NHS Winter Crisis

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

This is a really important point about nursing numbers. I think the particular accusation was about the Francis report and the follow-up to it. Of course, a lot of that was about nurses in NHS hospitals and indeed on wards. The latest figures from October 2017 show that, when compared to May 2010, there has been an increase of more than 14,000 in acute, general and elderly. At the same time, that has meant that some other areas of nursing have been impacted; we have talked about mental health before as well as district nursing. I say to the noble Baroness that the big increases in nurse training places ought to mean that there are more nurses going through not just into acute, general and elderly but into mental health and community nursing as well.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, despite the increase in population over the last 30 years, the number of beds in the National Health Service is half what it was 30 years ago. Germany has eight health service beds per 1,000 and in France the figure is six, but in the UK it is two and a half. Is it not about time that we revisited the whole question of the number of beds available in our National Health Service?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord raises a very interesting issue. As he rightly points out, that number has been dropping over a long time. It has plateaued in recent years, but it has been falling. This is a difficult situation. We all agree that more care should be delivered in the community, but we also understand that at certain times of year you do need beds in hospitals. I will point to two things: first, making sure that bed capacity is more efficient so that people can stay safely for less time and can spend more time being treated in their homes—which often is where they want to be, and that is why the extra funding for social care is important; and, secondly, the reconfiguration test that has been introduced by NHS England, which is about stopping reductions in bed numbers—which, as the noble Lord said, has happened under successive Governments—where it cannot be proven that any reduction is for the benefit of patients in terms of their overall care.

NHS Winter Crisis

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand there is a new strain of flu in circulation this year, for which the flu jab was not designed. Does that mean that elderly people, who are particularly vulnerable to this new strain of flu, should have a second inoculation?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

There are of course at any one time a number of flu strains going around. There is particular concern about one of those strains affecting elderly people. Its circulation has come about quite late, as it were, and I would absolutely point out that the best way for elderly people and all at-risk groups to protect themselves is still to get that inoculation. For those who have not—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

A second one?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I am not in a position to say whether they should have a second inoculation, but there are still a number of people who have not had that inoculation. Those vaccines are available in GPs, surgeries, and we absolutely encourage all groups to have at least a first one.

Nursing and Midwifery: Student Applications

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that question. There are a couple of new opportunities: one is nursing associates and the other, in common with changes across the public sector, is that there are up to 1,000 new nursing degree apprenticeships providing alternative routes into nursing for those who do not want to go down the university route.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to clearing in his original reply. If, after clearing, there is still a substantial reduction in applications, will the Government then review the position?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

That is a hypothetical situation. Health Education England remains confident that we will fill the places. Critically, the universities—I mentioned the Council of Deans of Health—also think that we will still fill them.

NHS: Junior Doctors’ Contract

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I am sure that junior doctors will reflect on the new economic situation in which we find ourselves, and I hope very much that they will not resort to the strike action that has been taken in the past.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, what assessment has been made of the number of resignations there might be from the health service arising out of imposition?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord refers to resignations. Does he refer to the resignation of the chairman of the junior doctors committee?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

No—to the doctors themselves.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I am not aware that there have been any resignations directly related to the junior doctors dispute.

Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, in February 1996 I found myself under the surgeon’s knife, on the slab at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, having a tumour on my lung removed, an operation in which I lost half of my lung capacity, making it impossible for me now to walk upstairs or walk any great distance. The reason for all this was that for 25 years I smoked cigarettes.

I only wish that these new inventions that now exist had been available to me. I tried hypnosis on Harley Street. I tried patches of different forms. I could not quite do cold turkey but I tried everything possible to stop smoking, and it was utterly impossible. Indeed, I had my last cigarette the night before they took out the tumour. That is how addicted I was to tobacco.

With that in mind and knowing of my particular difficulties, a gentleman in the north of England wrote me a letter. I want to bring the salient points of his correspondence to the attention of the House, because he manufactures the product in question. He says:

“we … have 3 Shops and 6 employees … we are manufacturing the eliquid that is used in the devices. We have sold thousands of these devices locally”—

that is to say, in the north of England—

“and helped so many people make the switch. This has been such a rewarding and positive part of the business for myself and staff who still love helping people to remove a lifelong use of tobacco and improve their health”.

If those listening to my contribution this evening can hear my heavy breathing, that is the result of the operation that took place as a result of smoking all those years ago.

In his letter, that gentleman says that the two millilitre tank size restriction is pointless and restricts future product development. I wonder if the Minister might deal with these matters in the wind-up, if he is able, because some of this is technical. Perhaps he could write to me with a greater explanation.

The manufacturer says that limiting nicotine strength to 20 milligrams per millilitre is counterproductive as it removes the 24 milligram strength which is essential to lots of new switchers. He says the restriction of bottle size to 10 millilitres is pointless as much more hazardous household products are available in much bigger sizes. The popular size for cost-effectiveness and suitability is 30 millilitres, and bottles of 100 millilitres are available too. People can average, he tells me, 10 millilitres per day liquid usage, so a restriction on supply there is again counterproductive.

There will be a restrictive cost in introducing new products to the market. Remember, this man is a manufacturer. He says he will be classed as a producer when importing goods from outside the European Union, with MHRA notification and testing costs implications to bear. Therefore, a lot of suitable and effective products will be removed from the market. He says:

“We are looking at having to find the Cost of Emissions & Toxicology data requested per flavour SKU for our own manufactured liquids. This is estimated at £5,000 each per flavour, of which we have 20, plus Notification & data submissions for any variables of strength would also be required. Our business model could be changed from a manufacturer to a retailer with loss of jobs & future investment stifled if we are unable to bear the cost of this directive’s implementation. We can already see a burgeoning black market which the TPD (Article 20) will encourage. Individuals are now making eliquid at home & selling to whoever they please, with no testing done or age restrictions adhered to or tax paid”.

I would have thought that that is particularly relevant in this debate. He says:

“This is not a tobacco product and should not be classed as such. Doing so is disingenuous & misleading with implications for people’s health. We hope you can recognize the huge potential to save millions of lives & the health revolution this presents … to governments the world over”.

I hope the Government will find a way of re-examining these regulations. Potentially, we could do a lot of damage to a lot of people.

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register, perhaps particularly that until last month I was chair of the board of science for the British Medical Association.

The Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, states that the regulations,

“run counter to advice from the Royal College of Physicians to promote vaping and … that they could force vapers back to smoking”.

Noble Lords should be aware that the Royal College of Physicians does not support the Motion. The Royal College of Physicians, together with ASH, the BMA, Cancer UK, the Royal Society for Public Health and the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies all support the TRPR, including the regulation of e-cigarettes. Yes, medical organisations such as the RCP and the BMA recognise the substantial harm reduction offered by e-cigarettes, but they also conclude that they are not harmless—both identify the need for regulation of e-cigarettes to protect the public.

Noble Lords may have received some very inaccurate briefings, making some assertions that are just not substantiated by the evidence. For example, “nicotine itself is not dangerous”. It is just not true. It is both toxic and addictive. Although vaping using electronic cigarettes is much less harmful than smoking, nicotine is toxic. It is also not helpful if you are going to have surgery. It is not helpful when it is swallowed. It is harmful when it is in contact with the skin, and its addictive properties, for me as a psychiatrist, are particularly of concern.

It is just not true that the limits of 20 milligrams per millilitre will force many vapers to return to smoking. Use of high-strength nicotine is not the norm, and vapers who need more nicotine can get it by vaping more frequently.

It is not true that the regulations mean no advertising. Substantial forms of advertising would still be permitted under the regulations—at point of sale, on billboards, on buses, as inserts in printed media and as product information on websites. Furthermore, the ASH/YouGov results show that more than 90% of smokers are now aware of e-cigarettes, so existing smokers already know about vaping. It is the non-smokers, whom we do not want to become addicted to nicotine, who are not so aware.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

There are of course many products which do have tamper-proof packaging and we cannot debate all the ones the noble Lord mentioned. It seems to me entirely reasonable that this particular product should be tamper-proof. If a child were to swallow nicotine in these kinds of volumes it would have a very serious impact. It is entirely reasonable to have tamper-proof packaging.

The Government have asked the MHRA, local authorities and others involved in the enforcement of these regulations to develop a compliance regime together with the businesses which are currently in this industry. We will take a pragmatic approach to implementing the new notification system. Notification fees are low—£150 per product and £60 annually as a top-up—and are set to recover costs only. The MHRA has also developed guidance that minimises the burden on business.

E-cigarettes are not harmless. Nicotine is both toxic and addictive and there are unanswered questions about the effects of longer-term use. It is better to vape than to smoke but it is far better to do neither. These regulations reduce the risk of harm to children and protect against the renormalisation of tobacco use. They provide assurance on relative safety for users and legal certainty for businesses that wish to sell these products across the EU. I also underline that the regulations have the full support of the four nations of the UK, as well as many of those in the health community that have been involved in tobacco reduction, including ASH, Cancer Research UK and the British Medical Association. The Royal College of Physicians agrees in its report on the need for regulation of e-cigarettes to protect the public, and states that although e-cigarettes are estimated to be in the order of 95% less harmful than smoked tobacco, they are not harmless.

Moving forward, the Government are committed to a full review of the functioning of the regulations, including—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is there a danger that a black market will develop?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

It is possible. There is always a possibility when there is a regulation that a black market will develop, and for the very high-strength products, which had to be regulated by the MHRA—the ones above 20 milligrams—there is a risk that there will be a black market. I think I recall that the noble Lord said earlier that a black market had already developed in this product. We are trying to bring some minimum quality standards, at least, into this market so that people who are thinking of moving from smoking to using e-cigarettes can have confidence that the product they use is regulated to a minimum standard.

I remind noble Lords that new and important tobacco control measures are also contained in these regulations. I have not talked about them specifically because they are slightly off the main point of this debate. The regulations will be reviewed within five years of entering into force. I also commit, here and now, to commissioning Public Health England to update its evidence report on e-cigarettes annually until the end of this Parliament and to include within its quit-smoking campaigns consistent messaging about the safety of e-cigarettes.

Clearly, there are strong arguments on both sides of the debate. As I said, I am not an instinctive regulator by any means but I feel that these regulations are proportionate. They do not go over the top, are entirely sensible and are backed by the RCP and all the major charities in this area. I hope that my noble friend Lord Callanan will not wish to push this to a vote, but of course that is entirely his decision.

Junior Doctors: Industrial Action

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I might ask two very brief questions. First, I recognise the undertaking that the Conservative Party gave in its manifesto, but were the BMA—or the junior doctors, more widely—consulted prior to the general election on their views on seven-day working? That is quite a simple question. If they were, what was their response in that consultation? Secondly, following the Written Questions that I tabled recently on information that the Government might hold on the position of junior doctors, why do the Government not keep statistics on doctors’ resignations from the National Health Service and on the emigration of doctors who cede their posts in the United Kingdom to take up posts overseas? Why are those vital statistics not available, particularly when we are going into this very difficult period?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, first, the need for a seven-day service has been recognised by the medical profession for a number of years. I remember reading the Future Hospital report four or five years ago in which the Royal College of Physicians talked about a seven-day service. Of course, it was the academy of the royal colleges that produced the 10 clinical standards that underpin a seven-day service. The issue is not whether or not there should be a seven-day service; the more serious issue that has been raised is whether we have the resources to deliver a seven-day service. We argue that we are putting enough resources into the NHS to do that. So I think that the principle of a seven-day service, certainly for urgent and emergency care, if not for elective care, is well accepted by the medical profession.

Interestingly, on the point about the number of people leaving—the resignations that the noble Lord referred to—I was pretty horrified to hear about the son of someone on the noble Lord’s Benches who had left the NHS to go to work in America two years ago, I think. He described a pretty torrid time working in the NHS as a junior doctor. To cap it all, when he went, there was no exit interview. No one was really concerned or knew that he had gone. That is just another illustration of the fact that we have not sufficiently respected or valued junior doctors in the NHS.

NHS: 111 Service

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the 999 service runs in parallel with the 111 service. If you have an emergency, you should ring 999; if you have an urgent request you should ring 111 and a decision will be made then on whether to call an ambulance. Interestingly, of the 27% of people who ring 111 who would otherwise have gone to A&E, only 8% are actually referred to A&E.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister’s response is astonishing. Has he not been reading in the national media the repeated reports of a breakdown in the service all over the country? Has he not read these reports? I am astonished by his responses.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

There have been a number of terrible tragedies. The most recent of these was William Mead, a very young baby who died as a consequence of not getting the right treatment quickly enough. NHS England has done a root-cause analysis. Some of the problems lay within 111 but others were with the out-of-hours service and with diagnosis by the GPs concerned. The noble Lord is wrong to say that the 111 service is not operating well throughout the country. Some 90% of all those who use 111 believe they get a good service from it.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I certainly cannot give a guarantee that this is an isolated incident. Often in the past we have taken these awful events when they happen and tried to say that they are isolated. The fact is that there are many trusts that the CQC has characterised as requiring improvement, so I cannot give my noble friend an assurance that this is an isolated incident. However, I can reassure him that our inspection procedures are much more robust than they used to be.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had repeated references to unexpected deaths, but no details. What are the causes of these unexpected deaths?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

Avoidable deaths are estimated at some 10,000 a year. “Unavoidable deaths” is the phrase that I think I used, which are estimated at some 10,000 a year. That is not out of line with what is found in other countries, such as America and Germany. However, it should not be accepted, which is why the Secretary of State has asked Bruce Keogh to produce these new statistics for every trust, starting from next spring.

Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in the gap. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, I have personal experience of this issue. My father at the age of 19 turned down the opportunity to study marine engineering at Royal Holloway College to join the Merchant Navy. He joined in 1939 and, by 1943, according to the South Wales press, he was the youngest chief engineer on merchantmen crossing the Atlantic, carrying oil, primarily, I understand, from Galveston to various parts of the world, including ports in the United Kingdom. He died in 1989, having being diagnosed with mesothelioma in 1984. He spent five years being treated, I think in the Brompton Hospital. He had repeated operations on his pleura to try to alleviate all the pain and the difficulty he was experiencing. He left many letters and diaries, in which he explained why he had insisted on working on lagging in the boiler rooms of the SS “Penhale” and the SS “Duke of Sparta”, the two tankers on which he spent much of the war. He explained that he insisted on doing the lagging work himself—of course, he paid the price for it—because he was always uneasy about the use of asbestos but could not quite define it.

In the correspondence that he left behind, he expressed his shock over the lack of research that was being conducted in the whole area of cancer treatment. I have read the letters that he wrote to various authorities requesting that additional resources be allocated to that area, not particularly for himself—I will come to that in a minute—but for others. He also complained extensively about the lack of support that was given to those people—in his case it was not so much of a problem—who found it very hard to establish who was commercially liable for compensation given that they were suffering from this disease. His concerns about the research were in part motivated by his regard for the many Chinese crew members on the ships who worked under him when he was chief engineer. It is clear that he worried that they would never receive treatment and, in many cases, would never know what they were suffering from. This was not necessarily the case on the ships on which he served, as he was doing the lagging work, but he was not to know what would happen to the Chinese crew members on other ships in the Merchant Navy, where they were doing a lot of this work. He worried about what was happening to those people. There must have been tens of thousands of Chinese crewmen who served in the Merchant Navy who never knew to the day they died what they had suffered from. They were probably said to have died from something coming under a general cancer heading.

I say to those who have gone, and to their relatives, wherever they are in the world, that at least we in the United Kingdom are now treating these matters very seriously. Indeed, the speech of my noble friend Lord Winston was absolutely fascinating. It contained information that many of us had never heard before. I am sure that my father would have been fascinated to hear this debate today. As I say, I hope that additional resources can be found, if only in memory of those who have died in the service of their country.

Barts Health NHS Trust

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

It is precisely because we have wanted to confront the issue across the NHS that so much has been done following the report of Sir Robert Francis into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. All the recommendations flowing from that report should resonate with every part of the NHS. The recent work done by Sir Robert on whistleblowing can be put into the same category. There are lessons and messages for the NHS as a whole, and I believe that progress is being made, as it needs to be in particular quarters.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a financial sponsor of research into cancer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in central London. Can we be given an assurance that the work done at St Bartholomew’s is in no way under criticism in the Statement made by the Minister?

[Earl Howe]

The Statement related to Whipps Cross specifically, but the Trust Development Authority took the decision to place the entire trust into special measures. That was a slightly unusual step to take but I think that it reflected the concern that it felt about the management of the trust generally. However, the TDA also singled out some areas at Barts for particular praise. It is important to stress that patients will receive the good care that they have known about at Barts in the future.