Reforms to NHS Dentistry

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

I, too, thank everyone involved in securing this important debate, including the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), who so eloquently laid out the terrible state of NHS dental services in this country today and the desperate need for reform of that terrible Labour 2006 contract, which, in effect, destroyed NHS dental services in the UK. That is why I welcome the general direction of the Government’s plans for NHS dental reform, as outlined in the statement on 19 July last year. It is a good start, but we must do more. We must take this opportunity to not only put NHS dentistry back on track after disruptions during covid, but ensure we create a long-term sustainable plan to enable good NHS dentistry for all who want it.

I wholeheartedly agreed with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), when she said that

“the contract is the nub of the problem; it is currently a perverse disincentive for dentists to take on NHS work.”—[Official Report, 14 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 135.]

That contract is the primary structural issue in NHS dentistry at the moment and has been since 2006. I have spoken to a dentist who owns 17 NHS practices across England, including two in my constituency. They are struggling financially to keep those practices going, but are totally committed to providing NHS dental services to my constituents and so push on despite the difficult environment.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jill Mortimer]

No, I want to make progress.

That dentist’s many problems include the unfair way UDA rates are calculated, which ironically disadvantages areas such as Hartlepool, which have severe health deprivation. That has knock-on effects on their ability to employ staff at competitive rates and leads to a reliance on expensive locum dentists, further stretching the viability of the business. Dentists find a way to make their practices work with access contracts, but the lack of certainty they face because of the difference in competences between different integrated care boards adds further issues. For example, under one ICB’s access contract they were provided with clarity for a two-year period, but under our ICB they were still waiting to hear at the end of the month whether a contract would be renewed four days later. Not only did the survival of the practice and the jobs of 30 staff depend on that contract, but the dental care of 20,000 patients also depended on it. Thankfully it was renewed, but it is unacceptable that the ICB provided them with no indication of whether the contract would be renewed so close to its end. No business can run like that.

For areas such as mine that have a desperate need of NHS dental services, we should be fully valuing and supporting good dentists like that to ensure the survival of their essential services. I urge the Minister to consider radical reform of the way in which NHS dental service contracts are remunerated, so that established NHS dentists continue to offer NHS services to new patients. I would also like to see changes to stop newly qualified dentists being tempted into private work. It costs the taxpayer a significant amount of money to train a dentist, but they are not then required to work in the NHS. It is only fair on working people who have subsidised these professionals to train in their chosen career to expect a degree of payback. I would therefore welcome the Minister looking into the possibility of a staggered mandatory amount of NHS work per year for the first few years after qualification.

Good dental care starts with good preventive care, and I want to see a day when everyone who wants it can access NHS dental services for all routine procedures and check-ups, not just emergencies, without the difficulties that my constituents are currently facing.

Hospital Provision: Tees Valley

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered hospital provision in the Tees Valley.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I start by thanking all the hard-working staff of the three main hospitals in the Tees Valley: the University Hospital of North Tees, the University Hospital of Hartlepool and the James Cook University Hospital, south of the Tees. They include my son, who I am proud to say is a student nurse at one of those hospitals.

While we have had some welcome new additions to provision in the Tees Valley, for example the new diagnostic and mental health care hubs in Stockton, in the light of the state of disrepair at the North Tees hospital, we are still in need of improved hospital facilities. The trust and the wider Tees Valley are experiencing severe challenges around current estate capacity, which is not suitable for the needs of the population it will serve over the next 10 to 20 years. For example, a significant volume of elective surgical procedures are performed within the private sector because of a shortage of resources within our NHS trust.

It is my contention that the University Hospital of Hartlepool could fill that provision gap, and that it is underutilised in providing services to the people of the Tees Valley. Not only can it play a greater part in delivering these services, but it can take some of the pressure off the other hospitals, which are undergoing renovations. It can do both those things with a relatively small amount of investment.

It should be pointed out that, in its heyday, Hartlepool hospital served not only the people of Hartlepool, but all the communities north of the Tees. Its position in the north of the trust’s geographical area meant that it also provided vital health services to the mining villages to the north and west, in County Durham, which saw Hartlepool hospital as their local hospital, too. It has provided much-needed healthcare to all those communities since it was founded in the late 19th century. The hospital’s generous 28-acre site has a lot of potential, with a significant amount of cleared land that we should use to build more services for the people of Hartlepool, of the Tees Valley to the south and of the ex-mining communities to the north.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my next-door neighbour for giving way. I congratulate her on securing the debate and her son on his role in the NHS. Does she remember that it was her Government who cancelled our new hospital 13 years ago without a plan for future health delivery? Recently, the Health Minister, who is in his place, wrote to the Labour candidate for Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash, turning down the funding for a centre of excellence in the town despite cross-party support, including from the Conservatives in Hartlepool. Does she have any thoughts about how we might change the Minister’s mind and deliver for Hartlepool and wider Teesside?

[Jill Mortimer]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has brought that up, because he has mentioned two things that I want to address. I will talk about the new super-hospital later in my speech. I think we dodged a bullet there, because it would have created another private finance initiative like the unsustainable one at James Cook University Hospital.

[Alex Cunningham]

It was not a PFI.

[Jill Mortimer]

It was. The other thing I want to say is that this is an extremely good example of Labour putting politics above the people of Hartlepool. The Labour candidate in Hartlepool, the councillor Jonathan Brash, has had no interest in the hospital. He has had no interest in anything in Hartlepool for a long time. However, every time it looks like I am going to succeed in bringing something forward for the people of Hartlepool, Jonathan Brash is there, ready to have a photo opportunity or write a magic letter to try and take the credit. I am grateful to hon. Gentleman for raising that so I can clarify the situation.

Some may wonder why there is a need to invest in new services. If the hospital had been properly loved and maintained, there would be no need to do so. Sadly, Hartlepool has not been championed by my predecessors —the Labour MPs who went before me—resulting in a significantly lower amount of investment compared with surrounding regions. The Labour centralisation policy of the mid-2000s meant that it became Labour party policy to close down Hartlepool hospital. Indeed, the candidate who stood against me in the by-election, Dr Paul Williams, co-authored the report that recommended that critical care and other services be taken away from the hospital and moved elsewhere. As I have said, there was Labour talk of a new super-hospital, to be funded by one of Labour’s public-private finance initiatives, and we have seen the issues that have arisen from that at James Cook—a prime example of the huge amount of money that the schemes now leech from our NHS.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)]

Labour’s health legacy on Teesside is a dodgy Labour PFI deal that still costs James Cook hospital £1 million every single week. Does my hon. Friend agree that that money would have been better spent on doctors and nurses supporting our residents?

[Jill Mortimer]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, less than a year’s-worth of the £1 million a week that goes into propping up James Cook’s PFI deal—£40 million—would be enough to upgrade and put in the services that we want Hartlepool.

Sadly, my constituents got caught in the political crossfire and were left with a shell of a hospital at Hartlepool and faced with long journeys to North Tees and James Cook for many hospital services. When the accident and emergency unit was closed down in 2011, local opposition was so strong that roughly a third of the population of Hartlepool signed a petition organised by the “save our hospital” campaign. It was incredible—there were more than 30,000 signatures, and there were marches through the town.

I was elected in 2021 on a promise of bringing positive change. That includes bringing education, skills, jobs and prosperity to the town, but there was also an overriding call on the doorsteps for the return of services to our much-loved Hartlepool hospital. I set about trying to find a solution for this long-standing and ignored issue. I have therefore been working directly alongside North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and its excellent chief executive, Julie Gillon, for in excess of 18 months. During that time, I have built a strong working relationship with Julie. Sadly, she has recently announced her decision to retire from her role and pursue other things, but she intends to dedicate the next six months to championing our proposals for Hartlepool. She will be a sad loss to health provision in the Tees Valley, and I will be one of many who will miss her. She is a competent leader and a good, strong woman—the sort we excel at in the north-east.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jill Mortimer]

I need to make some progress.

The first plan that Julie and I favoured was an upgrade and return of services to Hartlepool, new diagnostic hubs in Hartlepool and Stockton, and a new hospital closer to the A19 in Hartlepool, which would be the major trauma centre. This was a bold new model. It would allow people to access diagnostic and out-patient facilities very locally and to travel to the true central point of all the communities in the Tees Valley for major procedures in a state-of-the-art new facility. Sadly, with the huge pull on public funds created by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the rising cost of living, it has become clear that that project will not be possible in the near future.

Undeterred, Julie and I returned to the drawing board with a plan to upgrade Hartlepool further and maximise the return of services to that site. I mentioned that there is not enough capacity for the significant volume of elective surgical procedures in Tees Valley NHS sites. The upgrade at Hartlepool, with a proposed 40% increase in operating theatres, would address that lack of resources and increase capacity to perform those elective procedures in a new centre of excellence. That would be alongside a new, much-needed primary care hub and a community hub, which would enable patients to be fully rehabilitated before being discharged. That would free up hospital beds on wards.

I also point out to the Minister that, like most things that I inherited in my constituency, hospital services had not been championed by predecessor Labour MPs for too long.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Hartlepool and is doing incredible work to secure the hospital. Representing as she does the former lands of Mandelson, Milburn, Mowlam and Blair—all who are here today represent such places—does she agree that there is very little to show in our region for their years in office, save for costly PFI deals?

[Jill Mortimer]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that we are here now is the proof of the pudding; people got tired of being ignored by Labour MPs who took the heartlands for granted.

[Peter Gibson]

They took the north for granted for years.

[Jill Mortimer]

Exactly. The Minister might be surprised to learn that the trust has not received significant capital investment to improve its services since its initial construction more than 50 years ago, while neighbouring trusts have received funding more recently. That results in a significantly lower per capita spend for the population served by the trust—around £60 per head in the region, compared with neighbouring trusts that receive more than 11 times that amount, at £680 per head. I am sure I do not need to point out to him that positive change means productivity and prosperity. Those things are limited by a high local prevalence of chronic disease.

Our local population has a higher prevalence of 17 out of 21 chronic conditions recorded on the quality and outcomes framework in 2020-21. Both long-term and temporary sickness are cited as the main reason for unemployment in Hartlepool; at 33%, that is higher than the national rate of 25%, suggesting that poor health outcomes are the main driver of unemployment in the region and underlining the significant need for a return of good health services locally.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way once again; she is being incredibly generous with her time. We were all elected on a mission to level up, and levelling up is about delivering on those health outcomes. Does she agree that levelling up health inequalities in the north-east is a key part of why we are here?

[Jill Mortimer]

Absolutely. It is incredibly important because, without levelling up health disparities, we cannot get growth or productivity, so it is very important to make sure that we have a happy, healthy population.

The historic lack of prosperity means that a disproportionately high percentage of the local population is in the lowest 10% for deprivation in England, based on the index of multiple deprivation. That puts Hartlepool in the bottom 10 of 147 local authorities nationally. High levels of deprivation also contribute to the fact that life expectancy in Hartlepool and throughout the Tees Valley is considerably lower than the national average in the most deprived areas.

It is the lack of prosperity and the deprivation that I was elected to fight. The people of Hartlepool voted for me to bring positive change. They wanted an MP who finally listened and did something about it. I will not rest until we get the local health services that we deserve and have been so cruelly deprived of. We have been ignored for too long. Will the Minister commit to meeting Julie Gillon and me to discuss the matter further?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jill Mortimer]

I have been trying to meet Lord Markham for many weeks. Will my hon. Friend commit to helping me secure a meeting as soon as possible?

[Will Quince]

I absolutely guarantee and assure my hon. Friend that I will get that meeting with Lord Markham arranged as soon as is practically possible, but certainly in the next few days.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to highlight how the Government are prioritising capital spend in our NHS in order to transform and improve healthcare outcomes for people and put healthcare financing on a sustainable footing. She understandably and rightly focused on the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, her local trust, and of course the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton, which serves many of her constituents. I will, of course, turn to that, but before I do I will briefly reference our capital funding plans more broadly, because the context is important.

We have already provided record sums to upgrade NHS buildings and facilities so that trusts up and down the country can continue to provide the best possible quality of care. Currently, the Department’s capital budget is set to reach upwards of £36 billion for 2022-23 through to 2024-25—a record capital settlement—and we are using that level of investment to address current care delays.

My hon. Friend made a strong case for why new hospitals are important. As important as they are, the broader health economy is, of course, about far more than that. It is about surgical hubs; it is about community diagnostic centres such as the one in Stockton, as she rightly pointed out; it is about ambulance hubs, and it is about discharge lounges. It is about all those value-adding capital projects too. As part of our urgent and emergency care recovery plans, the 5,000 extra beds that are being added to existing NHS hospitals ahead of next winter are also hugely important.

As I said, new hospitals are, of course, important, and we are aware of the need for further investment in the NHS estate. We are investing an extra £1.7 billion to 2025 for more than 70 hospital upgrades. As my hon. Friend alluded to, the Government have committed to building 40 new hospitals, backed by an initial £3.7 billion for the first four years of the new hospital programme.

Baby Loss and Safe Staffing in Maternity Care

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered baby loss and safe staffing in maternity care.

I am honoured to begin this important Baby Loss Awareness Week debate about safe staffing in maternity care, which is imperative. I speak today as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on maternity, but also as the mother of three children. I also speak today because of my three very different pregnancy and birthing experiences, which for me highlight the impact of different staffing approaches on pregnant women.

I lost my first baby in the very early weeks of pregnancy, and I was told by a very kindly midwife that sometimes you have to lose a baby to ripen the womb. This made me feel dreadful. I fought very hard not to grieve openly for that loss, because I felt guilty that I should not. Forgive me: I am full of cold and dosed up, so I will get very emotional.

My first experience of birth 30 years ago was, as it is for many first-time mothers, a long and painful labour. I was persuaded to have an epidural; I think the words were, “You need Slick; he’s very good. Call for Slick.” When it is your first baby, you do not know how labour should feel. You think, “It’s worse for me than everybody else, because I am in so much pain.” So I took the epidural. I was then left for long periods without being checked. There were not many staff on the labour ward that night, and I was in a room on my own with my husband. I was told that when I got nearer they would remove the epidural, because I would need to push.

Sadly, but thankfully, it was only when, unbeknown to me, my son was crowning and in distress that the midwife happened to look in for a check. I had to have an emergency episiotomy and an emergency forceps delivery, which resulted in me having a really severe post-partum haemorrhage, and I nearly died. I remember looking at my new baby in the arms of his father and thinking, “They’re safe; I can go now,” and then I blacked out.

My second son was an extremely large baby, at almost 11 lb, but this was not picked up and he basically got stuck—

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

A whopper.

[Jill Mortimer]

He was a whopper; he still is a whopper. It caused long-term damage to my pelvis but, worse, he has had to battle his entire life with learning difficulties caused by a lack of oxygen at his birth. He was a floppy, quiet baby, and at 18 months he was diagnosed with, among other things, hypertonia. All his development was delayed, and he did not walk or speak until he was nearly two. I worked with him, and I am so proud that he kept battling on learning how to learn. Today, at 27 years old, he is training to be a nurse. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

It was only during my third pregnancy that I experienced continuity of care, which was wonderful. The ability to build a relationship with my midwife, who stayed with me throughout my pregnancy, labour and beyond, was invaluable. I did not have to go through my story with new people all the time and had someone I came to know and trust by my side. I was lucky enough to experience that and wish more women had that chance.

Despite the benefits of continuity of care, I look back on the pregnancy and birth of my daughter with mixed emotions, because there should have been two of them. Very early in that pregnancy I again started to bleed. I bled with my first son and ended up spending a week in hospital, with people saying to me, “Don’t worry, it’s very early on; you’ll have another baby.” I lay still for a week, I did not breathe, and I kept him. But this time I started to bleed again, and I miscarried my daughter’s twin. I did not know how to feel or how to grieve, while having to put all my efforts into sustaining my pregnancy, fearful every day that I would lose the baby I still carried. I was lucky that my beautiful daughter was born safe and healthy, but that loss never goes away. With each milestone, I reflect on how they should be celebrating together. There should be two of them.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Grab a breath for a second. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this vital debate. The House is joined with her in supporting the cause that she is espousing. Does she agree with me—this is something that I certainly have suffered from—that the concept of the take-home child is something we all need to come to terms with? I have had three children, but I have been able to take only one home. For my hon. Friend, it is unquestionably the case that she loves and adores her daughter, but never forgets those who came along with her but did not make it in the end. Is that a fair description of the situation?

[Jill Mortimer]

It is, Guy. Now you have made me feel more upset.

[Guy Opperman]

I was trying to help!

[Jill Mortimer]

You have done. Yes, that loss never goes away. I still feel guilty, because it was so early; I did not go through what people such as my hon. Friend have gone through.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for sharing her deeply personal and emotional story. I want to place on the record my thanks to Alex Walmsley in my constituency, who recently won a BBC Radio Leeds “Make a Difference” award for founding Sands United West Yorkshire, a football team that provides peer support for men affected by baby loss. We often tend to focus on the women, but it is really important that we talk about the fathers who have suffered that loss as well. Does the hon. Lady agree that keeping open local maternity units, such as the Brontë birth centre in my constituency at Dewsbury and District Hospital, is essential to maintaining safe and quick access to maternity services for our communities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jill Mortimer]

I agree that local maternity services— I have the Rowan suite in Hartlepool—are invaluable, because the midwives know their community. They know the women—they are often friends with the mother or an aunt—and that gives them the feeling that people are listening all the time. It is also important that we get midwives trained in bereavement care. I wonder how that kind of care and intervention may have impacted my experience and helped me to cope with emotions of guilt and loss while still allowing myself to feel joy for the life that I had brought into the world in my daughter.

Sadly, experiences 25 years on from mine have not got any better. I am proud to be here today to speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory)—my friend and colleague—who, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss, has told us all of her own recent terrible experience of baby loss. We have just had the publication of the Kent report, which details 200 incidents at hospitals in Margate and Ashford. Baby loss still happens all too often. We simply need more midwives so that they can feel confident that they are providing the very best care they can to all mothers. As noted in the Ockenden report, it is not just about safer staffing levels: it is about quality care. We need more trained bereavement specialist midwives.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I had not intended to intervene, because I have to leave the debate, but my hon. Friend mentioned the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital; as the constituency MP, may I place on the record my concern, and the fact that we are pursuing with vigour—and I mean with vigour—every angle to ensure that what happened there never happens again?

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I am reassured that everybody involved in that case is working hard to put things right.

I am regularly in contact with the wonderful staff at the Rowan suite in Hartlepool. They, too, advocate for the importance of bereavement care for grieving parents. The reality is that bereavement specialists have on average just two hours of working time to dedicate to each baby death. That is simply not enough. I have heard from bereavement midwives who are left having to choose which parents they go to. There are simply not enough of those midwives to go round. Parents who were so full of hope hours earlier are left alone, suffering the rollercoaster of grief that fills the inevitable void from losing a pregnancy or a baby. Expert, kind and understanding support is vital at that terrible time.

I have also met representatives of Sands, one of the many great charities that work in this important area. They have told me that cases of stillbirth in England and Wales rose in 2021 for the first time in seven years. That reflects the experiences of mothers who contacted Mumsnet to say that during covid most of their maternity appointments were cancelled. Mumsnet contacted me to share those mothers’ stories. One mother said that her previous history and notes were ignored and that a previous condition she had suffered from escalated and caused unnecessary complications. She felt that was due to bad organisation, shortages, funding cuts and bad management during covid, which left the delivery unit at her local hospital dangerously understaffed on the night her daughter was born.

I have three asks of my hon. Friend the Minister. Covid is largely behind us, but maternity staff are still exhausted from that time, and 13 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth every day. Will the Minister please tell us what steps the Government are taking to ensure the 2025 ambition announced by the Health Secretary in 2017 to halve stillbirth and neonatal death rates?

The joint meetings of the APPGs on maternity and baby loss have listened to evidence and stories from multiple women and agencies, and we have commissioned a report with Sands and the Royal College of Midwives. We want to ask the Minister whether she will commit to increasing investment in maternity services and fulfilling the shortfall of 2,000 midwives and 500 consultant gynaecologists and obstetricians. We need more and, sadly, it is becoming harder to retain staff because they are burnt out from the effects of staffing shortages. It is a vicious cycle.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the way in which the hon. Lady has opened and framed this debate. I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on premature and sick babies and I absolutely agree with the points she is making. Will she go slightly further and ask the Government to consider amending the shortage occupation list so that we can attract more people to come here and fill those roles? We all know a massive timebomb is coming down the line in terms of the neonatal workforce and those on maternity wards.

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Sadly, that is not a matter for me as I am not a Minister; it will be for the Minister to reply to that.

Will the Minister look at training more bereavement midwives? Sands has developed the national bereavement care pathway, which provides the framework and tools to ensure that all health professionals are adequately equipped to provide the standard of bereavement care so sorely needed during the immediate aftermath of pregnancy or baby loss. That would prevent women like me, 30 years on, from hearing those same lines; health professionals would understand that, kind as they are meant, they do not help in the long term.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I thank my very good friend for her work on this issue. On the point about discrepancy, in my constituency a baby died—it was negligence—and the mother was sent home with four leaflets and never contacted again by the hospital. By contrast, my very best friend lost her baby at nine months in January—as Members can see, we all grieve when we lose someone that close to us—and she had phenomenal care from Tommy’s. Will my hon. Friend press the Minister to do all she can to ensure that there are national guidelines against which the NHS is held to account, monitored and graded for how it provides bereavement care?

[Jill Mortimer]

I thank my hon. Friend; she must not apologise because obviously this issue is very close to us all. We feel very deeply for all mothers who lose. That is one thing that I wish to ask the Minister to do: will she ask the Government to mandate the national bereavement care pathway so that it is nationwide? Although 105 trusts are already formally committed to rolling it out, they need the additional funding to fully implement all the standards of the NBCP. It is no good just taking part of it; we need it all in place and all midwives need to have that training. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that all trusts can implement this vital support service?

Those are the three big asks. I know they are big, that times are not great and that there are not funds, but this is such a vital policy area and so much long-term pain could be caused. I thank Members for their time.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jill Mortimer]

I sincerely thank all colleagues who have taken part in the debate, particularly those who have shared their own devastating personal stories. As the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said, there is clearly cross-party support for addressing this important issue; I do not think anyone in the Chamber wants to quote from any more reports. Will the Minister kindly take what she has heard today to the Prime Minister and ask that it be made a priority?

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered baby loss and safe staffing in maternity care.

Childhood Cancer Outcomes

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

Sadly, I too know the devastating effect that childhood cancer has on families. My cousin Rebecca died, aged four, after an agonising battle with leukaemia. In those days, the treatment options for leukaemia were in their very early stages and Becky was one of the first children to undergo experimental radiation therapy. The side-effects of that early treatment are too gruesome to share with the House. Although survival rates for childhood cancer are better now than they were in the early ’70s, the side-effects wrought on children by radiation treatments and chemotherapy 50 years on remain agonising, as we have heard from across the House today. That is why more research is desperately needed.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) for securing this important debate. She spoke about Sophie Fairall and why it is so important that we make the simple changes that Sophie wanted to make hospital stays more bearable. She also spoke about how important it is that health professionals are able to detect childhood cancer early and that symptoms are not dismissed as something less severe. That is another vital reason why we must all work hard in this place to ensure that GPs start seeing more patients face to face again instead of telephone triaging, which has become all too prevalent through and beyond covid.

Sophie, like my cousin Becky, was a brave and strong little girl. They both should have grown into powerful, beautiful and amazing women. We should honour their legacy by taking bold measures in this House to improve treatments and outcomes for children suffering with cancer. One of my constituents, Amy, recently wrote to me about her daughter Isabellah. Isabellah was diagnosed with the same form of rare cancer as Sophie and Ebony, about whom my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) spoke so eloquently. Recently, Isabellah was one of the lucky ones: she received the brilliant news that she was no longer showing any sign of the disease. I pay tribute to the bravery of Isabellah and her mother Amy, who continues to fight to raise awareness of this terrible disease.

Although child cancer is often described as rare, the death of four children per week is four children too many. For Becky, Sophie, Ebony, Isabellah and countless other children, let us work together to beat child cancer and ensure that no family has to endure the ripples of loss that permeate through the years through too many families like ours.

Ockenden Report

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I join the hon. Lady in warmly thanking and commending the work of maternity teams throughout the United Kingdom for what they do, day in and day out, especially over the last two years of the pandemic, which has probably made it even harder than normal. I know that they will all welcome this report because they will want to see the very changes that are set out in it.

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

I would also like to thank the families for shining a spotlight on this. One of my children suffered from oxygen deprivation at birth, through what I now know were failings in my care. I was lucky, though, in my third pregnancy. By sheer fluke, the GP practice I was registered with had a wonderful community midwife. She was with me through my pregnancy and through the birth of my daughter and she took care of me afterwards. I was listened to, I was supported and I felt safe. I thank my right hon. Friend for taking on board these recommendations, but would he agree that every woman deserves that continuity of care? It can make a profound difference in outcomes for families, because they will have somebody by their side who understands them and they will not have to go through their medical history over and over again, often missing out vital pieces. We should have loftier ambitions. Will my right hon. Friend try to make sure that every woman has the opportunity to have their own midwife with them all the way?

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, I agree very much with my hon. Friend and I thank her for sharing with the House her own valuable experiences. She is right to talk about the importance of continuity of care, and that is part of our maternity transformation plan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

We recognise the difficulty that patients have had in particular with telephone access and GPs have fed in that phone lines have been busier than ever. That is why the Secretary of State, through the winter access fund, has addressed the issue in two ways: the availability of the cloud-based telephone system that GPs and primary care networks can be a part of, which will help to build their telephone capacity; and the £250 million winter access fund, which GPs can use to either recruit more telephone receptionists and train up existing telephone receptionists or build up more resources. I am very happy to discuss that further with my hon. Friend.

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)]

It is a critical time for our country, and we are taking vital steps across health and care. First, on covid, we have now given over 112 million doses of the vaccine in total across the UK. Yesterday, our booster programme was opened up to all people over the age of 40 and we extended our offer of a second dose to all people aged between 16 and 17.

Secondly, on recovery, we are delivering the biggest catch-up plan in the history of the NHS, including the £5.9 billion capital investment we announced last month. Lastly, on reform, yesterday we announced our intention to put a policy of education and training for the health workforce and digital transformation at the very heart of the NHS, so we can plan more effectively as one for the long term, with clear accountability for delivery.

[Jill Mortimer]

A young constituent of mine, Chris, has had to have part of his skull removed following a stroke. Although he is prone to falling, his brain has been largely unprotected for nearly two years. This is because his surgeon feels that the necessary surgery is primarily cosmetic. Several other of my constituents have been refused surgery on those grounds, despite procedures being available elsewhere. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to level up such health disparities and make health inequality a thing of the past?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I am sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituent Chris and wish him all the very best. She will know that clinical commissioning groups are responsible for commissioning local healthcare services. If the aim of a cosmetic procedure is health rated, such as the need to repair or reconstruct missing or damaged tissue or skin that might come through illness, birth defect or accident, it will be commissioned and seen to by commissioners. She refers to a particular case. If she would like to provide me with more details, I would be happy to take a look.

Hospital Building Programme

Jill Mortimer Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) for securing the debate.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown health inequalities in this country into stark relief. Those living in the poorest constituencies of England and Wales have been twice as likely to die from the virus as those in more prosperous constituencies. Figures from the Office for National Statistics covering March to May 2020 show that those living in the poorest 10% of England, which includes my constituency of Hartlepool, died at a rate of 128.3 per 100,000, whereas in the wealthiest 10% the rate was 58.8 per 100,000.

Any death in any part of the country is a tragedy, but such grotesque levels of health inequality cannot be allowed to continue in the world’s fifth-richest country. That is why I fully support the bid by the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust for a new hospital by 2030 to replace the current North Tees hospital in Stockton—another hospital crumbling with concrete cancer that has outlived its life span, and facing huge remedial costs.

The replacement hospital must be built in an equitable location for all residents north of the Tees, and I have a site available in my constituency—one of the most deprived areas of the UK, where health inequalities have been most apparent. The number of people suffering from a range of health problems is consistently higher in Hartlepool than the England average. Those include cancer, depression, asthma, obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure. As a result, life expectancy in Hartlepool is significantly and regrettably below the national average. If the Government are serious about tackling health inequality in the UK, they must start in Hartlepool.

Despite the sheer scale of deprivation and health inequality in my constituency, healthcare services in Hartlepool have not been expanding over the past decade, but shrinking. My constituents are often required to travel to the currently crumbling North Tees hospital in Stockton for urgent or specialist treatment. For example, owing to the lack of a doctor-led maternity ward in Hartlepool, mothers-to-be in my constituency must travel 20 miles in labour to the nearest hospital if there are potential complications, which, sadly, commonly occur with the prevailing underlying health conditions in my community. During the birth of their baby, mothers have to undertake that terrible journey to a hospital that is crumbling. A child’s first experience of this world should not be health inequality.

I appreciate that the coronavirus pandemic has placed unprecedented pressures on healthcare services in this country and I welcome the record levels of investment that the Government are injecting into the NHS to tackle waiting lists and treatment backlogs, but I fear that will not be enough to reverse decades of neglect and indifference on the part of my predecessors. Only a new hospital can do that. Levelling up must mean more than simple investment in transport and general infrastructure. Levelling up life expectancy across the country should be a priority. Plans must be put in place now to abolish health inequality in the UK and to ensure that our ability to live a good and decent life is not determined by an arbitrary postcode lottery.