Baby Loss Awareness Week

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. The situation is particularly difficult in rural communities where people live a very long way from services. As we set out in the NHS long-term plan, maternity outreach clinics are going to start to integrate maternity, reproductive health and psychological therapy for women experiencing mental health difficulties arising from or related to maternity experience, and we must keep in mind those living in very remote communities when we talk about those outreach facilities.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

This is such an important topic. While the Minister is on the subject of outreach clinics, may I also emphasise to her the need for maternity bereavement suites within maternity suites? I am proud to have helped secure £22,500 for the new facility at Scunthorpe hospital that opened over the summer, and I pay tribute to the Health Tree Foundation for securing that £175,000 project. It took years but we now have a bereavement suite where parents who have had a stillbirth can spend time with their other children and with their baby on the ward in that maternity suite, just as other young mums and dads do. It is a really important part of the healing process. Frankly, that should be the norm throughout all our maternity suites. As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, perhaps the Government could consider such a system for the country as a whole.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. He is absolutely right that we need to give that area a lot more attention. Having that ability to spend time together will be an incredibly valuable and important part of the process of grieving and coming to terms with the unbelievably tragic death of a baby.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I obviously associate myself with many of the comments that have been made today, particularly those of my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who talked very movingly about their personal experiences.

I suppose that not many of us necessarily think about this issue if we have not experienced it, or think about the support that is available. I must confess that I had not considered the issue in any great depth, because I had had no personal family experience of it, and of course one assumes that all the services will be there to support people at this most vulnerable of times. It was not until someone came to talk to me about the project that I described in an intervention on the Minister’s speech—at that early stage, I was not sure whether I would have an opportunity to speak myself—that I gave any thought to the experience of bereaved parents in a maternity suite.

That brilliant project was initiated by the Health Tree Foundation in north Lincolnshire, which is the hospital charity for the North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust. I pay particular tribute to the member of my staff who raised the subject with me, Julie Reed, who is my community support manager. She tasks herself with going out and supporting local good causes, and as a result has managed to write funding bids and bring in more than £1 million. This was a cause that she took up on my behalf, and, through her brilliant ability to write funding bids, she helped to secure £22,500 towards the £175,000 project. A lot of people did a lot of work, particularly, as I have said, the Health Tree Foundation, and the maternity suite itself.

Let me say a little about what the suite does and what it means. It opened in July, and is known as the Cherished suite. When the experience was described to me of being in a maternity suite and being bereaved, it struck me that there were two things that a bereaved parent might not want to do. First, they might not want to go home very quickly, and secondly, they might want to be in the suite, but not necessarily surrounded by people whose children are being delivered and who are experiencing that most joyous of moments. The brilliant job that the midwives and all the professional staff do to support those parents was not in doubt. Rather, it was about the ability of bereaved parents to have a safe and quiet private space on the maternity suite, like every other parent, where they can enjoy that important time with their baby and bring their family in; a space where they will not be rushed out, but where they can stay for as long as they require. That is exactly what the Cherished suite, which is now open at Scunthorpe central maternity suite, is providing. It is on the maternity suite, but in a private, quiet area.

I want to quote the experience of one set of parents, who sadly lost their daughter Alicia in 2017, before the suite was opened, who have talked about what it would have meant for them:

“When we lost our daughter, we were in the middle of the delivery suite, surrounded by people doing their jobs and delivering newborn babies. Other couples were walking out with babies and it felt like we had been stabbed in the heart.”

Other parents who have experienced the same have described to me how they felt that they had in some way failed, which is a terrible thing to hear. Those parents continued:

“We didn’t have the opportunity to use a place like this to heal and recover from the heartbreak. It would have helped tremendously—it’s quiet and you couldn’t hear anyone outside the room”—

a safe space for them to spend that time with their baby.

I am so proud that the Health Tree Foundation has been able to deliver that service for our area, because the suite is a place where parents can spend time with baby, but also where memories are made. The Health Tree Foundation provides memory makers, who do prints of baby’s hands, and even casts of legs and arms, and make teddy bears from the clothes that the babies would have worn. I hope that we can look at that idea, whether in the design of new maternity suites or in providing support for existing maternity suites, to ensure a place where bereaved parents can spend time with baby in privacy on the maternity suite, with the support of every other parent there, but in a way that is sensitive to their particular needs.

I should add that the suite of course provides all the necessary support and information that is so often required for ongoing mental health needs. I particularly associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) about the vital role that can be played by talking therapies, which is something that I have more personal experience of. Talking therapies are so undervalued. They can be used in so many ways, but this is one area where parents need to have absolutely guaranteed access to them.

I do not want to say anything more, other than to thank the health foundation in northern Lincolnshire and Goole for providing that service. I also thank the maternity staff, who were doing a brilliant job anyway in supporting bereaved parents, but who have got behind the project so enthusiastically and now have a special private place, as people walk into the suite, where they can do even more to support bereaved parents. We are of course not the only place where something like that happens, but I found it striking that it does not happen automatically and that there is not such a space everywhere. I agree with so much that has been said today and pay tribute to all those who have done so much in this area, both here and outside this place.

Health Infrastructure Plan

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I always think it a little unfair in this House to name or attack individuals where they do not have the ability to answer back. The Government have made it clear that the announcement today and yesterday is about putting more money into our NHS, which will improve services for the hon. Lady’s constituents and for those across the capital and indeed the country.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust faces some particular challenges in delivering across two district hospitals and the community hospital to a relatively small population but one that has a big and complicated geography. Goole Hospital, for example, is still operating on a coal-fired boiler. I will write to the Minister following this, of course, but can he look at the particular requests we have with regard to the backlog of works at the trust?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight that in certain parts of the country, including his constituency, geography can present a challenge for the delivery of services. I look forward to his letter and will be very happy to respond and to look into the matter with him.

Draft Human Fertilisation and Emryology Act 2008 (Remedial) Order 2018 Draft Human Fertilisation and Emryology (Parental Orders) Regulations 2018

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 General Committees

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on surrogacy, I thank the Minister for the positive way in which she has engaged both with us as a group and with the surrogacy community. I also thank her for the positive language that she has used about surrogacy on numerous occasions, which is new from a Government Minister. Going back decades now, I think there has always been something of a nervousness in Government about the language used around surrogacy, but the Minister has been absolutely clear that surrogacy is a positive way of creating families, often for less conventional relationships. We thank her for that.

We also thank the Minister specifically for the NHS guidance that she issued through the Department, which several surrogates have already made use of. Imagine being a surrogate who is excited about a new birth but is forced by the hospital to hand over the child in a hospital car park or, worse still, is unable to see their own child after the birth. There is clearly still more work to do in this department, but this is clearly a positive step forward, and the surrogacy community welcomes it.

Similarly, I thank the Minister for the Government funding of the Law Commission review, which the APPG is very engaged in. We have taken evidence over the last few weeks from lawyers, intended parents, surrogates and others. This afternoon we will take evidence from Tom Daley, who went overseas with his partner because of the problems in the UK with obtaining a parental order. There is a lot more to be done on parental orders, particularly on the time it takes to get one in the UK. We look forward to those issues being addressed as part of the Law Commission review.

The APPG and the surrogacy community are happy that the draft order has at last been laid. It comes out of the September 2015 case of Re Z, in which the court was unfortunately unable to grant a single male applicant a parental order. There have been delays, some of which came about as a result of potential unintended discrimination that could have come out of the original wording. However, it was absolutely clear when the Minister laid the draft order before Parliament on 19 July this year that her language was very positive. That is to be welcomed.

As I said, laying the order has taken a long time, which has resulted in some people who would by now have become parents being unable to do so, while others have been forced overseas. It has also put the courts in a difficult position in several cases.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Does the fact that people have to travel abroad not indicate that this option is available to only those with resources and money? Vast swaths of the population who do not have the resources to travel abroad do not actually have access to surrogacy.

[Andrew Percy]

That is true in part. There is no doubt that, if people want to go to a model place for surrogacy such as California, it is a very expensive option, although the actual costs paid to the surrogate are generally the same as those in the UK; it is the medical costs and all the rest of it that pushes costs up. People are forced to go, if not to the United States, then to regimes in the world where the systems and protections for the surrogate, let alone the intended families, may not be of a standard that we would be comfortable with. That is why it is vital that we change the law in this country, so that surrogacy can become so much easier for those denied it at present.

Several other cases have come before the courts in which applications for parental orders have unfortunately had to be stayed, or other powers, such as wardship, have had to be used. Although we welcome the draft order, there are still some issues for single people moving forward, which I hope the Minister will confirm will be addressed as part of the Law Commission review. For example, under the remedial order, some single people will still be excluded from being parents, while a parent who is not genetically linked to the child will be unable to be granted a parental order. Similar issues could arise if an intended parent dies during the course of a surrogate pregnancy.

There are also sad cases of, for example, women who have received cancer treatment, leaving them unable to use their own uterus or eggs. If they are single and use egg donation, they will not be able to receive a parental order. More work needs to be done to address some of those challenges, and I hope that will be undertaken as part of the Law Commission review.

I thank the Minister again for the incredibly positive way she has engaged. The draft order will enable more people to form families—it will enable more individuals to become part of the surrogacy family, to register with organisations such as Surrogacy UK and to get on with building their families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, and I will certainly look more closely at the issue.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the extent to which the draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Remedial) Order 2018 meets his Department’s policy objectives on equality.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)]

The revised remedial order laid last week addresses the potential inequalities that were identified by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but it also goes further, ensuring that a sole applicant biologically related to the child will always be able to apply for a parental order regardless of their relationship status. That is a step forward for equality.

[Andrew Percy]

On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on surrogacy, I thank the Minister for meeting us recently and for laying the order, which removes an inequality. Surrogacy helps to build families, be they heterosexual, same-sex or individuals, so what more can she do to promote it?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is right. There has been considerable growth in surrogacy arrangements in recent years, but I am unsure whether the law has kept pace with the changing practice. We have been revising the guidance to ensure that everyone can approach the matter with greater certainty but, more specifically, I have commissioned the Law Commission to have a good look at the law in the area so that we can ensure good practice in this country without driving people overseas.

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott]

Absolutely. As I have said, this sort of illness strikes indiscriminately, and when we attend appointments—I attend just about every appointment with Rebecca—we see everyone from very young people through to older people; we see people from all walks of life. It is heartbreaking seeing people with this sort of illness. Every one of those people has a family, has a story and has loved ones, and it is very difficult.

I want to talk a little about the impact of this kind of illness on the wider family. As Rebecca’s health rapidly deteriorated, she had to be off work sick quite a lot. She has had some considerable time off sick. Even though she is now back at work, she still gets days when, as happened this week, she is not very well in the middle of the day and has to come home. Dialysis does not mean that someone is fit, well, healthy and leading an absolutely normal life. She has been very lucky, as her employers, True Solicitors of Newcastle, have been an amazing support to her. They have done everything they can to help her. They have done fundraisers for kidney charities—I am thinking particularly of her colleagues Kay and Lindsey. If I am trying to get to the hospital from wherever I am when Rebecca suddenly takes ill, they will take her to hospital from work and sit with her until one of the family can get there. I want to thank them publicly, because many people in this situation are not so lucky and face losing their jobs, with all the hardships and problems that creates. So it is important to say thank you to people who have been fantastic.

Next I want to mention the renal unit at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. Not only is that a world-class unit, but it has some of the most amazing and dedicated staff I have ever come across. From the time someone walks through the door at the out-patients unit, the receptionist, Ann, is always smiling, always welcoming and always looking after them, and the same is true of everyone right through to the most senior doctors. We have seen a lot of different doctors as this illness has progressed. The whole team are amazing, particularly the PD nurses who are looking after Rebecca’s dialysis. They look after Rebecca, but they also look after her family and they have got to know us all, because we have all been there with her at different stages. They are the essence of everything that is great about our health service. They are working under enormous pressures on their time and resources, but they always have time for us. I want to say a personal thank you to them.

I know that this is not a political debate as such, but I am a politician, so I hope Members will give me a moment’s licence. I am going to say that I think the health service staff need a pay rise and the NHS needs more investment, because they are such amazing people and they literally make the difference every day between people living and dying.

The impact on our family has been huge. You go through a period of shock, disbelief and anger as to, “Why Rebecca?” More than one doctor has said to us through that period that it should not be happening to her, as she has been a fit, healthy young woman who has done everything right in looking after her health. They cannot find the reason this has happened. The emotions and journey you go through are like a rollercoaster, because we have to deal not just with the direct impact of what is happening medically to Rebecca, but with the emotional impact of seeing that what is happening to her might mean that my daughter might not be there when I am still here. That is not something any parent ever wants to consider. Although all my children are grown up, they are having to deal with seeing their mother coping less than I normally do. I am a fairly strident, coping kind of woman normally. All of them are dealing with the idea that their sister might not be here. That is all very, very difficult. So we have rallied round and all supported each other, and we remain very positive. Rebecca is very lucky that she has a brother and sisters, my sister, her husband and a great mother-in-law, who have all played their role in supporting this journey we are on, and continue to do so.

It is very difficult being on call for a phone call. My phone is with me all the time. It is very difficult working 300 miles away when you are in this situation. As we all know, we sometimes travel out of this country in this job, so whenever I travel out of the country on business with Parliament, I have a plan of how I am going to get back. It is important to thank colleagues in this place, from all parts of the House, who have given me a huge amount of support. The Whips have been fantastic; they have basically said, “Just go. Text us and tell us you’ve gone.” There is a slight personal thing in that as well, because our Deputy Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), has known Rebecca since she was a child. As many Members will know, I was his agent in 1997 when he got elected to this place, and Rebecca, being my daughter, ran one of the committee rooms. The support has been really lovely. A lot of the time in this place the differences that we have are highlighted, but at the end of the day we are all people trying to do the best for our constituents and we all care about people.

For me, as a mother, my natural instinct has always been to make things better for my children—that is what we all do. Rebecca is always going to be the baby I gave birth to 36 years ago; you love that child instantly and unconditionally, and that never changes. It is terrible to be in a situation where I cannot fix something that has gone terribly wrong. But what I can do, from the privileged position I have of being a Member of this place, is raise awareness and campaign for a change in the law, to that of deemed consent. The change in the law needs to come, and I want to touch on the investment that needs to happen on the back of that change—this has been alluded to in a number of contributions today.

This issue needs to be discussed in schools and among families, so that transplantation becomes a normal part of the conversation of life. We also need investment in the health service to support what I believe will be an increase in the number of available donor organs.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I wish the hon. Lady and Rebecca all the very best for the future. The Bill is really important, which is why I am here to support it, but will she also acknowledge, as I am sure she will, those live donors who give an organ? My friend Jane has recently given a kidney to her nephew-in-law. That is an incredible thing to have done—for many of us, it is difficult to imagine it—and it has turned around the life of her nephew-in-law, in the same way that, I hope, Rebecca’s life will be turned around eventually. Although the Bill does not cover such people, they also deserve the House’s praise. Hopefully, another good thing that will come out of this debate is raised awareness of that possibility.

[Julie Elliott]

Absolutely. Five members of my family, including me, put ourselves forward to be donors, but none of us matched. Matching is really difficult. One family member is now entering a pool situation, which is a bit like a swap shop of organs, in case somebody has an organ that fits Rebecca and my family member’s fits somebody else. That is a marvellous thing to do and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw attention to it.

As has been mentioned, presumed consent does mean that people have the right to opt out of giving their organs, and some people will. It is very important for that to be in the legislation. I absolutely respect people’s decision to opt out, because it is not the right thing for everybody. That is as important as changing the law.

My final words are for the families of donors: your selflessness in donating your loved ones’ organs at a time of such personal grief, to save the lives of people you do not know, is such a wonderful thing. Everybody should be grateful for that and thank those people. The grief of having lost a loved one carries on forever, but I am sure that there is some comfort in the fact that their family has helped and their loved one’s organs have gone to help someone else. It is important to say thank you. As a family member of, hopefully one day, a recipient, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. They are very special people.

Let us send the Bill to Committee and change the law to save more lives, for the thousands who are waiting for transplants. Today, we see Parliament at its best, overcoming political differences for something that just needs to change. It is a day we should be proud of.

Patient Transport Services: Northern Lincolnshire

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who will respond to tonight’s debate. It is, I think, her first time in action as a Health Minister. Although this subject is not directly part of her departmental portfolio, we are grateful to her for coming to respond to the debate.

I obtained the debate to draw attention to the appalling standard of the patient transport services that Thames Ambulance Service Ltd has been providing to my constituents in north Lincolnshire. That concern is shared by other local Members of Parliament—indeed, all of us, not just across north Lincolnshire but through to the City of Hull, where Thames Ambulance Service also provides patient transport services. A common theme that constituents have raised with me and my team is that they themselves raised these concerns with Thames Ambulance Service but received no satisfactory response from the company. Having loved ones stranded when at their most vulnerable, following chemotherapy, or learning that elderly relatives with severe dementia or Alzheimer’s have been stranded or forgotten in very low temperatures, is of course very emotive for family members. Their questions to Thames Ambulance Service often go unanswered, in a thoroughly unacceptable way.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech. The service is also a problem in the rural parts of my constituency. Old people are now refusing to go to hospital appointments because they are worried about whether they can get there and get back, because the transport is so bad. Does he agree that this is fundamentally a health issue?

[Andrew Percy]

I am sorry to learn that the experiences extend also to County Durham, because going to hospital is stressful enough in and of itself, particularly if one is very elderly or very vulnerable, as many people who use these services are, but especially so if one is not sure whether one will get home at the end of one’s treatment or after an appointment.

This is not, of course, a reflection on the frontline staff of Thames Ambulance Service, who are doing their very best in very difficult circumstances. I will come on to what some of the whistleblowers who have contacted us from that service have told us.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

Of course I will give way to my neighbour in Scunthorpe.

[Nic Dakin]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I have regularly had messages commenting about patient transport arriving late to pick people up, sometimes too late to get to appointments in time; patient transport sending unsuitable vehicles, so that disabled patients cannot access the transport; transport arriving late to a pick-up from hospital. That is a consistent theme. I have met with Thames. They held their hands up and said they had got problems. They said they were going to sort them out, but sadly, a month later, the problem is not getting any better.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. This is the problem. In many ways, it is nice that Thames Ambulance Service have met him. The correspondence that I have repeatedly sent them, chased by their official complaints procedure, by their chief executive, has not been responded to. So constituents who have not had a response have come to me, and I have then gone to Thames Ambulance Service, which has not responded to me. The service has not got any better. I will cite a few of the examples that my constituents have given, which are similar to my hon. Friend’s experience.

These experiences are being wrought on very vulnerable people. I want to go through a number of examples from my constituency. I will not name patients.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this evening’s debate. In Hull, we were also covered by Thames Ambulance Service. They are already under a contract performance notice because of their failure to do what their contract says they should. A constituent—a cancer patient—contacted me just today to tell me about being left, being forgotten, not being able to get to chemotherapy sessions, not being able to get to radiotherapy sessions. That constituent had seen people who had had to wait up to four hours for a journey back to Scarborough or Lincolnshire, in a waiting area with only upright chairs, when all one would want to do at that stage is sleep. It is totally unacceptable and the service does not seem to have improved, despite that contract performance notice.

[Andrew Percy]

It is saddening that the same experiences are happening just across the river in the city of Hull as well. This appears to be a consistent theme wherever this company provides ambulance transport services. Unfortunately, the hon. Lady describes an experience that many of my constituents have shared.

In fairness to the north Lincolnshire clinical commissioning group, it has, through the scrutiny processes at North Lincolnshire Council, effectively put the company on notice and informed it that the service is not good enough. Despite that, the improvements have not happened.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is fair to say that all our constituents have suffered for reasons that Thames Ambulance Service Ltd has brought on itself to some extent. It has decided not to pay volunteer drivers, who have been the backbone of the service for some time, to travel to and from where patients must be collected. That means that it has lost 40 of those volunteer drivers. Should it not be rewarding the people who have been the backbone of the service rather than treating them that shoddily?

[Andrew Percy]

I could not disagree with a word the hon. Lady said. She has stolen my thunder—[Interruption.] No, it is good! I was going to come on to the company’s treatment of volunteer drivers. Not only has it said that it will not pay them for mileage unless a patient is in the vehicle, but at three months’ notice it told them that if their vehicles were more than five years old, they could no longer be volunteer drivers. Despite that having been its policy for a considerable time, a company cannot give volunteers three months’ notice like that—say, effectively, “Change your vehicle or give up on the service.” Through its own actions, the company has made an already struggling service much worse. It has absolutely brought the situation on itself.

I have dealt with the issue of volunteer drivers, and I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for raising it. I want to give a couple of examples from my constituency to demonstrate how poor the service has been. One of my constituents in Brigg was given short notice that their transport was to be cancelled because there were no ambulances. That meant that this person, who suffers from mobility issues, had to cancel an important scan. It is impossible for them to get in or out of vehicles unless they have been specially arranged.

The mother of another constituent from Crowle on the Isle of Axholme is 87 years old; she suffers from dementia, is partially sighted and has been repeatedly left stranded following appointments arranged way in advance. My constituent has completely lost trust in the service and family members have had to take time off work to ensure that the lady gets to hospital. The service is there to ensure that that does not have to happen. The situation is completely unacceptable.

Another constituent from the Isle of Axholme has repeatedly been left stranded and unable to book an ambulance. They have been forced to use expensive taxis, which meant that the trip doubled in length. On one occasion the service failed to fulfil a pick-up arranged in advance, and that again required them to use a taxi. The service is totally unacceptable.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I give way to my north Lincolnshire colleague.

[Martin Vickers]

Like the Opposition Members and my hon. Friend, I have a long list of complaints from constituents, but I want to highlight a particularly bad case. On two occasions—once at Scunthorpe Hospital and once at Grimsby Hospital—a 91-year-old gentleman in Barton-upon-Humber had to wait for four hours before transport was provided to get him home. On one occasion, he did not get home until past midnight. The situation is extremely serious.

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. As my hon. Friend has highlighted again in this debate, we are not talking about one or two cases: Members of Parliament across our area have multiple cases. I want to highlight another one. Another constituent of mine, this time from Burton-upon-Stather, has to attend Castle Hill Hospital for chemotherapy every single day. His experience is of ambulances frequently being late, of other patients missing their appointments and of late collection for following treatment. As he has pointed out, receiving chemotherapy means that he is already very ill and weakened, but not just once but regularly he has had to wait up to three hours for an ambulance to collect him. He has also had issues with the booking system and trying to get a place at all.

My final example is of another constituent living just outside Burton-upon-Stather: 82 years old, suffering from Alzheimer’s, in a wheelchair and with very poor mobility, he is totally dependent on the assistance of others to get to and from hospital. Again, his experience is of frequently waiting for the service to collect him from Scunthorpe Hospital. Not so long ago, during snowy, freezing weather, he was left for over three hours in a hospital doorway, waiting for a lift. In the end, hospital staff intervened and brought him inside to warm up, but yet again the experience of the complaints process was that Thames Ambulance Service was wholly unresponsive in dealing with complaints.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. The consensus in the Chamber is clear. The current format has people waiting at home for transport to hospital—for a scan or other procedure—and then having it cancelled. Does he agree that it is not just about cancelled operations and appointments or wasted slots, but about the financial impact on the service and on the patients, who then have to go to the back of the queue, and about the trauma they go through as a result?

[Andrew Percy]

It has a whole knock-on effect, whether it be individuals having to find their own transport, missed appointments or rescheduled appointments—it is all incredibly expensive—and it is not just patients who have these terrible experiences, of course; it is also the drivers. I have had whistleblowers from the service contact my office. One said they come on duty at 12 o’clock and are expected at the same time to be at Castle Hill Hospital in Hull with patients. They have described themselves as being at their wits’ end and thoroughly stressed. One contacted me recently about a 100-year-old lady who had to wait three and a half hours to get home.

[Nic Dakin]

It is interesting to reflect that back before Thames took over the contract we did not have these problems. When we, as northern Lincolnshire MPs, met the hospital trust, it confirmed that these problems were related to how Thames was operating the contract and that it was adding to their problems trying to deliver high-quality care.

[Andrew Percy]

That is absolutely right. There is an argument for saying that those who provide the emergency services—East Midlands Ambulance Service in the case of Scunthorpe—are better able to provide the patient transport services, just as in Goole we would want Yorkshire Ambulance Service to provide the patient transport. There seems to be some sense in that, unless it is a very strong local community transport organisation that we know we can trust. Yes, there are always examples of failure, but we did not have this recurrent theme of failure under the previous system.

[Melanie Onn]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, but then I want to give the Minister enough time to respond.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous this evening. Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), our local hospital trust is already in special measures—it has gone into special measures for the second time—and senior board members are raising Thames as a potential difficulty and challenge in their efforts to meet their key performance indicators and get out of special measures. This is something the Government need to take really seriously.

[Andrew Percy]

It is incredible that what is judged to be a failing trust has a failing transport patient service that is making it even more difficult for it to get out of special measures. That is another reason I brought this matter to the House today.

Following on from the intervention of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), one of my requests is to the Department for Transport—so not directly in the gift of the Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care—which is currently undertaking a transport accessibility consultation. It might be sensible if the issue of patient transport were to be wound up as part of that. That is one of my asks. I know that the Minister cannot respond, as it is not her Department, but it would be useful if she could pursue it interdepartmentally.



I want to give the Minister enough time to respond, so I will not say much more, but the concerns that I have described are shared by the clinical commissioning group, which has raised these issues with North Lincolnshire Council’s health scrutiny panel on a number of occasions and has told the panel that there will be further sanctions if the service does not improve. Sadly, that was said at the end of October, and, as other Members’ interventions have made clear, there has been no turnaround since then.

[Martin Vickers]

I agree with my hon. Friend that action needs to be taken. Does he agree that the service has had long enough to get its act together, and that the Minister ought to be consulting the local health trust and the CCG with a view to terminating the contract?

[Andrew Percy]

I think that that is absolutely true. The chairman of the scrutiny panel, Holly Mumby-Croft, who is a councillor for the Broughton and Appleby ward in my constituency, has said that the “volume of people” who have contacted the panel directly is “very unusual”. It is for people to go directly to a scrutiny panel; not many are aware of the position of the council. That alone suggests that the problem cannot be solved through the usual channels. After the most recent appearance of Thames Ambulance Service before the panel, the chairman said:

“I have seen actually no improvement. None at all. It is worse.”

There is something seriously failing here, and it is putting the performance of our local hospitals at risk. More important, it is having a huge impact on our constituents.

I realise that the Government did not commission the service, and that it was commissioned by the CCG, which is responsible for the performance of the contract. However, I have some asks of the Minister.

Could the whole issue of patient transport be considered as part of the consultation that is currently being undertaken by the Department for Transport? Will the Minister and the Department look at the performance of Thames Ambulance Service in north Lincolnshire, and perhaps also in Hull, to see whether anything can be done directly by the Department to improve its performance? Will they, if necessary, look into what powers are available to establish whether or not this is a business that should be operating within the health service at all? If it is routinely leaving people with three and a half to four hours to get home, surely we need to ask, whether through NHS England or locally, whether this organisation should be allowed to provide transport services.

I accept that responsibility lies directly with the commissioners. I therefore urge the Minister to engage with the north Lincolnshire CCG and put maximum pressure on it to ensure that the powers made available in the contract tender to impose fines or even terminate the contract are used if there are not serious improvements very quickly. I have no confidence that the service will improve. I think it is time that the contract was terminated, and that either the local authority or the local ambulance service has another opportunity to tender. All of us in our area want the same thing. We want a patient transport service that does what it is meant to do: take people to hospital and get them home in a timely manner.

I look forward to the Minister’s response.

NHS Winter Crisis

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am not giving way because we are pressed for time.

The fact that makes this winter crisis even more serious than anything that has gone before is not just the cuts to social care and to the community care sector, nor is it the underfunding of the NHS; it is that the crisis takes place against the backdrop of some of the most serious and far-reaching neglect of health perpetrated on the people of this country for more than century.

Sir Michael Marmot, a recognised authority on public health, has warned that this country has, since 2010, stalled in the task of improving the life expectancy of our population and that differences in life expectancy between the poorest areas in the country and the better- off have widened in recent years. This is what happens with austerity and cuts. This is what happens when the Government fail to invest in housing and the insulation of our housing stock. This is what happens when the Government allow fuel poverty to increase and oversee falling real incomes, benefit cuts for the poorest and rising child poverty. The shocking consequence is that the number of hospital beds in England taken up by patients being treated for malnutrition has doubled since 2010. Is not that a shame? Is not that a disgrace?

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is right about one thing, which is demographic change. That and an ageing population are directly behind some of the malnutrition figures, and he must not misuse those. Is it not the case that, as the Royal College of Nursing told the Health Committee just two or three years ago, the failure to plan for a rising and ageing population is a feature not of the past five years, but of the past 10 to 15 years? He should not pretend that the problem has appeared overnight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I want to make progress, because a lot of Members want to speak, but I did say that I would give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole.

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. He knows of my interest in ambulance services. I was on duty for Yorkshire Ambulance Service as a responder this Christmas and new year, and will be again tomorrow night. When he talks about workforce planning, he rightly talks a lot about doctors and nurses. Will he say something about how our incredibly well-trained paramedics can be used better to relieve pressure in A&E and reduce delays there?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work as a first responder; that is a fantastic example in his community. We have 1,700 more paramedics than we did seven years ago. My hon. Friend is absolutely right because the role of paramedics has changed dramatically over recent years. It used to be about scooping people up and taking them to hospitals; now, we are treating many more people on the spot. Paramedics have an extraordinarily important role, but it has changed. There is a changed emphasis, as in other parts of the NHS—a move towards doing as much as we can to treat people safely outside hospitals and to keep them at home, because we know that is the safest way.