Health Protection (Coronavirus, Testing Requirements and Standards) (England) Regulations 2020
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) (No. 2) Regulations 2020
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to associate myself with the comments just made by the noble Baroness about the risks of deregulation and self-regulation. We have seen a great deal of concerning and tragic events flowing from that in the building industry. However, my first question, of which I have given prior notice, addresses what follows from testing: self-isolation. The Minister himself is self-isolating today, and I wish him and his family all the best. It is very difficult for many people to do, for financial reasons, because of care responsibilities, or for other reasons. In recognition of that fact, the Government have brought in a £500 payment for people ordered to self-isolate, with the money paid through local authorities. I credit Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert website for what I understand is its original research, published yesterday, in doing spot checks and identifying at least five local authorities where the allocation of money has run out. It is reported that therefore people are being told they cannot get a payment. Can the Minister confirm that? If so, do the Government plan to fix this as a matter of urgency?
On my second point, I appreciate the fact that the Minister took time to explain in his introduction how he saw the idea of a market operating in Covid-19 testing. I have problems with the whole idea of a market in healthcare, but at least it was outlined clearly. In that outline, he said that everyone should have access to affordable tests. The explosion in the use of food banks started before Covid-19 but has certainly increased. People are unable to afford to buy even food. It is clear that lots of people would not be able to afford the price of a Covid test that they might have very good reason to want. Will the Minister consider perhaps approaching the suppliers of these tests and seeing if they could supply some to each food bank in the land, so that they would be genuinely available to everyone who might have good cause to need them?
Secondly on the issue of markets, the purpose of trading in a market is generally to make a profit on the good or service provided. Given the clear high demand and need for Covid tests, how are the Government ensuring that windfall profits are not made? Indeed, I ask the Minister directly: what percentage profit does he consider it would be reasonable to make on a Covid test?
Finally, given that this statutory instrument is essentially a deregulatory one, how are the Government ensuring that the use and promotion of lateral flow testing, which has been reported in the real world to have up to a 50% false negative rate, is used appropriately? Clearly it can be useful at population level to identify asymptomatic infections, but does the Minister agree that it would be deeply dangerous if it was used to give people an all-clear to mix and mingle, with or without precautions?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Randall, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who always makes very perceptive comments and asks piercing questions, and I thank the Minister for introducing these statutory instruments. I echo the feeling that he works very hard and now has an extra burden; I hope that his family will recover soon.
I understand why there is a need for private sector testing—the NHS simply cannot cope—but I have concerns about the risk that these instruments could enable widespread private sector testing. Too often during the course of this pandemic, we have seen the private sector as the first port of call, with massive contracts going, for example, to Serco and Deloitte. Deloitte, it should be remembered, was running the testing centre at Chessington World of Adventures. Perhaps it was in the spirit of adventure that it approached the task, but it came in for criticism after losing the test results of NHS staff.
I share concerns that the private sector will see this as a money-making opportunity and cut corners. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I wonder whether the UKAS has the scope to cope with policing the new burdens being placed on it. I echo the fears of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, that there will be scope for fraudsters to enter this market.
There was some consultation before these proposals were made, and we are told that the feedback was “largely” in favour. Can the Minister tell us the concerns of those who were not in favour and how they are being addressed? I think, for instance, that the BMA has grave concerns about this. While we are told that the list of gold-standard providers will be available on the government website, I wonder how the Government propose to make all those who want tests aware of this. Certainly, on my very brief attempt, I failed to find the information on the website.
Can the Minister address the issue of costs? Will there be an upper limit or will providers just be able to prey on those who are desperate for a test for various reasons?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has withdrawn, so I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I express my good wishes to the Minister and hope his family gets well very soon. I thank him for the precise manner in which he laid out the two SIs for our consideration.
I share the concerns expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Altmann, and, like others, I do not share the Minister’s confidence that adequate safeguards exist to effectively monitor private companies —some of them at least—given the fiasco that was impactfully detailed by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft.
I have a couple of general points to make. On social care for children and adults living with disabilities and autism, it is being widely reported anecdotally and in the media that families and carers are suffering an intolerable burden without adequate support from organisations and local authorities which, because of serious budget shortfalls, are failing in their statutory obligations and to safeguard their duty to protect the most vulnerable who may be experiencing abuse and neglect. Noble Lords will be equally concerned to learn that organisations such as Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and Include Me TOO, which provide specific services for ethnic-minority children, are overwhelmed with demands for services, as many families have depleted resilience to cope and to navigate the new maze of inconsistent and inadequate access to their rightful services.
The Minister speaks with confidence about the critical importance of effective testing services being available to those who require them. My inquiries in my local area, particularly among Bangladeshi communities, continue to alarm me. Many of them remain confused about at what point to trigger testing and what options might be available to them, therefore overwhelming GPs and local hospitals. I have spoken about this in the House on a number of occasions, and to the Minister personally, because there is simply not enough information being relayed to the communities in a bilingual format. I have also spoken to the Minister about re-examining the messaging and what else might need to be done to ensure that there are proper, consistent and effective messages going out about what needs to happen and where the services can be accessed.
Finally, I hope the Minister’s department is collecting adequate data on the kinds of communities—particularly their ethnicities and age ranges—where there are serious gaps in both testing and services. It is high time that we have effective equality impact assessment of all these different SIs as well as the provisions that the Government are providing.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wei, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly.
Social Care Workers
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, when there is a shortage of care workers, as there clearly is, the need for care does not go away; it simply falls disproportionately on the families and neighbours—the unpaid carers. Some 70% of these say that they have had to give more care than previously during the pandemic, with an average of 10 hours extra a week. How will these extra burdens on unpaid carers be recognised and supported both in the long-term plan and in social care reform, when we eventually get it?
Covid-19 Update
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Barker, for their remarks. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is entirely right about the situation that we face. The latest update, as of 4 o’clock today, is that we have 14,542 daily positives today: 2,833 are in hospital with Covid; of those, 496 are on ventilators, and I am sad to report there were 76 deaths.
These are numbers that make us extremely focused on the challenge of Covid. Earlier today we debated the rule of six, when there was a large amount of challenge about whether such rules on social distancing were really necessary. We were reminded in clear terms about the social impact of separating those who love each other. Here we are talking about the impact on the health of the nation and the threat presented to those who are vulnerable, elderly and have pre-existing conditions. Getting the balance between these two things is extremely challenging, but that is the strategy of the Government—to bear down on the virus while protecting the NHS, education and the economy until we can see a way out through the vaccine, through therapeutic drugs and through mass testing. That is our approach.
I make no bones about it; the errors made over last weekend with the data was extremely regrettable. It undoubtedly causes grave concern among those in Parliament and the general public. I cannot hide from anyone the importance, impact, and severity of the situation. However, I would like to say a few words in mitigation. First, I pay tribute to those at PHE who have pulled together a remarkable system in extremely difficult circumstances, across the length and breadth of the country, integrating many systems into one. I know that that may seem like a trivial challenge and beside the point when we are dealing with a national emergency like this, but these are incredibly complex and difficult tasks. They have involved extremely committed personnel on the technology side of things who have personally checked a huge amount of the numbers. As my noble friend Lady Harding explained, it was through the perseverance of some of those personnel that the mistake was identified.
Between 17 and 23 September, 87,000 were identified through our testing and tracing programme; that is a phenomenal number of contacts where we had the opportunity to intervene and break the chain of transmission. Some 83.7% of those were reached and asked to isolate. I completely appreciate the concerns of those speaking in the Chamber today about the test and trace programme, but those figures are remarkable. That we have set up a system that can intervene in the lives of so many who are carrying coronavirus and can bring to bear such pressure on the disease after such a start as we had at the beginning of the epidemic is a phenomenal achievement. I know that the last thing one wants to be, at this stage of things, is a hollow champion of empty achievement, but that is a hell of a thing for this country to have got to.
There have been questions about the collaboration between the centre and northern leaders, and I cannot hide the fact that there are some quite fruity discussions on the pages of the newspapers and news channels between different community leaders. However, we have to be adult about this and acknowledge that there are different roles for different parts of government. The mayor of a city simply does not have a huge laboratory in which to do tens of thousands of tests a day. The mayor of another city simply does not have a control room filled with PhD analysts who can crunch the numbers and run massive supercomputers with complex algorithms to look at millions and millions of items of data within minutes. These are not the functions of local government, nor will they ever be.
Likewise, the JBC, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Office do not have the local knowledge of what is going on on the ground and are not expected to speak a wide range of languages. We do not know what the behaviours are of people on a street-by-street basis. That is the role of local government, and it is through the collaboration of the local and national that we will beat this disease. To try to throw up a false dichotomy and set up test and trace as a scapegoat to blame and punish for the frustrations we all feel about the disease is counter- productive and reveals a shallow understanding of a complex situation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that perhaps care home testing should be sent to hospitals. In many cases, hospitals are involved in care home testing and handle the staff of care homes, but hospitals have to cover their own clinical demands, and pillar 1 is stretched to do the testing of hospital staff and patients. Landing that additional burden is not something that the NHS would welcome.
With regard to the northern leaders and their running commentary on the work of test and trace, I reassure the House that the conversations held in private on a daily—and sometimes hourly—basis have an altogether more collaborative tone. I have been privy to a large number of those conversations; there is a huge amount of expertise on both sides of the conversation, and one should not take too seriously the knockabout commentary in the newspapers and on TV.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked for an update on contact tracing, and she is entirely right. To have missed a substantial number of contacts during those days was a really big disappointment, but we have moved a huge amount of resources in order to catch up. There has been a phenomenal catch-up already, and I understand that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be updating the other place on the progress of that shortly.
I reassure the Chamber, however, that all those who had a positive test were informed promptly. There was no omission in that respect. Therefore, the primary index case, and the person of greatest threat to community transmission, was identified and isolated, and that chain of transmission was shut down.
I will now address the questions about the CMO and the JBC and their analysis of our numbers. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, that the integrity of the CMO is unimpeachable; if he judges that the change in numbers has not changed policy, I reassure the Chamber that that is a good judgment that is completely consistent with the way in which we have behaved over the last few weeks.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Barker, both asked about Project Orbis. This is a welcome move, enabling the UK to join an international framework to provide concurrent submissions and regulatory views of oncology products, which may allow UK patients to receive earlier access to medicines in the future. I pay tribute to colleagues at the MHRA, who I know have worked really hard on collaborating with American, Canadian and Australian regulators. I am extremely optimistic about the dividends from this collaboration. It augurs, promisingly, similar future collaborations across the health sphere.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I will tackle those in reverse order. I would not seek to be patronising for a moment. We value the contribution of local leaders enormously, and if I hit the wrong note then I regret that. What I was trying to get across is that the rhetoric in the public media and the realities of the day-to-day conversations between government and local government are not exactly as they might appear. The roles performed by both are complementary, rather than a zero-sum game. It is worth in this Chamber remembering that.
On procurement, the noble Baroness is entirely right; there is a real tension between the absolute requirement to move quickly to meet the challenge of Covid—to stand up facilities and services that did not previously exist—and to move on a national population-wide scale in a way that is not frequently seen in the health system. I can reassure the noble Baroness that a huge amount of work is being done on the auditing, checking and supervision of these contracts. They are not entered into in either a naive or flaky way—quite the opposite. We have put a huge amount of audit and legal resources into striking the right contracts. Cabinet Office colleagues provide a huge amount of analysis and challenge to the way in which these contracts are drafted and in checking against the delivery of the products and services involved.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, has scratched, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, questions in your Lordships’ House on this Statement have understandably focused on Covid-19, but the Statement as delivered in the other place is a broad-ranging survey. It starts by talking about treatments for Covid and then shifts to approvals for new cancer treatments; it looks at the expansion of urgent and emergency care; and those mysterious 40 new hospitals appear yet again, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, alluded to. In that context, I ask the Minister whether this Statement is sufficiently balanced. If this is a survey, where is the public health element?
Covid has exposed, even more than we recognised before, a deeply unhealthy society with terrible diets, inadequate opportunities for exercise, poverty, stress, and a mental health epidemic. We know from Victorian and early 20th-century times that it is public health measures that really make the difference. In facing up to tackling Covid, surely that is the direction in which we need to be looking. For example, new research today showing the impact of air pollution includes some very stirring suggestions that childhood exposure has an impact on the rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s. My questions to the Minister are these. Are the Government paying enough attention to public health? Is their strategy sufficiently balanced? Are they funding and doing enough on the broad measures that will create the healthier society that is so clearly desperately needed in the time of Covid or at any other time?
Covid-19 Update
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for correctly characterising our response to the epidemic as “the best compromise possible”. It is a compromise. We have competing demands on our strategy: we have to protect lives and the NHS, but we also have to be conscious of the economy and the livelihoods of people, and we have to look after our students and pupils. The package of measures being put forward by the Government is the best compromise we can make for this moment, and we are unashamed of that compromise.
But the noble Baroness is wrong when she says we do not have a strategy. The strategy is really clear; it is to suppress the virus and protect the economy and education until the vaccine and mass testing are ready. It may not feel like it now, but there are glimpses of sunlight in the distance. The vaccine and mass testing provide a strong opportunity for us to suppress the virus. The strategy that we have put in place, as the Prime Minister rightly described in his address to the nation, is a way to “get through the months” until we have those arms at our disposal.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, talked about the publication of data. I must confess that I have a genuine sense of confusion about that point, because we publish so much data. If there is one thing that this Government have got wrong, it is that we have published too much data too early. Too much has not been audited; too much has been put out as early as possible in our efforts to be transparent. Tomorrow, we will have a REACT survey; we will have an ONS survey; we will have test-and-trace data. There are SAGE minutes; there is NIHR; there is literally data coming out of every organisation of government. It is a fantastically huge amount of data. It is, I confess, extremely difficult to process all of that data all at once. The story it tells does chop and change at an amazingly fast rate—much faster than any experience I have ever had in my life. It is a rollercoaster that the Government have to ride.
I make no apology, however, for the fact that this Government have sought to act swiftly and to bring in measures quickly when the evidence has changed. In the last few weeks we have seen the latest example of that, where the infection rates have clearly lifted quickly in a way that was not expected, and we have had a discussion about that point in previous sessions in the Chamber. We have moved promptly to address the challenge that those worrying and concerning figures have presented to us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of testing. I completely and utterly acknowledge the frustration of anyone who has not been able to get a test for themselves, for their child or for a loved one. It is true that we have more people wanting tests today than we have supply. However, I cannot avoid pointing out that—boy oh boy—we have come a long way since February, when we were doing 2,000 tests a day, to today, when we are doing 240,000 tests a day, and we are well on the way to doing 500,000 tests a day by October. Our aspiration is to do many times that within the near future.
That is not in any way to avoid the fact that I wish that we had more tests today. I want to convey to the House that this Government are 1,000% committed to answering the needs of this country for testing and have put every resource—human, technological, administrative and financial—behind the testing programme in order to deliver that promise.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of tone. I completely accept her point that the people of Britain have made a terrific sacrifice. There is no question at all of blaming the people of Britain, but we have to acknowledge that the spread of the virus indicates as a fact within itself that some people are not respecting the principles of social distance, hygiene and isolation, and we have to move in order to shore up the basic principles of this country and, by the way, of any country that is effectively fighting the virus—because, if we do not, the virus will sweep through the country.
I thought that the Prime Minister put that challenge very well, and in a way that a large majority of this Chamber would support. He said that the choice was before us: we could ask those who are vulnerable and older and shielded to simply lock the door and we could turn our backs on them. That is not the choice that this Government have made. They have made a choice to fight the virus at every level, because we love the people whom we care about; and it is a pragmatic choice, because if we find the virus growing in one part of our society, whether that is young people, health workers or the very young, then sure as night follows day, it will sweep through the rest of society.
I turn to the evidence on the curfew. This is a moment where I do not have the science at my fingertips. However, I have been in pubs and clubs after 10 o’clock enough times to know about the proximity and intimacy of late-night drinking, and I know that what happens then is not conducive to social distancing. This is a moment when plain common sense can tell you that a curfew will help to break the chain of transmission among young people. It is, unashamedly, a signal that we cannot go on like this and, in particular, that young people have to change their behaviours because the signs of infection are crystal clear. The prevalence among young people is too high, and we have to turn that corner.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about symptomatic and asymptomatic testing. The honest truth is that it is very difficult to tell; if someone is standing in a testing queue, we do not turn them away. By the way, in order to get a test, people do have to fill in a form, on which they are asked if they are symptomatic. What we do know from closer analysis and questionnaires is that a proportion of testees—between 20% and 25% at current rates—do not meet the strict criteria of our testing. I am grateful to the British public for beginning to show respect for the fact that every test counts, and for helping us direct them at the most needy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about domiciliary care, an issue that has been raised in this Chamber a few times. I reassure all those in the Chamber, including the noble Baroness, in answer to her specific questions: yes to PPE, yes to testing and, by the way, yes to new guidelines that help minimise contact and the number of patients seen by each itinerant domiciliary worker; and yes to substantial extra funds for the social care system, specifically to help social care avoid relying on people travelling from patient to patient.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about our relationships with local authorities and the local teams. I reassure her that we have moved a very, very long way in the last six months and that the picture she paints is understandable but out of date. We have come a huge way to share all of our insight, data, analysis and systems with local authorities, local directors of public health and local infection teams. Decisions on lockdowns now have a protocol whereby they are led by local teams after engagement with local civic groups and brought to the Secretary of State after they have been agreed at a local level.
Substantial sums—billions of pounds—have been given to local authorities to help them afford the kinds of local intervention that they choose to make in order to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged during the epidemic. Money is given to local authorities for PPE for the people that they decide need it. Community health is being supported within the NHS in order for communities to be given the support they need. Engagement with local civic groups and business leaders is at a level I have never seen in government before.
I will give one example in relation to contact tracing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, specifically asked about. In Leicester, money has been given to the local council for it to commission its own contact tracing, because we recognise that the local authority may well have the insights, cultural connections and sensitivities, and contacts needed for this kind of work. Therefore, we have provided financial and logistical support, and professional advice on how it can fill the gaps. We recognise that a national system cannot do everything, and that we have to be both national and local at the same time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, ended by talking about the public mood and her concerns that people are reaching a state of despair. I completely recognise the exhaustion that many people feel about the state of the epidemic. I particularly recognise the morale within the NHS and social care, where people have worked incredibly hard, often in circumstances and doing tasks that they did not originally sign up for, and the sacrifice that many people have made, whether they work in the healthcare system, are supporting people they love, cannot do the things they want or are isolated and on their own. Of course, lots of people have made massive sacrifices, but I do not recognise the world she describes.
I think the public largely support the steps taken by this Government to suppress the transmission of this virus. After all, it is the virus that is the enemy. In many respects, we have an incredibly united country in fighting that enemy. The way in which the British public have supported the regulations and guidelines, which have had a tough effect on many people’s lives, demonstrates a huge amount of support. No Government —and certainly not this Government—will stretch that beyond what is tolerable. I posit to the Chamber that, to date, that support is still in place, and I remain extremely grateful for it.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. As ever, I ask that the questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
Lord Bethell (Con)
Absolutely not, my Lords. I pay tribute to British manufacturers, which have come an enormous distance—everyone from high-end manufacturers such as Burberry to those which once made recycled bin bags and have now turned their factories over to producing aprons and other important PPE articles. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Deighton, who has done an enormous amount to generate interest among British manufacturers of all kinds in order to support British PPE production. However, we have to have a balance to this. Some specialist goods, such as gloves, are best made elsewhere, but having the capacity and expertise to make 50% of our PPE means that we now have a route to making it all if necessary.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The last question is from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am delighted to hear that there are 30 million doses of flu vaccine. I remind the House of my interest with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. How and when will the flu vaccine reach doctors’ and GPs’ surgeries? My noble friend will be aware that PPE will presumably have to be worn for the dispensing of each dose of flu vaccine, which means that the vaccination will be administered at a loss to dispensing doctors and others. That does not seem sustainable. Is that an issue that my noble friend will be able to address?
Pharmacies
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell [V]
As the noble Baroness is probably aware, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care spoke at the annual conference of the National Pharmacy Association, at which he reiterated his commitment to the sector. The noble Baroness puts it well: pharmacies have something very special and valuable because of their trusted role. We very much want to see an enhanced role for pharmacies in the delivery of healthcare.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
Does the Minister agree that independent pharmacies are of particular importance in rural areas, where they are often the only source of advice and information, as well as prescriptions and equipment, for people with disabilities and their families? Will the Minister confirm both his support for these rural pharmacies in particular and the Government’s commitment to ensuring that they can continue to provide all these vital services?
Social Care
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell
My Lords, that is very much the policy, but I emphasise the following. No plan can succeed unless it gains the support of a wide number of stakeholders, including cross-party support. Attempts to foist a plan from one group on to another simply will not work. That is why a bridge-building exercise is needed and why the Secretary of State has invited others to cross-party talks. I invite all those players to go into that process with a spirit of collaboration.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
It is good to hear that the Minister now accepts that piecemeal reform of social care will not do. Can he confirm that the Government will consider finally putting social care on the same level as the NHS and creating a national care service in which risks and costs are shared? Sharing costs must apply to the whole population for the whole of their lives, not just when they are in need of care—in fact, from the cradle to the grave.
Lord Bethell
My Lords, the Covid epidemic has been a vivid experience for me personally. I have seen how the Department of Health and Social Care prioritises the care for those in social care. I completely endorse the noble Baroness’s view: piecemeal reform is not on the cards. The Government have made it clear that a holistic solution is needed. That is what we are working to achieve.
Nurses: Recruitment
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell [V]
The noble Baroness is entirely right about retention: we are battling the leakage of skills and experience from the NHS. In September 2019, the Government announced a £210 million boost for front-line NHS staff, which includes, as she referred to, funding for a £1,000 personal development budget for every nurse, midwife and allied health professional working in the NHS. I would be glad to meet her and her colleagues to discuss what more can be done.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
Among the extra 4 million people who have become carers during the pandemic, 72,000 left the NHS to take on caring responsibilities. Many will eventually want to return to work or training. How will the Government support those who will need to combine caring with employment or training? Are there plans to enable career progression, as the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, suggested, so that skills learned in caring can be translated into professional qualifications?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the Covid epidemic has thrown a spotlight on the essential role of carers, who have clearly played an enormous role in looking after those who are vulnerable. I completely support the sentiments of the noble Baroness that we should do more to help carers in their professional development so that they can convert to different secondary careers. I would be happy to look at any suggestions she has for ways in which we can do that better.
Covid-19: R Rate and Lockdown Measures
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bethell [V]
I share my noble friend’s frustration that this disease has proved a horrid and at times confusing foe, but I testify to the strength of the scientific advice we have been given. We do not expect scientists to agree. We believe that a degree of conflict is the right approach to trying to find the right answer. The role of the CMO and the Government’s chief scientist is to distil the advice of a great many sources into the best possible advice. We expect there to be a dialectic, with some form of conflict. I do not believe that we have made profound mistakes on the science. In fact, I believe that the scientists have been wise and thoughtful in the advice and recommendations that they have given us.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) [V]
The Minister will know from research published yesterday by Carers UK—I declare an interest as a vice-president—that more than 4 million extra people have taken on caring roles at home for family and friends during the pandemic. Following the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, I ask: in the event of a second wave, how will the Government ensure that these carers are provided with adequate PPE and access to services?
Lord Bethell [V]
I share the noble Baroness’s tribute to the nation’s carers. This week is Carers Week, and it is quite right that the House pays tribute to the contribution of all those who have looked after loved ones and neighbours in the manner she described so well. Support for carers has been at the front of our minds, but she rightly reminds us that we could do more in a second wave, and we are looking hard at ways of developing that support in the months to come.
Covid-19: Government Response
Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
Good evening, my Lords. The Virtual Proceeding on the repeat of the Urgent Question will now commence. I will call the Minister, who will repeat the Statement in the usual way. There will then be 10 minutes for questions, led by the Opposition Front Bench. The Minister will respond to each question in turn. I will call each Back-Bench Member on the speakers’ list to ask a supplementary question and the Minister will answer. I ask noble Lords to ask brief questions and give brief answers. Each speaker’s microphone will be unmuted prior to them asking a supplementary question and returned to mute once their question has finished.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, with leave I shall repeat the Answer given to an Urgent Question asked in the other place yesterday. In the repeat, I will use the most up-to-date figures, which have changed since yesterday. The Answer is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, we have flattened the curve of this epidemic, ensured that the NHS is not overwhelmed and expanded testing capacity to over 100,000 tests a day. As a Government, we are working resolutely to defeat the coronavirus. There are two important areas where I want to update the House today.
First, on the expansion of our work to test, track and trace, we have now built a national testing infrastructure of scale. Because we have this extra capacity, we will be delivering up to 30,000 tests a day to residents and staff in elderly care homes, making sure that symptomatic and asymptomatic staff and residents can all be tested. Our care system represents the best of us, supporting our loved ones with tenderness and dedication at their time of greatest need. Through this unprecedented expansion of testing capacity, we can give them the certainty and confidence that high-quality testing can provide.
Secondly, we are working to strengthen the resilience of the NHS. We currently have 3,382 spare critical care beds in the NHS, and that does not include the capacity provided by our Nightingale hospitals, including the 460-bed Sunderland Nightingale, which opened earlier today. We should all be very proud that we have built up the NHS so fast and that our collective national effort has helped to protect the NHS and flatten the curve. As a result, not only have we been able to restore some NHS services; we are in a position to be able to place the London Nightingale on standby. This is good news, because our NHS has not been overwhelmed by this crisis and remains open to those who need care, which means that this nation’s shared sacrifice is having an impact.
Throughout its time, this Chamber has borne witness to so much, and it has borne witness to the nation’s resolve once more. I am delighted that the British people are well and truly rising to this incredibly difficult challenge.”
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Bethell
I completely acknowledge the situation and the testimony of the noble Lord. The response by British companies to the ventilator challenge was incredible and, at times, overwhelming. No discourtesy was meant to the firm that he mentioned and I completely take on board his comments about the importance of courtesy, respect and a proper feedback mechanism in such circumstances.
The Deputy Speaker
Lord Dobbs. As Lord Dobbs is not responding, we will go to Lord Liddle.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
Following up on the question from my noble friend Lady Thornton, when the number of deaths in Britain is now the highest in Europe and the second highest in the world, do the Government really believe that their level of accountability to Parliament matches the scale of the crisis? If they can manage a press conference every day, can they not manage a regular parliamentary session which allows for proper questioning of what is going on?
Lord Bethell
I return to my comments to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. In the Lords at least, Ministers have been on the Front Bench answering questions on Covid every day since the Lords reopened. Subjects have ranged from social security and housing to, in my case, the Department of Health and Social Care. We remain accountable for the measures that we have put in place. The media also have a huge role in that scrutiny. We remain committed to keeping Parliament open, despite the lockdown regime, and completely respect the importance of parliamentary scrutiny.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, the time allotted for the Statement is now up. The day’s Virtual Proceedings are now complete and are adjourned. Good evening.