make sure we act on as a result of today’s leaked report.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): It is clear from my right hon. Friend’s statement that there is a cultural problem in Southern Health and across the NHS. Does he agree that far too often NHS management and clinicians are far too defensive and end up arguing about the data rather than addressing the underlying causes, which would fix the problem in the first place?
Drug Consumption Room (Glasgow) — House of Commons, 2019-07-24
Topic: Health
Questions: What recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on the potential merits of establishing a medically supervised drug consumption room in Glasgow.
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am glad that the Home Secretary is finally going to meet the Scottish Government on this. When NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde published its proposals for a supervised drug consumption in 2016, the number of drug-related deaths stood at 257; last year, it was 394. So I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how many people would still be alive in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area if the Home Office had not blocked, for ideological reasons, drug consumption rooms in Glasgow?
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman was looked after by Guy’s and St Thomas’s, where my mother was a nurse and where I was born, so I have connections to that trust as well. He is right about making sure that we get the culture right. It is about creating a more supportive environment for people who do a very, very tough job every day of the week. When we have a conversation along those lines with patients and with our constituents, they understand that as well. More than anything else, they want to know that lessons are going to be learned and acted on.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope the report will be published next week. The commitment I have from NHS England is that it will be published before Christmas. I am confident that, whenever it is published, it will generate huge media interest, rightly so and partly thanks to the shadow Health Secretary’s urgent question. When the draft report was sent to the trust, it came back with 300 individual items of concern, and it was right for NHS England, in the interests of accuracy and justice, to consider fully all those concerns. It has given me an assurance, however, that, whether or not it can reach an agreement with the trust about its contents, the report will be published before Christmas.