Covid-19: Helplines

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, reflects the feeling of all the House in her comments on the Lord Speaker, and I entirely endorse her comment that we must all respect the guidance and advice given to us by the Government. I pay tribute to the Lord Speaker for his comments on that subject.

In terms of 111, she is entirely right that the NHS is under acute pressure, which is particularly felt on the front line in the interaction with concerned people who are understandably phoning 111. The 111 system is recruiting a large number of new handlers. In addition, we have put a letter through the GMC, NMC and other professional bodies and there will be a registration page on the front page of those bodies’ websites—it will be going up very shortly, either tomorrow or very soon afterwards, I believe—for recently retired professionals to register their interest in rejoining their local NHS health authorities in some way. Those applications will then be passed on to the local authorities and triaged, and the applicants will be allocated suitable responsibilities. I pay tribute to all those who are thinking of returning or have returned to active service, often putting themselves in danger and taking risks in the service of the NHS to look after patients. The skills of the recently retired may range from those who are younger and active and can be on the wards through to older people who may have desk-based tasks, but it is up to the local authorities to decide where best they can conduct their services.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend join me in congratulating the Lord Speaker on the leadership he has given? I declare my interest, as in the register: I work with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. Can my noble friend address the question of professional indemnity for those wishing to return to practise as recently retired nurses, doctors or other medical professionals? Can he also address the question that I have written to him about regarding the severe shortage on the front line of PPE, which is apparently in warehouses? It really needs to get to the front line.

Health: Tick-borne Encephalitis

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, although I generally identify as a noble Baroness. We are continuing surveillance studies for TBEV in ticks and wildlife, and we plan to monitor its prevalence, distribution, maintenance and spread in the UK to ensure oversight of the situation. We have based our understanding of the risk assessment on recent experience in the Netherlands, where TBEV was recently identified. The estimated risk there of Lyme disease from a tick bite is 1:50, while the estimated risk of TBEV from a tick bite is 1:500,000. As regards us doing enough work, we have a national contingency plan written to deal with vector-borne diseases and understanding the effect of climate change, which gives us a sense of the challenges that we face.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend recognise the work of the national Encephalitis Society, which is based in Malton in North Yorkshire, of which I have the honour to be a vice-president? Will she update the House on what work has been undertaken to help doctors identify the difference between meningitis and encephalitis so that the swiftest possible treatment can be given? My husband was one of those who suffered encephalitis in his 20s; many are less fortunate and do not make the recovery that he made.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and I am happy to recognise the organisation that she mentioned. In the first place, the tick toolkit and the work of PHE is in place to raise awareness, and work goes into providing advice to professionals so that early diagnosis is possible.

GP Services in Rural Areas

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they propose to take to ensure that there is adequate provision of GP services in rural areas.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and in doing so refer to my interests declared in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, primary and community care will receive at least £4.5 billion more a year by 2023-24. Incentives have been in place since 2016 to attract GP training to hard-to-recruit areas, including rural areas. NHS England is consulting on allowing digital-first practices to be set up in under-doctored areas and everyone will have the right to digital-first primary care by April 2021, which will provide another way for patients in rural areas to access services.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. She might be aware of last week’s Telegraph report, which shows that almost 2,000 villages are at least three miles from their nearest GP practice. That figure would be higher were it not for the fact that rural practices can dispense medicine where community pharmacies are inviable. Will my noble friend take this opportunity to commit today to specific support for rural general practices over and above what is already in the NHS long-term plan, which has a particularly urban-centric focus? I remind my noble friend that we in rural areas are struggling to get 4G, let alone access to digital medicine.

Breast Scans

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am more than happy to do so. If the review is not the correct forum for consideration of such an issue, I will refer it to the advisory committee instead.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, with mammography and all other forms of screening, the quality and availability of radiographers are important? Will he report to the House on the current status of radiographers in the country?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am happy to tell my noble friend that we are in the process of recruiting many more radiographers for the NHS, with a plan to recruit nearly 1,900 by 2021.

General Practitioners

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness raises what is unfortunately a sad fact. One of the areas I highlight is the increasing use of social prescribing, which uses means such as joining clubs and taking part in activities that often have a social dimension to alleviate the problems associated with loneliness. Our new Secretary of State has made social prescribing a priority, because clearly it enables us to change people’s lives for the better without resorting to appointments and medicines.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an adviser to the board of the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. Will my noble friend address the very real issue of recruiting and retaining GPs in rural areas? I declare an interest in that both my father and brother have been dispensing doctors. It is not just an issue of 55 year-old doctors’ pension contributions; increasingly there is a problem of attracting young doctors in their 30s and 40s and retaining them, because of the poorer pension provisions we have now.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My noble friend makes an important point, and obviously she has first-hand experience of that. I am pleased to tell her that there is a targeted recruitment scheme that offers a £20,000 salary supplement for those who serve in hard-to-reach areas. In 2016, 122 places were offered on that scheme, and that number has now more than doubled in 2018, so we are putting more and more emphasis on that.

NHS: Dangerous Waste and Body Parts Disposal

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about incinerator capacity; indeed, that was given as a reason by the company. However, we do not feel that that is a true reflection of incinerator capacity. There are 24 incinerators in the country and 30,000 tonnes of spare capacity which could be used, and we are talking about 900 tonnes of excess stockpiling that HES had taken care of—so we simply do not accept that there was not enough capacity. What there was not was a willingness on the part of HES to pay for that capacity, which is why we are in this situation.

On the frequency of inspections, the Environment Agency has issued a series of notices, and that has escalated over the summer to the situation that we are in now. That is the proper regulatory response. I reiterate the point that there is no established threat to public health or continuity of service, which hopefully answers her last question. From an NHS point of view, neither clinicians nor patients will have noticed any impact on the level of care as a consequence of what I absolutely agree with her is completely unacceptable behaviour by this company.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

The Minister mentioned 30,000 tonnes of spare incinerator capacity. Is that for general waste or exclusively for medical waste? Will the Minister encourage the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to engage with the public on the importance of incineration as a means of disposing effectively of both household and medical waste? We are currently exporting a massive amount of household waste from the city of York and north Yorkshire to Holland, where it is put back in the community as energy from waste. I would like to see more of that occur in this country.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I will certainly take up the issue of waste disposal in general with my colleagues in Defra who, as she knows, are responsible for it. On the specific question of incineration capacity, Defra calculated that in 2017 there was a total of more than 30,000 tonnes of spare capacity for clinical and hazardous waste incineration. That was across a year, but we know that the NHS has identified more than 2,000 tonnes of incineration capacity this month. So the capacity is there; the point is that it should be used to get rid of the stockpile. As I said, the contracts are now in place to ensure a continued flow of service to NHS trusts.

Brexit: Food Standards Regulations

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord said that regulations will be required. It will be of interest to the House to know what the timetable for those regulations will be.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My understanding is that they will be laid, subject to clearance, before the end of the year.

General Practitioners: Indemnity Scheme

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

No, it is not.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I declare the work that I do with dispensing doctors. A particular barrier to retaining and recruiting GPs in rural areas is the pension provisions, which is the case for all professions. Will my noble friend make representations to the authorities that be in this regard as that would be a major step forward for those now coming into the profession in their 30s and 40s?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

My noble friend makes an excellent point and I will certainly do so. There is an attempt not just to recruit many more GPs into service but to recruit them into hard-to-reach areas, such as rural areas, through a targeted recruitment campaign. I am sure that that is one of the areas that we will want to look at.

Carers: Back Pay Liability

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I recognise the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, which the Government share. Even though the position on the change of the status on paying sleep-in payments changed in October 2016, we understand the size of civil liabilities for some providers who, of course, are, in many cases, providing for some of the most vulnerable people in society. That is why this HMRC scheme was set up. It gives providers extra time—up to 15 months—to get their house in order, understand their liabilities and pay them. That comes to an end in March 2019, which is why we are working on looking at other interventions and talking to the European Commission about the legality and state-aid rules in relation to that. I am afraid that I cannot give her any more detail at this stage, but I can tell her that it is a priority.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, this is particularly about the retrospective nature of this award. I contacted my noble friend, who was kind enough to take up the case of the Wilf Ward Family Trust, which provides for the care needs of young people with learning disabilities and which will be affected. Is he able to contest the retrospective nature of this decision and ensure that no similar back pay will be awarded in the future? County councils are completely incapable of making up this shortfall.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for raising the issue, which we are looking into. The point here is that the change in policy has come about because of decisions made by employment tribunals and a clarification of the law, and the job of government is therefore to help providers to comply with the law. That is how the scheme has come about, and why extra support is being looked into. We are working closely with providers to try to understand the scale of the liability and how it affects organisations differently—we think that up to two-thirds are affected. We will also make sure that any intervention that might follow—I stress “might”—is proportionate, fair and legal.

Brexit: Food Standards Agency

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I can certainly reassure the noble Baroness that the Food Standards Agency is getting the resources it needs, as well as a stable funding settlement across the spending review period. The Chancellor announced £14 million more for it for 2018-19. That money will also beef up—excuse the pun—the National Food Crime Unit to make sure that it can investigate the kinds of cases that she has highlighted. As for the ongoing relationship with the EU, it is important to recognise that during the implementation period we will continue to access food information-sharing systems. We will continue to have food risk assessments carried out on our behalf by the European Food Standards Authority, and the Commission will make risk-management decisions that affect the UK. We will continue to be part of that system until the end of the implementation period. Naturally, what happens after that is a matter for negotiation.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will my noble friend commit to setting out the timetable for all the implementation regulatory statutory instruments that are required to enhance the powers of the Food Standards Agency, given the role that it will be required to play not just in domestic food production but in relation to all imports from 29 March next year?