NHS: Pay

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Willis of Knaresborough

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I reject the rhetoric of the noble Lord. We absolutely do support nurses, which is why we are focused on recruitment, training, culture and opportunities. It is not right to think that one pay rise represents the entire and sum contribution to the welfare of nurses. That is the response we get from nurses themselves, what the public understand, and what the Government’s guidelines are about.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD) [V]]

My Lords, could you imagine any employer, other than those of the sweatshops of the Far East, seeing their workers perform heroics to save the business and, in the process, the lives of millions of their clients, only to be rewarded by having their wages actually cut? Does the Minister agree with the Health Minister Nadine Dorries, who expressed surprise at the generosity of the Government’s offer, or with the view that a good employer would first offer a substantial bonus to its staff before taking time to negotiate a fair and sensible pay award? If we can pay a bonus to local publicans for sourcing easily obtainable files, surely a bonus to those who have saved our lives should be a no-brainer for this Government.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord on the point about heroics—we appreciate those—but I do not agree that this represents a pay cut. On the broad thrust of the noble Lord’s point, I gently remind him that millions of people are out of work off the back of this pandemic. Lots of people have had an extremely tough time and face a period of unemployment. Nurses are well paid for the job, which is a secure job, and they have other benefits. There are many people in this country who look upon professional jobs in the NHS with some envy; we should not forget that some public sector jobs are, in fact, extremely well-paid.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Willis of Knaresborough

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the capacity that we have in track and trace is growing dramatically; the number of tests we have taken is going up. It is true that testing demand does fluctuate. There was a moment when universities had a very large outbreak and there was a huge amount of demand from universities, and there may well be other reasons why testing demand goes up in the future. But I reassure the noble Lord that the capacity, speed and accuracy of testing in this country are making huge progress on a day-by-day basis, and I pay tribute to those involved in the project.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD) [V]]

My Lords, a key factor in controlling Covid-19, with or without a vaccine, is test, trace and isolation, and I fully support that. Yet the recent survey indicated that some 20% of those asked to isolate actually failed to do so, rendering the system far less effective than it should be. What is the reasoning behind the reluctance of the Government to move from PCR to lateral flow testing for the test and trace programme, following the extensive clinical evaluations by PHE and Oxford University, which found 99.6% accuracy, including on the key criterion for track and trace of detecting asymptomatic carriers? Surely, accurate 48-hour testing would enable virus-free contacts to return to normal activity quickly, rather than sitting at home for 14 days.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is entirely right on two things, and wrong on another. He is entirely right that isolation is absolutely key—without isolation, there is no point in testing or tracing. It is true that not everyone who is asked to isolate does isolate, but we have a programme in place to try to encourage, inform and inspire people to isolate. He is entirely right that lateral flow tests offer huge advantages, in terms of the speed at which they can be used, their cost and their flexibility. But we have bought tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions, of these tests in recent weeks. We are deploying them in mass testing, and we have completely followed the advice and inspiration of the noble Lord in this matter in a massive way.

Covid-19: NHS Application

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Willis of Knaresborough

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot answer the noble Baroness’s question. There is a very good reason: the privacy arrangements of the app mean that we do not know who has downloaded it. This information is available only to those who have downloaded it. It is precisely because of those privacy arrangements that an enormous amount of trust is placed in the British people. However, I do not deny that it is frustrating that we do not have the kind of demographic insights that the noble Baroness quite reasonably asks for.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted that this app has now been produced. Fifteen million adopters in a week is excellent news, and I genuinely congratulate the Minister on that. However, 34 countries are already using the ENX system with Bluetooth, and it is to be regretted that we are not ahead of them, but we are not. What conversations have the Government had with some of those countries to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes that they have made on their journey? Given the importance of mass take-up—which is important before going on to talk about other things—have the Government considered discussing with Apple, Google and mobile phone suppliers such as Samsung the possibility of putting the app straight on to people’s phones at the point of sale, or point of update, with of course the option for the customer to remove it, should they wish to do so?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord has made a very detailed and technical inquiry. We are studying the ENX system very closely. However, as I mentioned earlier, the secret source of the British app is the algorithm that takes the data from Bluetooth and the phone and analyses it to give the risk assessment. Our view is that that algorithm is absolutely critical. Without it, the ENX system fires off alerts to anyone who has been proximate to another Bluetooth phone that has registered a positive test, even if they have only driven past that phone on the motorway. Those are exactly the kinds of circumstances that the British public made it crystal clear to us they simply would not tolerate. Therefore, we have put an enormous investment into that algorithm. We have had an enormous amount of interest from other countries, and we are happy to share that learning with companies as we develop our intelligence on it.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Willis of Knaresborough

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I would be glad to talk about the weekly statistics with the noble Lord in detail, if he would like. The number of tests per day is frequently over 200,000. The number of people includes a huge amount of duplication, because some people have had more than one test. Those people are often in social care or hospitals. If a person is tested in March and goes on to be tested 20 more times, they are counted once in March and not again. That is why the number he is looking at is quite different from the daily “tested” figure.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, another statistic we seem to forget is that some 20,000 Covid-related deaths have occurred in care homes to date. Yet, as we face another massive surge, there is no guarantee that we have learned any lessons from them. I welcome the resources spent on PPE, and I hope the Minister will guarantee that no patients will be dumped into care homes as they were earlier in the year. Unless we can protect the 1.2 million social care workers, 465,000 of whom work in care homes, the same will happen again. Last Friday, as reported by the York Evening Press, a care home in York waited over seven days for 100 test results to be returned—seven days when people got more ill and faced the prospect of an early death. Unless the Minister can guarantee at the meeting tomorrow that all tests in care homes will be offered on a weekly basis and returned within 24 hours, we will be putting our whole care home sector in peril.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Willis, does the care home sector, the NHS and those who work in them a massive disservice. There are hundreds of ways in which we have learned to deal with this disease better, such as how we use therapeutic drugs; how we store and use PPE; how we manage and protect our workforce; how we handle mental health and the entertainment of those who live in care; how we use modern technology, including television and diagnostic devices; how we transfer patients in and out of hospitals; and how we use testing. I could continue, but I think I have made my point.

Suicide

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Willis of Knaresborough

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Yes, I am glad to provide that assurance.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, ministerial claims to have the lowest suicide rate for seven years, in the fourth report, do not accord with the latest ONS figures from 1 September this year. These show that, at 16.9 per 100,000, England has the highest suicide rate since 2000, with an increase each year since the new strategy began in 2017. Alarmingly, my own region of Yorkshire and Humber has consistently had the highest suicide rate anywhere in the United Kingdom for a decade. What steps are the Government taking to evaluate their existing strategy and produce consistent statistics? What proportion of the £25 million allocated to local suicide prevention plans has been spent in Yorkshire and Humber?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I remind the noble Lord that, in July 2018, the standard of proof used by coroners to determine whether a death was caused by suicide was lowered from criminal to civil. That has had a meaningful effect on the number of suicides recorded. I am afraid the numbers for Yorkshire and Humber are not available to me.