New Hospitals

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards their commitment of building 40 new hospitals.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

The Government committed in October 2020 to build 40 new hospitals by 2030. We have confirmed an initial £3.7 billion to support these schemes for the first four years of the 10-year programme. This, together with eight previously announced schemes, will mean that we will have 48 new hospitals by the end of the decade. Six of the 48 new hospitals are currently in construction, including the first of the 40 new hospital schemes, and one scheme is now complete.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, eight NHS capital schemes already under way when the promise was made were added to the Prime Minister’s pledge for 40 new hospitals by 2030, but now their cost overruns will have to be paid for out of the original pot of money. Can the Minister say how many of the originally promised 40 will now have to be postponed and how many are really new?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government have said that we will deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030 and in October 2020 we published the full list of the 40. This includes eight schemes that were announced by previous Governments but are to be delivered this decade and 32 new hospitals. We have also confirmed that we will identify further new hospital schemes, the process for which is ongoing, with a final decision to be made in spring 2022. This means that 48 hospitals in total are to be delivered over the decade.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have here the New Hospitals Programme Communications Playbook, which the noble Lord’s department has put out and which makes it clear that if you build a new wing of a hospital, that counts as a new hospital. What is worse is that NHS bodies are being instructed to lie and propagandise on behalf of the Government. Will he withdraw this disgraceful communication?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I hope that the noble Lord will recognise that whenever a new project is started and there is a decision to build a new hospital in a community, it surely makes sense to look at whether there is space on existing sites. Otherwise, if we start criticising new hospitals on existing sites, there may be a perverse disincentive for a hospital to say, “Well, let’s build elsewhere”. when there is a perfectly good site. It is important, whatever you call it, whatever the semantics, to recognise that we are building modern, digital, sustainable hospitals for the future.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we very much welcome the investment in physical buildings, but the modernisation of the NHS also depends on digital infrastructure and training. Will the Minister please tell us what steps he is taking towards a programme of technological improvements that are needed to modernise the NHS?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question—I have picked up many of the things that he started when he was in post. One of the great things about being the Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences is having a real ability to drive through digitisation of the health service, making sure that we have a modern health service that is fit for the future, so that if you are a patient in one part of the country and something happens to you, all your information is available elsewhere for the clinicians at the time and you get the best possible care. That is something that we should be celebrating.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, one of the principles of managing taxpayers’ money is to take account of the revenue implications of a capital budget. In view of the projected increases in building costs, is the Minister confident that the new hospitals programme managers understand this? What is being done to recruit the necessary doctors, nurses, technicians and maintenance staff for these new and existing hospitals?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One thing that is exciting about the new hospitals is that we are going to transform the way in which we deliver new healthcare infrastructure. First, it will be sustainable, with net-zero carbon across the NHS. Digital transformation is key, making use of the latest technology, so no longer will we have microscope slides couriered between sites, but we can instantly see a digital image and assess it using AI. There will be standardised design and modern methods of construction and new hospitals will be integrated with local health and care systems. This is a project for a health system that is fit for the future.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

Many of these new hospitals will be built in existing centres of population. My concern, though, is for areas of high projected population growth, such as the Oxford-Cambridge arc, where we always seem to be playing catch-up when it comes to medical facilities. Can my noble friend simply reassure me that the principles of “I before E”—infrastructure before expansion—will be applied when choosing where these hospitals will be?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I assure my noble friend that, in deciding where to build a hospital, among the things that the NHS and others look at are the needs in the community, existing infrastructure and making sure that we can build hospitals that are fit for the future, that are digital, that are transformative, but are led by clinicians as opposed to construction experts.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

The Minister said, just a moment ago, “whatever you call it”. When David Cameron was Prime Minister, he gave a pledge on district general hospitals and the definition of hospitals became important. Many of us said that, in order to be defined as a hospital, it had to incorporate 24-hour accident and emergency. What is the Minister’s definition of a hospital and is the pledge from David Cameron on district general hospitals current?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Each of the building projects will be a new hospital that will deliver brand-new, state-of-the-art facilities. One thing that we must be careful of is that if we say, “Well, you can’t call that a new hospital, even though it is a new facility, because it’s on an existing site”, we do not create perverse incentives, where the local NHS or the local ICS says, “We mustn’t build it there, because we will be accused of not having a new hospital”. Surely what we should be focusing on is outcomes, not inputs, and the fact that we are delivering modern, digital hospitals for the future.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, leaving aside the dubious and overinflated claims of 40 new hospitals, many of which are, in reality, upgrades—as welcome as they are—I and others in the House raised with the Minister’s predecessor but one in 2019 that there was an alarming repairs and infrastructure crisis, which was then in the region of £3 billion. Could the Minister explain to the House which part and how much of the new hospitals programme will address the immediate and urgent matter of crumbling wards, sewer leaks in wards and old and dodgy kit?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness will recognise that we need not only to build new hospitals but to upgrade existing infrastructure and this is all part of the capital programme. The decisions on individual hospitals and upgrades will be taken in local communities in consultation with clinicians and local ICSs.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister avoid getting caught in a numbers game? We need an adequate number of beds in a good geographical spread to deal with the needs of the whole population. I hope that he will see this as part of an integrated expansion of the health service and that we will not get tied up with the numbers, as we did years ago—how many hospitals, how many this, how many that. We need an improved health service. This is a vital part of it, but it is only a part.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I completely agree with the sentiments expressed by my noble friend. Surely what we should focus on is output; surely what we need is the best healthcare system across the country. We need up-to-date healthcare with the best information from patients to make sure that we can diagnose and give them appropriate treatment, working with the very latest technology such as artificial intelligence to spot patterns, to make sure that we can also build in prevention when we look at tackling health issues in the future. I welcome my noble friend saying that we have to focus on output—modern digital infrastructure and modern digital hospitals fit for the future.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my local hospital, Watford General, is on the list of 40 so-called new hospitals, although the plans have been in place and supported cross-party for close to two decades, and its infrastructure is failing. Despite a clear promise of funds by the Prime Minister during a visit to the hospital in October 2019, the trust is yet to be allocated funding from the Treasury and it remains a pathfinder. I want a clear outcome. When will funding be confirmed and granted?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

On the point about the noble Baroness’s local hospital, I am afraid that I am not aware of where she is situated geographically, but I can tell her that six of the 48 hospitals are already under construction and one is now completed. I hope that the noble Baroness will write to me on the hospital that she referred to so that I can give her an answer.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, will the Minister stop waffling and put on record an answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, saying precisely what he means by a “new hospital”? I tell him not to waffle back.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his advice just before I was about to answer. Whatever you call it—and we can debate semantics—the important thing is surely that we build new hospitals and upgrade existing infrastructure. Surely we should celebrate the fact that we are building 48 new state-of-the-art hospitals—

[Noble Lords]

You are not.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We should not celebrate building new hospitals? Well, there we are. We should celebrate the fact that we are building new hospitals to give patients the best possible care, aided by digital technology and making sure that they are sustainable.

Covid-19: UK Arrivals

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why international students and others who have been fully vaccinated and are not required to self-isolate on arrival in the United Kingdom subsequently have to self-isolate if a close contact contracts COVID-19; and what plans they have to change this policy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

Our current system for validating the vaccination status of close contacts relies on checking against records in the NHS national immunisation management system. We do not have access to equivalent records for those vaccinated overseas. We recognise the pressing need to resolve this issue as soon as possible and are urgently exploring a number of different options to extend the existing exemptions to contacts who have been vaccinated overseas. I hope to be in a position very shortly to brief the House on a proposed solution.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will welcome that solution when it comes. The Minister talks of urgency but we have been waiting since the beginning of September for a resolution to a problem that I believe is rather small but which clearly disadvantages international students. To me, it feels slightly xenophobic and as though to date the Government have been intransigent. I know that Public Health England agrees that the policy is not logical in any sense or form, so why do international students have to self-isolate for 10 days when our own students from the UK do not? This disadvantages the international students and puts people off coming to this country. Also, how can international students who have had non-MHRA-approved vaccines be immunised in the UK in order to get a Covid pass, should that be necessary in the not too distant future, as it is in some other parts of the UK?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As someone whose family comes from outside the EU, who has taught in universities and who recognises the great asset that there is and the great advantages that there are in being open to the world, and global Britain, I share the noble Baroness’s frustration. Yes, we have left the EU, which is very much a project of white privilege, and moved to a more global outlook. It is really important that we now focus on the world generally. The issue is quite technical at the moment. One of the things needed for the test and trace system to work is that you need access to the underlying data and verification. We are looking at a number of different options for how to achieve that.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

The noble Lord, Lord Flight, is not present so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

As the Minister has said, our universities have long been a welcoming and inspiring academic hub for international students but stories such as the ones that we have heard—along with, I am afraid, the attack on freedom of speech at the LSE and the shameful treatment of Professor Stock, which we will come to shortly—added to Covid and online teaching, to say nothing of the Brexit fallout, which means that EU schools can no longer use group passports, all question our ability to attract youngsters from across the globe. What are the Government doing to re-establish our reputation in this sector?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about us being a global hub and welcoming the whole world. For centuries the UK has been open to a number of different nationalities from across the world. Indeed, my own family came to the UK in the Windrush generation. I have always been clear that we should be a global Britain, not just focused on one small part of the world.

I want to take the opportunity to answer the question that I forgot to answer about international students. Anyone in England is eligible for the vaccine if they fall within the current eligibility criteria, and international students are encouraged to register with a GP.

On free speech, it is critical that our universities remain places where you can have free expression without fear. The essence of free speech is being able to tolerate views that you may not agree with but it is important that they are expressed. Universities should remain hubs of free speech.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I refer to my registered interests. Given that this is not really a public health problem in its scale, but it is a bar to the recruitment of international students and their integration once they are here, may I urge the Minister—even if he cannot find a quick solution to the NHS app—to put out some information on how Covid passes can be obtained and to make sure that all universities and students have access to that information as soon as possible?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Last night I took part in a debate that involved the issue of the Covid pass, particularly with the boosters. I was frustrated because I thought I had a date I could announce. That was pulled at the last moment, but we are very close to a solution. The technical point on test and trace is that, at the moment, it is unable to validate the vaccination status of people whose vaccines are not registered on the database. We are looking at whether that can be done on trust, or whether that would open a loophole for getting around the system. I have been assured when pushing the NHS on this that it is looking at an answer.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

The Minister must accept that this a very confusing area for everybody. Perhaps he would like to clarify the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday on what impact tougher overseas travel rules and self-isolation for those without a jab might have. He mentioned those yesterday in the press conference. I think they are linked to the Question my noble friend asked. It is very important that the NHS app shows the booster as soon as possible, because it is going to cause a lot of trouble for Christmas travel.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I welcome questions from noble Lords, particularly on getting the booster on the app, because when I am talking to officials in the department and the NHS it shows how important it is that we do this as quickly as possible. One of the tasks is to be accountable and to push the NHS and others to make sure that we are doing this. Sadly, when I ask what the problem is on test and trace, I am told that it is unable to validate the vaccination status of people whose vaccines are not recorded on a national immunisation management system. I have asked about passenger locator forms and whether we could use a similar technology. At the moment that is done on trust, but you face a very high fine if you are misleading; maybe that could be a solution. I assure noble Lords that I really am pushing.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to my registered interests. I have printed off the advice given by my university, Cambridge, to international students and what it means to be fully vaccinated. To come into the country, if they are fully vaccinated, they do not have to isolate when they arrive, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out. If the system can understand when they arrive in the country that they are fully vaccinated, why can the NHS app not understand that they are fully vaccinated when they get pinged by test and trace?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I share the frustration of the noble Baroness and others. This is not great for our international, global outlook, or for the fact that we want to attract the best students from around the world, not just Europe. We are a global country and we have to address this. I am pushing the NHS on this because it is really important. The problem is the national immunisation management system, to use the technical term, and the inability to validate the data of overseas visitors.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I can sense the Minister’s frustration in this, but we have been aware of it for some time; this should have been sorted out a long time ago, yet here we are now in November. Does the Minister accept that all departments must play their part in achieving the Government’s aim of increasing the number of international students? Will he assure us that his department will be both flexible and creative—with the emphasis on “creative”—in resolving this and other similar problems that may arise?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I assure the noble Baroness that when I was pressing this issue yesterday with officials in preparation for this Question, I stressed the importance of flexibility and creativity. We need to think outside the box on many issues. One issue we are looking at is: if passenger locator forms can do this, why can the NHS Test and Trace system not? I am told that is because it is based on self-certification. I am pushing the NHS to address and analyse the different options as soon as possible. It is really important we send a message to the rest of the world that we are open to the brightest and the best from across the world.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, in Queen’s University Belfast, the current position is determined by the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland and is based on your vaccination status and age, rather than on whether you have home or overseas status. Would the Minister engage with the devolved Administrations, particularly the Northern Ireland Executive, who seem to have best practice in relation to this issue?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One of the advantages of having devolved Administrations and different practices is that we can learn from best practice, so I will take the noble Baroness’s advice.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord believe the rules and regulations regarding the Covid-19 pandemic are clear, consistent and easy to understand?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. It depends on who you ask.

NHS England: Waiting Lists

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce NHS England waiting lists.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising this. It is a top priority for the Government and for the NHS. This year we are providing a record amount of funding to the NHS, with an extra £34 billion. This includes £2 billion this year plus £8 billion over the next three years to step up activity to tackle long waiting lists for elective care and to transform elective services. This funding could deliver around 9 million more checks, scans and procedures.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. I figured that that was what he would say. It is not about how much the Government intend to put in but how it is being spent. That is particularly important in the absence of any workforce strategy. If the billions were directed immediately at investing in social care and care workers, for example, both domiciliary and care homes, how many beds does the Minister believe could be freed up in the next eight weeks? What effect would that have on the throughput for elective surgery and accident and emergency departments?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

When you look at the data on the waiting lists, what is interesting is that 75% of patients on the list do not require surgical treatment. Most actually require diagnostics. Some 80% of patients requiring surgical treatment could be treated without an overnight stay in hospital, and 20% of patients are waiting for either ophthalmology or orthopaedic services. That shows where you can target the spending to cut the waiting lists.

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab)]

My Lords, returning to my noble friend Lady Thornton’s point about social care workers, does the Minister agree that it is unacceptable that social care workers are leaving the sector to work in hospitality, supermarkets and other sectors because they are paid more and are given bonuses to attract them? Will the Government now agree—bearing in mind the contribution that more care workers can make to easing the pressures on the NHS this winter—to pay a bonus to care workers over the winter months to show we prize their skills and dedication, as recommended by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and NHS Providers, and to relieve pressures on the NHS?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab)]

Will the Minister agree? Yes or no?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I hope that the noble Baroness will allow me as much time as her question took to answer. The Government have announced at least £500 million over three years to support the workforce and fund various initiatives. One thing that we are looking at in the Health and Care Bill is how we make sure that workers in the social care sector, whether in private or state-funded institutions, make sure that they earn enough. We have also launched a Made with Care programme, a publicity campaign to encourage people into the social care sector. It involves many existing social care workers, who talk about what a rewarding job it is and how they can make a difference in people’s lives.

[The Lord Bishop of Ely]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm the number of children waiting for treatment for speech and language and for physiotherapy and occupational therapy assessments after their initial assessment? Those treatments are vital for supporting educational development of children as we recover from the pandemic. Are those figures included in the published waiting list figures—and, if not, why not?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. Unfortunately, I do not have the statistics with me, but I shall write to him.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister tell the House whether he is encouraging the use of best practice, including new technology, between hospital trusts? There are still many examples where there is good practice out there, but it is not being spread.

On a point that we touched on last night, in relation to A&E, we have a serious problem. Paramedics are waiting for significant periods of time, which means that they are not getting out on the road to treat other patients. We really need to bring in some drastic measures to ensure that we create a new system. We cannot leave it for months and months because, if we do, the impact will mean that people’s lives will be lost. What measures does the Minister have in mind to deal with this problem?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord made a very perceptive intervention last night when asking us to think outside the box, and I gave an example of someone who I know suffers from asthma and forgot to take his blue inhaler with him to another city. His wife went to a number of places to try to get an inhaler from the pharmacy and from A&E, while telling him to stay in his hotel room. In the end, he was told that the only way to get an inhaler was to call the ambulance. We need to think outside the box and be more creative about when those situations occur—it is not necessarily political, but we need to be creative.

On technology, one of my jobs is Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences. I have been forceful, when talking to the NHS, that we have to digitise and share data. I accept that there are some concerns over sharing data, but the way to have an NHS that is fit for purpose is to make sure that we digitise and share data.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I refer to my work with dispensing doctors. Will my noble friend join me in paying tribute to all the workforce of the NHS? Does he recognise that they are absolutely exhausted? The BMA has forecast that thousands of doctors will leave the profession in the next few years. Will the Government undertake to reinstate the commitment to have 6,000 more doctors by 2024?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

In our conversations with the NHS, we are talking about the workforce plan. We are looking at ways to improve the way in which the NHS and social care plan for their workforce. We have committed to continuing to reflect very carefully on points made by noble Lords across the House. honourable Members in the House of Commons and many stakeholders. It is important that we value the workforce of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers whom people often forget about. We should also value all those other workers who have provided services to us during lockdown, such as delivery drivers, postal workers, Amazon workers et cetera. They have all played a vital role, and we should not forget the role of civil society organisations.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, we all recognise that the NHS and care staff are working under intense pressure. To attract additional members is vital. With that in mind, will the Government be more welcoming to individuals from overseas by easing further their entry conditions for those willing to come and work in the NHS and care sector, including a reasonable period of time for them to remain here?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Immigrants have always played a vital role in our country. If we cast our minds back to the post-war period, there were massive shortages in healthcare but also other public services. Indeed, my own father came over to work on the railways and buses. It shows the importance of immigration and immigrants to this country from across the world.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the fundamental problem confronting the NHS is a lack of spare capacity and resilience? This means that the NHS is continuously running at unsustainably hot levels of bed occupancy. The UK has 2.7 hospital beds per 1,000 population compared to an EU average of 5.2, and significantly fewer doctors and nurses. What plans do the Government have to urgently increase capacity and deal with workforce shortages, which cannot all come from training new people from scratch, given the timescales involved?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

If the noble Baroness looks at the statistics relating to the waiting lists, she will see that 75% of patients do not actually require surgical treatment: they require diagnostics. We have announced an investment in community diagnostic centres— sometimes in shopping centres or sports grounds—to make diagnostics more accessible to the public, rather than having to go to a healthcare setting. Moreover, 80% of patients requiring surgical treatments can be treated without an overnight stay in hospital, so they can do that as day patients. This is where we want to focus, along with making sure that we tackle all the waiting lists right across the board.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

Nine in 10 NHS chief executives, directors and chairs reported last week that the present system and organisation have become unsustainable. We can only guess at the pain and anxiety of those waiting to be treated. That is really what this is all about. My noble friend Lord Young talked about ambulances and the time wasted waiting outside hospitals. What plan do the Government have to boost the NHS workforce and ensure that there are sufficient numbers to help bring the waiting lists down?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are in conversations with the NHS about the workforce plan and the winter plan. We are looking at ways to tackle the waiting list in more creative ways. As I said, 80% of patients requiring surgical treatments can be treated without an overnight stay in hospital. If we take medical care out to the community, especially at diagnostic centres, we can cut down a lot of the waiting list, but also in terms of the Health and Social Care Bill. One of the reasons is that the NHS has been asking the Government for changes to make sure that it meets the challenges of the future.

Dementia: Fuelling the Moonshot

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for securing this important debate. On a personal note, I thank her for the time she took earlier this week to discuss some of her priorities and experiences with me. I think we all know people—family or others—who have experienced dementia, so we have seen it first-hand. As we look at our ageing society, as we get old and the medical technology gets better at keeping us living physically longer, one of the issues that we will face more and more is dementia and Alzheimer’s.

I know that all noble Lords will pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross—indeed, they have done—as a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken so well today and conveyed such emotion and facts in such a short time. I am sure all noble Lords would like to express our thanks to the APPG on Dementia and to all those who contributed to the report for all the work that they put into the inquiry.

The recommendations in the report are incredibly timely since the Government are developing our new dementia strategy. The strategy will set out plans for dementia in England for future years, including our ambitions for dementia research. We will work closely with patients, researchers, funders and charities to incorporate things from the report into the development of the strategy.

I now turn to the central recommendation within the APPG report which is for the Government to deliver the dementia moonshot. As the report sets out, the Conservative Party’s manifesto committed to doubling funding for dementia research and delivering a moonshot. The moonshot will expand the UK’s internationally leading research effort to understand the mechanisms underlying the development and progression of dementia, deliver new therapies, enable people to live better with dementia, and look at ways to help prevent the condition.

We remain committed to supporting research into dementia and UK researchers are at the forefront of global efforts. The Government spent nearly £420 million on dementia research from 2015-16 to 2019-20. This was significantly ahead of our commitment to spend £300 million in this period, as set out in the Challenge on Dementia 2020.

We know that we need to go further to accelerate progress against this condition—progress towards the moon, if you like. However, increasing research spend takes time. One of the things I hear when talking to others about increasing research is that capacity building cannot be done at the press of a button. In addition, as I am sure noble Lords appreciate, in the current Parliament, the research system has been diverted to help combat the global pandemic, with all hands on deck and everyone focused on that.

In 2019-20, the most recent year for which spending figures are available, the Government spent over £75 million on dementia and neurodegeneration research. We have committed to maintaining at least this baseline level of spending, which equates to spending £375 million over the next five years.

The £5 billion investment in health-related research and development announced in the 2021 spending review reflects the Government’s commitment to supporting research into the most pressing health challenges of our time. Clearly, dementia is way up that list. We are working across government to finalise the outcomes from the spending review and identify ways to significantly boost research on dementia to support the delivery of the moonshot. I am, and will be, speaking to colleagues across government about achieving this.

In the meantime, rather than just waiting, we have been taking positive actions so that we can prepare the ground. This includes the launch of a highlight notice on dementia within the National Institute for Health Research. This invites ambitious dementia research applications and signals to the community that dementia is a priority area for the NIHR. I am encouraged that dementia researchers are coming forward with proposals in response.

This Government are committed to supporting dementia research across the translational pathway, from basic science, to understanding the causes of disease, through to applied research on treatments, care and quality of life, as well as public health prevention. Through the UK Dementia Research Institute, scientists have made huge leaps in understanding the mechanisms underlying disease progression, and researchers have developed potential new diagnostics and treatments.

The Dementias Platform UK has established technology-based networks to better understand how dementia starts and to support experimental medicine studies. In partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, people with dementia and their carers continue to be recruited, via Join Dementia Research, to take part in a range of important research. Through our NIHR research, we are supporting high-quality studies on lifestyle prevention, service provision, care and care technology.

I will now cover the specific questions rightly raised by noble Lords. The Government are committed to delivering on dementia research as much as possible; I am sure noble Lords understand the hiatus due to the focus on Covid. As we continue to look at Covid—although not necessarily beyond it; it may be with us for some time and we may well be looking at annual boosters, for example, and managing Covid in the same way that we manage flu—it is important that we consider how we deliver the dementia moonshot. We are discussing across government a timetable for the delivery of this as well as the timetable for doubling the funding. Increasing research takes time and, as noble Lords will understand, a lot of stuff has been diverted to help combat the global pandemic. However, we will set out plans for dementia, including research, for future years.

We also recognise that Covid-19 has caused problems across the sector and many researchers, including dementia researchers, are considering leaving academic research—as noble Lords pointed out—due to the financial uncertainties created by the pandemic. I assure noble Lords that Ministers and government officials have been liaising closely with medical research charities to understand the impact of the pandemic, identify how we can work together and ensure that patients benefit from charity-funded research. Most recently, BEIS and the DHSC have announced a £20 million support package, which will support early-career researchers funded by charities, helping to protect the pipeline of talented researchers who play an important role in delivering patient-saving research.

The report contains a recommendation to maximise the success of the Join Dementia Research platform. I assure noble Lords that increasing participation in all types of research is incredibly important, as part of our life sciences vision and of global Britain. As set out in the UK vision for clinical research delivery, our ambition is to ensure that the UK has the most advanced and data-enabled clinical research environment in the world.

This plays to my portfolio and two of my priorities. One is digitisation and sharing data, and the second is ensuring, across government, that the UK is a hub for life sciences. That includes research, trials and medical studies. We will build on digital platforms like Join Dementia Research to improve our ability to recruit patients to studies and ensure that participating in research is as easy as possible.

The NHS is one of the most trusted organisations in the UK, and our priority is to ensure the highest standards of data transparency and accountability. Only today I was on a call with an individual who has been helping us make sure we have trusted research environments, so that people can be confident about their data being shared appropriately.

The APPG report recommends that we move Join Dementia Research to an opt-out model, but this would not meet the standards or patient expectations around how our data is used. However, we are building on complementary platforms such as NHS DigiTrials to support the best use of data to facilitate recruitment to clinical trials. Join Dementia Research will play a key role alongside this development to ensure that all potentially eligible participants are invited to participate in studies relevant to them.

Noble Lords mentioned the Life Sciences Vision that we published on 6 July 2021. It set out our commitment to improve translational capabilities in this research, so that new treatments reach patients faster. We are looking at ways to continue to make funding available for dementia research through UK Research and Innovation and the NIHR.

We support dementia research by funding a range of ground-breaking research. Besides the NIHR, the Medical Research Council supports dementia research across the discovery and translational pathway. Through the UK Dementia and Research Institute, significant advances are being made in understanding disease mechanisms. The Dementias Platform UK, a unique public-private partnership, has established a technology-based network. Also, the Medical Research Council funds longitudinal population cohorts, which provide opportunities for dementia researchers to exploit data-driven science—for example, through the UK Biobank, which provides by far the world’s largest programme for genotyping and brain-body imaging.

We recognise that Covid-19 has caused problems across the sector and for many medical charities, which we recognise are a vital part of this. I reassure noble Lords—even if I have said it before—that we are liaising with medical research charities to understand the challenges they face, and to help them through it.

Government responsibility for delivering dementia research is shared between my department, the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the NIHR, and BEIS, with research delivered by UK Research and Innovation. In 2019-20, the NIHR spent £29 million on dementia research, and UKRI spent £46.7 million. The charities Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK are also funders of dementia research. We are working in partnership with those two charities, and with the UK Dementia Research Institute, which is a significant part of the ecosystem.

A number of noble Lords raised the issue of early diagnosis. We support a range of issues in this important area. For example, at the UK Dementia Research Institute, scientists are trialling technologies such as cameras and sensors to detect dementia earlier. Dementias Platform UK is undertaking research on wearable devices which can monitor the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and the NIHR recently launched the £9 million programme that we talked about.

During our one-to-one conversation, and in the debate tonight, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, mentioned arts-based interventions. I know that I will be facing an OPQ on this. As I have mentioned before, as an amateur musician—let me stress “amateur”—I say that we all know the role that music plays and the way it touches our hearts as well as our minds. There is no better buzz or thrill than being a live musician, playing in front of a live audience and seeing them respond. When I say “respond”, I mean hopefully in a positive way. In fact, you see how people feed off each other, and that energy helps you connect with people. It touches hearts and minds, affects your mood and quite often helps unlock people. It is a way of people expressing themselves in a way that they would not do ordinarily.

We understand that arts-based interventions such as music therapy can play an important role, along with social prescribing, which is currently being rolled out across the NHS for local agencies. We will set out some of these plans in future years. Let me give a couple of examples of projects we are working on. The MARQUE project, jointly funded with the ESRC, is looking at care home staff and non-drug treatments for agitation in people with dementia; the WHELD programme is helping the well-being of people with dementia living in care homes; and there is the IDEAL project.

I am sorry that I have overrun in my enthusiasm for arts-based subjects. There are other issues that I wanted to touch on, including capacity building. But let me end by saying this: we need to continue to build on our success to accelerate progress in dementia research, but we cannot do this alone, especially when there are so many experts among noble Lords and across government, but outside government as well. By working across government, co-operating with charities and the research community, and recruiting people with dementia, we hope to bring forward ambitious plans in our new dementia strategy.

House adjourned at 8.02 pm.

Covid-19

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made earlier in another place. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, I will start by saying a few words about the incident that took place at Liverpool Women’s Hospital yesterday. This is an ongoing investigation into what has now been declared a terrorist incident by police so it would not be appropriate for me to comment in any detail, but I express my thanks to all the NHS staff and emergency services who responded to the incident. They showed the utmost professionalism in the most difficult of circumstances and my thoughts—and, I know, the thoughts of the whole House—are with them and anyone who has been affected.

With permission, I shall make a statement on the Covid-19 pandemic and the life-saving work of our vaccination programme. A year ago today, we were in the midst of our second national lockdown, a time when we endured major restrictions on our life and liberty and when we observed a period of remembrance where we could not come together and pay our respects in person in the way that we would all have wanted to. Our country has come very far since then. We have put over 109 million vaccine doses in people’s arms through our world-leading vaccine programme, which means that we can approach this winter with the best possible chance of living with the virus. The data clearly demonstrates that vaccines work. This month’s figures from the ONS show that, between January and September, the risk of death involving Covid-19 was 32 times greater in unvaccinated people than in those who are fully vaccinated.

However, although we have built up that huge protection, this is not a time for complacency. Earlier this month the WHO’s Europe director said that Europe was

“back at the epicentre of the pandemic”.

Just this weekend, the Netherlands and Austria have put in place partial lockdowns after surges in cases.

We also still face the risk of new variants just as we have seen with the emergence of AY.4.2, the so-called delta-plus variant. The latest data shows that it now accounts for around 15% of cases in the UK. Although delta-plus may be more infectious than the original delta variant, our investigations indicate that our vaccines remain effective against it. Still, we know that there will be more variants in future, and we do not want to go backwards after all the progress we have made. So we must stay focused on the threat in front of us and seize every opportunity to bolster our vital defences as the winter moves in.

That includes our vaccination programme, which is our primary form of defence. Last week, I announced to the House that health and social care providers in England must make sure that all workers other than those who are medically exempt, are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 so that vulnerable patients have the greatest possible protection against infection. Today, I shall update the House on more measures that we are taking to keep ourselves on the front foot.

First, we are expanding our booster programme, which is essential so that we can keep upgrading our protection in this country. Our vaccination programme has given us a strong protective wall, but we need to use every opportunity to shore up our defences. Evidence published this month shows how protection against symptomatic disease, hospitalisation and death from Covid-19 gradually wanes as time passes, and this is more likely if you are older or clinically at risk. Even a small drop in immunity can mean a big impact on the NHS; if protection drops from 95% to 90% against hospitalisation in those who are double-vaccinated, that would mean a doubling of hospital admissions in that group of people, so topping up our immunity through booster doses is essential to our security for the long term.

Today, the UKHSA has published the first data on booster vaccine effectiveness in the UK. It shows that people who take up the offer of a booster vaccine increase their protection against symptomatic Covid-19 infection to over 90%, and protection against more severe disease is expected to be even higher. So we are intensifying the booster programme ahead of the winter. Over 12 million people have now had their top-up jab, and over 2 million were given it last week. We have also made changes to the national booking service so that people can prebook their top-up doses a month before they become eligible. Last Monday, we saw almost 800,000 bookings in a single day in England, which is a new record.

Secondly, we are taking another step forward. The JCVI has recommended offering all adults aged 40 to 49 a booster dose six months after their second dose, using either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. I have accepted that advice, and 40 to 49 year-olds will be able to get their top-up jab from next Monday if they are eligible. The JCVI has also said that, in due course, it will be considering whether boosters are needed for all 18 to 39 year-olds, along with whether additional booster doses are required for the most vulnerable over the long term. I look forward to receiving that advice in due course.

Just as we extend protection through booster doses, we are also ramping up our efforts to protect younger people. Our programme for 12 to 15 year-olds is progressing at pace. Yesterday, we hit the milestone of 1 million 12 to 15 year-olds being vaccinated in England. We are also offering a vaccine to 16 and 17 year-olds. I would like to update the House on some further steps that we are taking.

In August, we decided, in line with JCVI advice, that all 16 and 17 year-olds could be offered a first dose of a Pfizer vaccine. That was apart from a small number of those in at-risk groups who were offered two doses. Now, the JCVI has advised that all 16 and 17 year-olds should also be offered a second dose, and that it is even more confident about the safety and benefit of doses in 16 and 17 year-olds. As Dr June Raine, the chief executive of the MHRA, said this morning: “As the data have accrued, we’ve become more and more reassured that the safety picture in young people and teenagers is just the same as what we’ve seen in the older population.”

The JCVI advises that, unless the patient is in an at-risk group, the second dose should take place 12 weeks after the initial dose, rather than eight weeks. I have accepted that advice. The NHS will be putting it into action. Once again, these jabs will start going into arms from next Monday. This will extend the protection of a vaccine to even more people and strengthen our national defences even further.

Our vaccination programme has paved our path out of this pandemic and given us hope of a winter that is brighter than the last. Today, we are going even further, extending our booster programme and offering great protection to younger people, so that we can fortify the defences that we have built together and help our nation to stay one step ahead of the virus. I commend this Statement to the House.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. At this afternoon’s No. 10 press conference, Professor Chris Whitty made it very clear that doctors and scientists are increasingly concerned about the average of 37,500 cases over the last week and the high number of Covid cases in hospitals. Professor Whitty said that it would be a tough winter and added that, in addition to the nearly 9,000 Covid patients in hospital, all other areas of the NHS are under growing and intense pressure. He recommended that, in addition to getting their vaccinations, everyone should use face masks and ventilation to help reduce the number of cases.

This morning, Oliver Dowden, who was just referred to, said “It is in our hands” whether further restrictions in plan B are put in place this winter, but clearly the Government’s current communications on just encouraging using face masks and ventilation indoors and on transport are simply not cutting through. It certainly was not on my Tube journey in today, where distressingly few people were wearing a mask. Even if the Government do not want to implement the whole of their plan B, why will they not at least mandate face masks and improving ventilation on public transport and indoors when so many people across the spectrum are crying out for this to happen?

Leaving it to individual choice and personal responsibility is far too weak and inconsistent a message. It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister does not want to implement plan B, but is the reality not that he is far more likely to have to do so—or, indeed, move straight to plan C, a total lockdown—if mask-wearing is not made mandatory immediately? Does the Minister agree with me, and the point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that all parliamentarians and most particularly Ministers have a duty to set a clear example of mask wearing inside and on public transport?

Professor Whitty highlighted the stark figure that 98% of pregnant women admitted to hospital had not been vaccinated, and that same ratio applied to those in intensive care. What specific steps are the Government and the NHS taking to talk directly to pregnant women to encourage them to have their vaccinations?

It was worrying this afternoon when the Prime Minister said that he “hoped” that booster and third jabs could be logged on the online system “soon”. We have been asking questions about this system for weeks now. Can the Minister look into Pinnacle, one of the systems that logs people’s Covid status, to find out why practitioners are not yet able to record a third jab for the clinically extremely vulnerable, as well as a separate listing for booster jabs for everyone else over 40? As the Prime Minister said this afternoon, evidence of booster jabs will be required for travel this Christmas, but because third vaccinations and booster doses are still not appearing separately on the NHS Covid app, there is a great deal of anxiety and frustration among people who will need not only to have had the jabs but to be able to provide the evidence. Can the Minister say—I underline the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton—when all third doses and boosters will be on the online system?

Finally, although I welcome the announcement that it is safe for 16 and 17 year-olds to receive a second dose, can the Minister explain where 16 and 17 year-olds will be able to get that second dose? Too often, young people wishing to have their initial jab were put off because they had to travel to a centre some way away, often by bus, train or car, often involving parents providing the transport. Will the Minister undertake to look into ensuring that there are centres in town centres and other easily accessible places so that young people can more easily access their second dose?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baronesses for those sets of questions; I will answer them as best I can. I will work backwards, starting with where people can get their vaccines: the same places where the rest of the population can get their vaccines. Only last week, I booked my booster and was reassured to find that, rather than having to go even to my local doctor—which I was quite happy to do—there were two or three pharmacies, or chemist shops, near me that were giving the booster. One of my sons has booked his vaccine and that will be at the same pharmacy. So, clearly, we are rolling out the vaccines to more accessible places than initially; I do know someone considered clinically vulnerable who had to go quite far before, but we are now bringing the vaccines as close to people as possible.

I will try to answer some of the other questions. We are focused on building a wall of defence across the country. More than 261,500 hospitalisations have been prevented in those aged 45 and older, up to September 2021. Estimates suggest that 127,000 deaths and 24 million infections have been prevented as a result of the Covid-19 vaccination programme. This is why we are keen to stress that vaccination remains the best defence against this virus.

We are also working hard to make sure that as many people as possible have their jab as soon as they can. While we are very encouraged by the booster uptake and the record numbers, only today I have been in meetings where we have been talking about how to reach those hard-to-reach communities. I know that we have spoken about this before in this House. I have, very kindly, been offered advice from noble Lords across the House and I have been working with some noble Lords in relation to their experience as community organisers or working with certain communities where the demographics have shown a lower uptake. We are rolling out the programme, and there will be a publicity programme rolling out as well. As we get more data, the JCVI and others are even more reassured by the safety of the vaccines and want to stress that as much as possible.

As I said, we are rolling out the booster programme. Nearly 10.6 million people have now received their third dose, and we are looking to vaccinate children as quickly as possible. We are working closely with schools, colleges et cetera to make sure that we get as close to people as possible.

I had hoped to be able to give a date for the booster appearing on the app. A number of noble Lords raised this with me both formally and informally, and I got straight on to NHSX to try to get an answer. I had hoped to be able to announce a date today, but I am still not able to do that. I am told, however, that good news will be available soon, and I hope it will be announced as quickly as possible. I think there are a few more checks to go through; those who have been in government before will understand how this works.

On the issue of NHS capacity, as of 12 November the number of beds occupied by Covid-19 patients had decreased by about 4% across England in the last week. Regionally, there was a drop of 4% in the east of England; a 2% increase in London; a 5% drop in the Midlands; an 8% drop in the north-east and Yorkshire; a 5% drop in the north-west; no real change in the south-east; and a drop of 8% in the south-west. Hospital admissions have decreased by 10% across England last in the week. There was a drop of 16% in the east of England; an increase of 1% in London; a drop of 11% in the Midlands; a drop of 15% in the north-east and Yorkshire; a drop of 11% in the north-west; a reduction of 8% in the south-east; and a drop of 10% in the south-west. Rates of admission to hospital with Covid-19 therefore appear to be decreasing. Hospital admissions in England were at 821 people per day as of 10 November. There were 6,777 patients in hospital in England as of 12 November, including 838 patients in mechanical ventilation beds.

In line with the approach that we have taken, we are constantly relying on data from the JCVI and its judgment, and this is constantly being reviewed in terms of rollout to different age groups. We are very fortunate to have secured a steady supply and delivery of Covid-19 vaccines. Many will also be aware of the other method by which the dose can be taken.

On making sure that we are focusing on elective care recovery, we have given £2 billion to help tackle the backlog that built up during the pandemic and have committed £8 billion over the next eight years. We hope that that funding will deliver the equivalent of 9 million more checks, scans and procedures to tackle the backlog, and we hope to have 30% more elective activity by 2024-25.

Turning to care homes, one of the campaigns being launched is the “made with care” campaign, which is advertising the fulfilling careers that can be had as social carers. It is very much focused on people who want to make a difference to other people’s lives. There is £550 million, including £162.5 million on the “made with care” campaign, and noble Lords will see that campaign rolling out.

Fortunately, 90% of staff in in older-adult care homes have received both doses, and 94% of such staff have had at least one dose. The data we are getting shows that, where care home owners are able to sit down with the workers who may have some doubts, there is an increase in uptake. Also, on a temporary basis until 24 December, people who have a medical reason why they are unable to have a Covid-19 vaccine can self-certify that they are exempt on medical grounds until that can be proven one way or another.

I am trying to make sure that I am answering all of your Lordships’ questions. If there are some that I have missed, let me assure noble Lords that I have not done so deliberately, and I will write to them to fill that information gap.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope the House will forgive me if I emphasise an issue that has already been raised by both Front-Bench speakers: when this booster jab, which I am very glad the Minister has had, as have I, is going to be recorded. As I hope the House knows, it will prevent people, many people in this House, travelling to various countries—I mention France and Israel as only two of them—unless we can prove that we have had it. Although I am very pleased to know from the Minister that he has had the booster jab, and of course I believe him, I would like to know in what way he can prove it to me by showing it to me on his phone.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I apologise if I have misled the House: I have booked my booster jab but I have not had it yet. I was able to book it in advance but I cannot have it until—perhaps I should not make this public, but they have given it to me one day before the six months is up. This will be all over the front pages tomorrow, it will be a huge scandal and noble Lords will be calling for my head. I understand that.

On the serious point, I share the frustration of all noble Lords who have brought this issue up. I was hoping to be able to announce a date today, but it was scratched at the last minute. I think there was some technical reason, but we hope to have good news soon. I know that will be as frustrating to many noble Lords as it is to me. Believe me, I would rather have good news than to be seen to be avoiding answering the question.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I shall follow up on the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, in relation to pregnant women in particular. There were maternal deaths early on. It would be most helpful if we could have the data on the number of such women, the pattern of vaccination and the pattern of maternal deaths from Covid and severe infection. Women are still worried and hesitant because there was a failure to vaccinate early on, because the data on safety was not there. Having data on the drop in the number of deaths will help to persuade women of childbearing age to pursue being vaccinated, whether they are already pregnant or not.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point and I apologise for not spotting it and answering it earlier. Many noble Lords will be aware of the very sad story of a young lady who died because she felt that the vaccine was not safe; her mother is encouraging other pregnant women to have the vaccine. For that reason, we want clearly to communicate that the vaccine is safe and will not affect fertility, so getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself. Pregnant women are more likely to get seriously ill from Covid-19, and we know that vaccines are safe for them and make a huge difference. In fact, no pregnant woman who has had two jabs has needed hospitalisation with Covid-19. We need to make that clearer, and I will take this back to the department and the Government to make sure that we communicate more clearly. We all share the same will to share that message more widely.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

On the NHS app, it is not simply the inconvenience to those travelling but the waste of time of NHS practitioners who are being asked to provide letters to people who are travelling. It is vital that the Minister uses his best endeavours to make sure this problem is resolved very speedily. My understanding is that those of us who travel with children under the age of 16 who have had one jab have no means through the NHS app of proving that they have had the vaccine. Is that right? If so, can the Minister do something about it?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord’s first point repeats what other noble Lords have said, but for a good reason. I hope that our mentioning this more than once this evening stresses to the NHS and NHSX that it must be sorted out as soon as possible. As I said, I had hoped to have a date to announce this evening, and I am as frustrated as everyone else. We all want to travel and, importantly, there are countries that require proof of the booster.

In terms of children travelling, a solution has been developed to allow fully vaccinated children aged 12 and over to demonstrate their vaccination status. Up to now, some countries have required no proof from children aged 12 and over, but I am being told that a solution is being developed. I will try to push for that date as well, but I definitely want to get a date for when the booster will appear on the NHS app. All I can do is apologise that we have not done this yet.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, as we are clearly going to have to live with this vaccine for several years to come, could we have quite soon a programme for annual jabs worked out? It is clear that that is going to be necessary, and we ought to advance-plan. On the subject of masks: where one is in close proximity with others, they really should be obligatory. I came up on the train this morning, and at least half the people in the carriage were not wearing them. I am on my own on these Benches tonight, but I always wear one when others are around me, and I think that it is very important indeed that we take this elementary step so that it is compulsory on public transport, in shops and other places where people are in close proximity.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

On future vaccinations, my noble friend raises an important point, and many will have seen in the media and elsewhere all the discussion about living with this vaccine. At the moment, we have boosters at six months; as the technology and the understanding get better, it seems likely that we will move to annual vaccinations, as we do flu jabs. I cannot say that for definite, but the trend is going that way, given the development of the virus, the variants and the waning immunity over time. The effectiveness of each vaccine at the moment is six months, but one can see the longer term. However, please do not take that as a given—if that is incorrect, I will update the House.

On public transport: I went to a funeral today, and as I was travelling back on the underground, it said, quite clearly, that you must wear a mask, so that is being encouraged. It is part of plan B if we have to move to plan B, but all that data is being analysed and constantly updated with different factors. There is no one trigger for moving to plan B. In previous appearances at the Dispatch Box, I have read out the list of all the factors that are considered. At the moment, the main message is: the vaccine works. We want to encourage people to get the vaccine and especially try to reach those communities that have not even had their first or second vaccine yet.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the GMC and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. Can I ask the Minister about the impact on the NHS generally and the pressure it is under? He will be aware that the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges issued a statement a few weeks ago on its concern about the abuse of NHS staff. What are the Government doing to ensure that NHS staff are able to go about their work without the horrific abuse that many have had to endure?

Secondly, I refer the Minister to the report of the Royal College of Physicians, a census that shows that 48% of advertised consultant posts across the UK were unfilled last year? Does this not show that Covid has exposed the frailties in the NHS? Unless the Government grip this workforce issue quickly, the pressures on the service are going to get worse and worse. What are the Government doing?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a really important point on staff, doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in our health system. The Government have a zero-tolerance approach to abuse and harassment; we are investing in better security at GP surgeries and are committed to working with the NHS to make sure our primary care workers feel properly supported. We are also constantly having conversations with trusts and the NHS generally about making sure that staff feel safe to work and how we can make sure that that happens. Anyone who has visited a hospital recently will have seen the signs about zero tolerance.

We are constantly talking to NHS England about workforce pressures. We are looking at specific campaigns—for example, we have announced social care recruitment—and other campaigns to attract more workers to the NHS.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, on the Minister’s comment about masks on public transport, my understanding is that that is only in London and is not the case in the rest of England. I draw to your Lordships’ attention my experience in Edinburgh Waverley station yesterday evening. Scotland of course does have a mask mandate, and it was very clearly announced at extremely regular intervals. Additionally, it came with a message that said, “That means that you are not allowed to eat anything in the station”, which I have never heard in England.

The Statement says that

“we must stay focused on the threat that is in front of us and seize every opportunity to bolster our vital defences”.

As most of the Front-Bench questions pointed out, this Statement entirely focuses on vaccines. We have been very aware of the issue of aerosol transmission for a very long time now. The last figures that I have been able to find—from a week ago—show that fewer than the promised 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors for schools have actually been delivered. They were promised by the end of the autumn term. Of course, all those CO monitors do is identify the problem—the lack of air circulation. They do not actually deal with it. Will that target be met, and will schools get their carbon dioxide monitors? More than that, are the Government providing adequate support for schools and indeed other organisations that identify a problem with ventilation?

I notice that the UK Health Security Agency is funding a trial of air purifiers of different sorts in 30 Bradford primary schools. This is two years after the pandemic started, and we have known for a long time about aerosol transmission and the problem of unventilated rooms. Not all school rooms or rooms in general—including in your Lordships’ House—can be ventilated. Are the Government really paying the attention that they should be to dealing with aerosol transmission, ventilation and air purification?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

A lot of investment has gone into making sure that there is ventilation in schools. I will talk to my counterpart in the Department for Education to see what more can be done, but I know that the department is very aware of this issue and is looking more into it.

On the noble Baroness’s first question, we want to be clear and not confuse the message: vaccinations work and are our best line of defence. We do not want people to get a false hope that there are other ways to protect themselves. Not all people who do not take the vaccine are anti-vaxxers: some of them think that just wearing a mask may well protect them.

We want to focus on this message: get vaccinated; if you have been, get your booster; and if you have had your first vaccine, get your second one. There is nothing to fear from getting vaccinated. We are not only sending that message out but actively looking at different campaigns to reach those difficult-to-reach individuals in many communities.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, on the importance of vaccination, what are the Government doing to combat the anti-vax message? My second point is on the terrible situation in hospitals, where paramedics are forced to stay and wait with patients. There must be something that we can do to alleviate that situation until there is a long-term solution. Have we identified best practice? The Government ought to be thinking outside the box about what we can do to stop paramedics being trapped in hospital, denying them the ability to deal with other urgent cases.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sorry, but my memory has gone. What was the noble Lord’s first question?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

It was on anti-vaxxers.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The issue of anti-vaxxers is very difficult in a society where we believe in freedom of speech. Clearly, if they are impeding people from attending school, going to certain places or getting vaccinated, that is obstruction. However, if they are saying that they do not believe that the vaccines are safe or whatever, it is really difficult and we have to get that balance right. We are clear that we want people to be vaccinated but, at the same time, we believe in freedom of speech. Quite often, if you really believe in freedom of speech, you have to allow people to say things that you disagree with, I am afraid. However, where they are actively blocking people from getting vaccinated, I think we have work to do.

As for thinking outside the box, we are looking at a number of different areas. For example, the other day I heard a case of someone who had forgotten his asthma inhaler. His partner told him, “Stay here, I’ll get you another one from the all-night chemist”. The all-night pharmacist said, “I can’t administer that”. She then went to A&E with her partner’s details. A&E said, “No, he has to come in here”. In the end, when she went back to the hotel, the hotel said, “We’ll have to call the ambulance”. All that could have been avoided had there been a way for the person who had forgotten his inhaler simply to get another one, rather than having to call in paramedics. Therefore, there are a number of different ways that we can think outside the box to make sure that we do not put undue pressure on the NHS at this time.

Clinical Negligence Claims

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increase in the value of clinical negligence claims, which are expected to cost £8.3 billion from incidents in 2019-20.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

The costs of clinical negligence are rising at an unsustainable rate, eating into resources for patient care. Annual cash payments have quadrupled in the last 15 years to £2.2 billion in 2020-21. That is equivalent to 1.5% of the NHS budget and these costs are forecast to continue rising. This is despite our substantial safety programmes. The Department of Health and Social Care is working intensively across government to address these issues.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I have raised this issue every year and have heard a similar response from the Minister sitting there every year. When a child is born severely disabled, the parents have to fight to get compensation or money to be able to look after that child. That can often take years. Does the Minister agree with the former Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, that we should look at the Swedish model in which, if a child is born severely handicapped, the money is made available straightaway and the parents do not have to wait for the courts to provide support?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government have looked at a number of different schemes from abroad. It is always very important to learn from good and bad practice, but what happens in a number of those cases is that the costs of compensation end up increasing. So We are looking at various solutions.

[Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links (Con)]

My Lords, the new indemnity scheme for historical clinical negligence that was brought into effect last year, the Existing Liabilities Scheme for General Practice, initially applied only to general practice members of the Medical & Dental Defence Union of Scotland, with general practice members of the Medical Protection Society due to come under its purview a full year later, in April just past. So I ask the Minister to update the House of any formal or informal assessments of the workings of this scheme in Scotland, the level of uptake and lessons learned, before it was further rolled out.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Before I respond, I wish to give a belated welcome to my noble friend Lady Davidson. I have worked with her often in the past, and she displays a wisdom beyond her years and a sense of humour that excels that of many on our Benches. To answer my noble friend, the Existing Liabilities Scheme for General Practice covers the historical liabilities of GPs, where the department has agreed commercial transactions with the previous indemnity providers. The scheme applies only to general practice in England and is part of the state indemnity reforms introduced in England in 2019. These 2019 reforms mean that GPs in England now benefit from more stable and affordable indemnity to cover future negligence claims. I understand that similar arrangements were introduced in Wales at the time. I am afraid that the policy on state indemnity is a devolved matter, but officials in the department are in regular contact with their counter- parts in the devolved Administrations.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, some 10 years ago the NHS Litigation Authority concluded in its maternity claims report that

“the most effective way to reduce the financial and human cost of maternity claims is to continue to improve the management of risks associated with maternity care, focusing on preventing incidents involving the management of women in labour”.

Yet, in the intervening 10 years, the number of claims has gone up from 391 in 2009 to 765 in 2019-20. Is it not about time that we put patient safety first in these considerations rather than looking at what happens to lawyers, and take some lessons from the airline industry where, if something goes wrong, we start by looking at no-fault and do not allocate blame but look at improving the system?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point. However, in looking at the system overall, there is no evidence to suggest that the rise in overall costs is due to a decrease in NHS safety. Nevertheless, safety and learning from incidents are essential in their own terms. Our ambition is for the NHS to be the safest in the world and for maternity safety to be a priority, and there are various schemes in place.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me why the Government do not move to repeal Section 2(4) of the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948, which essentially disregards treatment that the claimant may receive under the NHS? Can he also do something about the record of NHS Resolution in paying damages in 80% of litigated cases, with its lawyers being paid on a win-or-lose basis and therefore incentivised to carry on with unsustainable defences?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point about how we resolve a number of these issues. As many noble Lords will be aware, when the NHS does a wonderful job, we all support it but, sadly, when it does not do such a good job, there is a culture of delay, defend and deny. Sometimes it is incredibly difficult, and I have heard of people who have had terrible experiences in trying to get someone to resolve their issue. I heard of a very sad case: a young official in the department told me that a friend of hers, a young Afro-Caribbean lady, 24 years old, lost a baby and, miraculously, the papers have disappeared. They are now trying to gaslight this poor patient. It is really important that we resolve this.

In terms of the cost, NHS Resolution negotiates large-scale contracts for defendant legal services, using its position as a bulk purchaser to obtain the best expertise. NHS Resolution is looking to resolve claims promptly and most claims are often settled without court proceedings or going to trial. It is a difficult balance because while we may be concerned about the fees of the injury lawyers, they are able to shine a spotlight on the NHS delay and denial, as it were, and go further when many patients themselves or their families are in distress.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the element of compensation in clinical negligence cases which relates to the cost of further health treatment is based on the cost of care in the private sector. Why is this so when NHS treatment is as good or better? Should not private health costs be provided only where the patient cannot get treatment on the NHS?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Quite often patients choose to go on the NHS and when they are unable to do so because of various factors they will go private. I wonder whether we should be giving preference. We want to treat all patients equally.

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, given that the key to reducing the overall cost of clinical negligence is to have less of it, the real issue is the need to increase joined-up patient safety learning across the NHS. Does my noble friend the Minister accept that the cost of current legislation—that is, damages and claimant legal costs—is reducing in any event, as detailed in the NHS Resolution annual reports of 2020 and 2021, and that the overall payment for claims in 2019-20 was therefore £2.2 billion?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend raises an important point. The Government remain committed to continuous safety improvement, particularly on developing learning cultures in our health system and tackling the issues of denial and delay. While we strive towards this goal, we have seen that the cost of clinical negligence claims has quadrupled in the last 15 years, and there is no guarantee that reducing harm would necessarily result in fewer claims. In many cases, the overall costs are being driven by increases in the average cost per claim. Indeed, claims have recently levelled out, falling from £2.26 billion to £2.17 billion but this is largely due, in least in part, to the coronavirus pandemic.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, the annual cost of clinical negligence has risen from £1 million in 1975 to £2.2 billion last year, as we have just heard. The Medical Defence Union’s evidence to the Health and Social Care committee’s inquiry into NHS litigation reform predicted that any money raised by the new health and social care levy would be entirely swallowed up by the amounts being paid out each year in NHS clinical negligence claims. What assessment have the Government made of this claim, how does it impact their plans to reduce the huge NHS waiting lists for treatments, and what money will be left for social care?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point that spending more on compensation means less money for the care of patients. That is why we are committed to looking at various ways of reducing this and are working with the Ministry of Justice. Issues include the role the royal colleges play and the training they give to their medical staff, while needing to instil a culture of more openness when things go wrong. When things go right, we are ready to praise but when things go wrong, they have to stop hiding, delaying and denying, and be open.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Walney. He is not present. I call—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Walney (CB)]

Thank you. I accept entirely what the Minister says about learning from experience but was this not supposed to have been baked into the NHS after numerous reports in recent years? Does he accept that we need to look again at the way in which the NHS trusts are often slow in learning from their mistakes, rather than allowing this culture to continue?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I completely agree with the sentiments behind the question. It is important that at all stages we bake in a culture of openness in the NHS so it can no longer hide behind the fact that we are full of praise for it when it does things well. However, when things go wrong, I am afraid that it shuts up shop and hides behind various techniques. It is important that we are as open as possible in trying to make sure we tackle some of the problems and learn in the future.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I also thank the Minister for repeating this Statement. Covid-19 Statements are now taking on the role of London buses—large gaps for a while and then suddenly two in one week on vaccines. It feels as though arguments were going on behind the scenes for such a quick second vaccine Statement to be repeated in less than two or three working days.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, my honourable friend Daisy Cooper MP asked yesterday about the publication of the long-awaited impact statement —Making Vaccination a Condition of Deployment in Health and the Wider Social Care Sector—that this Statement refers to. It would have been helpful for MPs to have had sight of it at the same time as the Statement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, frankly we needed to see it a long time ago, given that the social care deadline starts tomorrow. It was finally published overnight, and I have some questions on it for the Minister.

The Statement announces that all NHS and social care staff will have to have to be fully vaccinated by 1 April 2022. The deadline for care home staff remains tomorrow. The predicted numbers on page 4 of the impact statement are pretty staggering—up to 126,000 staff, of whom 73,000 are expected to be NHS staff. Page 6 of the impact statement also says that the modelling cost of replacing unvaccinated workers is between £162 million and £379 million. That is also staggering, given the financial pressures and backlog of cases across a health and social care sector that at the moment is still struggling with the pandemic.

From these Benches we really want to see staff vaccinated but would prefer that it is voluntary and remain concerned about the consequences of tomorrow’s care homes deadline. Page 6 of the impact statement published overnight talks about the disruption to health and care services. But for social care that disruption has already started. Many care home staff have already left or this week are being fired, with a good number moving to the NHS and to retail and hospitality roles.

Large homes are reporting closing down wings of beds due to lack of staff and some smaller homes are handing back state-funded patients to local authorities. Both the Statement and the impact statement are silent on how patients will be looked after before we even get to the consequences of social care homes without beds.

So can I ask the Minister what emergency plans there are to help areas? By the way, answers that say “It’s down to local authorities” are not helpful. This is a crisis created, at least in part, by mandatory vaccines, and there are no staff or beds that can just magically appear. Or is what Sajid Javid said at the Conservative Party conference the reality: namely, that families will be expected to step up to the plate to look after their loved ones in the absence of care home beds? If so, it would be good to see Ministers’ planning for that and the consequent problems for the workforce.

The Statement says that other parts of the social care system—for example, domiciliary care—that were excluded from the original care decision will now be included, but neither the Statement nor the impact statement is clear about the deadline for those in the social care system now being drawn into mandatory vaccination. Can the Minister say what the deadline is for these new groupings? It surely cannot be that the deadline for domiciliary workers is this week. Is this just for full-time staff employed by the care sector, or will others offering regular services such as activities in care homes or subcontractors working in hospitals now be included? There are staff working as sub- contractors for the NHS who have front-line access to patients; for example, delivering meals. Are they included or excluded?

The table on page 4 of the impact statement lists the total number of staff in each sector exempt from vaccination. I cannot find anywhere the criteria for exemption. Can the Minister please tell the House what those criteria are?

I have now asked the Minister at least twice in the past fortnight about the online vaccination form which sits behind the GP records and the app. How many of those who were vaccinated overseas and those who took part in clinical trials are now on the records system? Has it increased from the 53 people that he talked about last week, and are the arrangements for logging third doses for the severely clinically extremely vulnerable, as distinct from the booster doses for everyone over 50 and health staff, now sorted out? I am still getting reports that they are not.

Finally, there has been considerable concern that the Prime Minister was not wearing a face mask at Hexham hospital yesterday, against all NHS advice. This morning, Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19, said on Sky News:

“I’m not sitting on the fence on this one … Where you’ve got large amounts of virus being transmitted, everybody should do everything to avoid … getting the virus or inadvertently passing it on. We know that wearing a face mask reduces the risk. We know that maintaining physical distance reduces the risk. We know that hygiene by regular hand washing and coughing into your elbow reduces the risk. We should do it all, and we should not rely on any one intervention like vaccination on its own. So … please, would every leader be wearing face masks, particularly when in indoor settings? … This virus is unforgiving, and we need to do everything possible to prevent it getting in between us and infecting us.”


Can the Minister explain why the Prime Minister was not wearing a face mask, in breach of Hexham hospital’s rules, and will he pass on those words from Dr Nabarro to No. 10 Downing Street?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

I thank both noble Baronesses for their questions and the important points they made. It is important that we are clear about many of the issues that they have brought up.

Let us be clear that the best mitigation against this is to encourage those who are vaccine hesitant to take up the offer of vaccination. In both health and social care, we have worked extensively with key stakeholders and arm’s-length bodies to encourage vaccine take-up. This has involved a number of different measures: bespoke communications materials, paid advertising, stakeholder toolkits, positive messaging using influencers and leaders, content in different languages, briefings with different faith groups, webinars with clinical experts, vaccine champions and practical support including vaccination at places of work, flexible access to vaccine hubs, digital booking support and monitoring and support from NHS England. We will continue to encourage uptake in the run-up to the requirements coming into force.

The NHS has also focused in recent months on a targeted approach to improve uptake in hesitant groups by undertaking specific, targeted campaigns directed towards, for example, midwifery staff, ethnic minority groups in certain areas that have been hesitant and students, as well as using the booster campaign as an opportunity to re-engage staff. I thank noble Lords across the House for the advice that they have given me on how we can address hesitancy in some communities and for their very useful suggestions. I have discussed this with a number of other people, and we are looking at potential pilot projects, one working, for example, with faith communities in inner-city areas and mapping the data from Public Health England and the relevant offices.

It is interesting to see how many absences are due now to the unvaccinated. The seven-day average to 6 October 2021 shows an average of 74,863—nearly 75,000—absences in NHS trusts per day, of which more than 15,500 were for Covid-19-related reasons, including the need to isolate. This benefit would be reduced if we relied only on testing, although that remains part of our armoury.

I was asked a number of questions about scope and who this extends to. It applies to all providers, both public and private, of a CQC-regulated activity. This obviously covers a wide range of services, including hospitals, GP and dental practices, and social care providers. Further support on implementation for the sector will be provided through continuous guidance. The policy does not apply to those services and activities which are not regulated by the CQC. Children’s and social care services which are CQC regulated will be in scope of the requirement, but it will not apply to services that are provided as part of shared-living arrangements. Many of these reasons are of course as a result of the extensive consultation that has been undertaken.

I was asked for the number of uptakes. The vaccination uptake figures for NHS staff show that nearly 93% have had at least one dose. Uptakes still vary, from 84% to 97% for the first dose, among NHS trusts. Among primary care workers, this ranges from 94% in the south-west to 76% in the east of England—so we would welcome the advice of any noble Lords who have experience of the east of England. In adult social care, nearly 84% of domiciliary care staff have received one dose of the vaccine, and nearly 75% have had a full course of a Covid-19 vaccine, as of 14 October, which we believe represents the best proxy for the workforce in scope of the policy in other settings, too. So, despite our best efforts, there is still much more that we can do. I personally feel very uncomfortable about compulsion, but I also understand the arguments on both sides when I meet many patient groups and others who tell me that, if they were in hospital or a care home or had relatives there, they would feel much better if the staff were vaccinated and were protected.

What more can we do? The Covid-19 vaccines have been approved by the MHRA as safe and effective, and we continue to send that message out. Analysis suggests that the Covid-19 vaccination programme prevented more than 100,000 deaths in England as of 20 August. We continue to have targeted engagement. The NHS plan also includes one-to-one conversations for all unvaccinated NHS staff with their line manager, with clear guidance on how to do this. We have found that such one-to-one conversations are working in some cases. We want to make sure that we listen as well, hearing concerns that are seen to be legitimate as well as concerns that are not medical reasons but other reasons that staff may have for being so hesitant. It is really important that we understand, and that was all part of the extensive consultation.

We are trying to increase the number and diversity of opportunities. We are using the booster campaign, walk-ins and pop-ups for not only the public but staff as well.

A question was asked about pregnant women. Short-term exemptions from requirements are available to those with short-term medical conditions, but also including pregnancy. For pregnant women, the exemption expires 16 weeks after childbirth. This will allow them to become fully vaccinated after the birth. We will set out these arrangements, as has been called for by noble Lords, in the guidance on exemptions.

As noble Lords acknowledged, we set out yesterday an assessment of the impacts alongside the laying of the regulations. We also published a full impact assessment yesterday for the original care home regulations, and I thank the noble Baroness for acknowledging that. As committed to by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other House yesterday, we will publish a full impact assessment for the regulations as soon as possible, and before Members vote on the proposed legislation. I recognise that Peers will be keen to understand the impacts of the policy as soon as possible and as part of consideration of the regulations. However, I hope that noble Lords will appreciate the necessity of trying to move as quickly as possible to ensure that patients are protected and that workers are given as much notice as possible. We will set out the statement of impact, which noble Lords will be able to consider, and it will be published before Members cast a vote.

We have done a number of things on vaccine hesitancy, and I have laid them out already. We want to encourage as many people as possible to take up the vaccine ahead of the regulations, which is one reason why we have the grace period until 1 April next year. The individual worker maintains a choice as to whether they decide to have the vaccine. Even if they choose not to have the vaccine, the registered person may redeploy them to a non-patient-facing role. When that is not possible, the worker cannot be employed or otherwise engaged by the registered person. This is incredibly important when it comes to patient-facing staff, especially for the families of those patients who are deeply concerned that their loved ones may be infected by unvaccinated staff.

I was asked how the measure will be enforced. On the approach to vaccination requirements, it is the CQC’s role to monitor and take enforcement action. At the time of registration and when inspected, health and care providers would need to demonstrate that they have effective systems in place. There are a number of measures in place to support care home workers. The majority of care home staff are now fully vaccinated, but there are a number of different programmes. Given the time, I shall not go into them but, if noble Baronesses would like more details on those encouragement programmes, I should be happy to write.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving me notice of his question just before we came in. I tried to get an answer as quickly as possible, and I apologise that that answer has not arrived. I want to make sure it is absolutely right and that I am certain that I do not mislead the House unintentionally.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as we move towards 1 April, I want to raise the issue not just of the concerns of staff, which the Minister has rightly mentioned, but the concerns of patients. Could patients in a ward, an NHS clinic, primary care or any other health setting be informed as to which members of staff have not been vaccinated? Would they then have the right to politely request that they are treated only by vaccinated staff?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very interesting point and an interesting suggestion. I am not quite sure of the details absolutely on those issues—as I said, further guidance will be published. But I promise to write to her, as she so gallantly intimates or hints.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

Does the Minister appreciate that quite a lot of people find the idea of compulsory vaccination absolutely intolerable, for all sorts of reasons, however beneficial it may be? This is a serious move for the whole country. Yesterday, in the House of Commons, I believe that the last Secretary of State said that he would not mind the same conditions being applied to flu. Just where does this end?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. As noble Lords will know, I see myself as a bit of a civil libertarian. Personally, I have asked a number of questions internally about the whole issue of compulsion. It is a very difficult issue, but I understand the arguments on the other side—that we want patients to feel safe and feel that they are looked after by staff who have been vaccinated. Stakeholder analysis and round-tables came out in favour of compulsion on the Covid vaccine and boosters. When it came to flu, interestingly enough, there was a significant disagreement on the practical timing of the flu vaccine supply and the vast majority of doses being available. We have promised to keep it under review, but that is not mandated at this stage.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a mental health nurse, as outlined in the register. I am concerned about the unintended consequences of making vaccines mandatory for healthcare staff, despite the fact that I fully support the vaccine and have had three doses myself. It is a relatively small number of healthcare staff who are not vaccinated—I accept that it varies across the country—but is it right to give no authority at all to boards in trusts to decide the best way forward for the minority of staff who do not wish to be vaccinated? I am concerned that there will be unintended consequences associated with a lack of care staff, particularly nurses, in mental healthcare environments, which may result in poorer care for patients than if we carefully supported that small number of staff in working perhaps with patients who do not want to be vaccinated themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I start by thanking the noble Baroness, not only for her question but for the conversations that we have had to help my understanding of the subject and the consequences of some of these actions. I welcome the expertise from across the House when it comes to a number of health-related issues.

The consultation quite clearly said that many felt that vaccines remain our best defence against Covid-19 and that the vaccination programme has prevented thousands of hospitalisations and deaths in the UK. The more staff who are vaccinated against Covid-19, the more likely it will be that vulnerable people in their care, and other colleagues, are protected. Several studies have provided evidence that vaccines are effective at preventing infection and transmission—and beyond preventing infection have an additional benefit of reduced transmission by those individuals who become infected despite vaccination because of a reduced duration or level of viral shedding.

On the specific question, I am sure that the noble Baroness recognises—as I know from when we discussed these issues—how complex this issue is. There are ethical and health issues, and the concerns of patients and their families, who feel much more comfortable about being treated by staff who are vaccinated.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that there are probably very few people, apart from hardened anti-vaxxers, who do not accept that vaccination is good and that it has done a huge amount to reduce the impact of the pandemic, which has had such devastating effects. However, following on from the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, it would appear likely that there will be not unintended but predictable and intended consequences as a result of this policy, which is that some NHS staff, and, more immediately, some social care staff, will simply give up doing what they do. In those circumstances, what advice is the Minister or his Government offering, particularly to private sector care homes, as to what they should do if faced with staff losses other than simply to reduce their capacity to take in new patients?

I noticed that the Minister did not pick up the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about the example that people in public life—I name nobody in particular—can set by wearing their masks, appropriately, on all occasions when it is sensible to do so. What encouragement can he offer to the rest of us about further examples being set on that front?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

There clearly are concerns. These were expressed in the stakeholder engagement that occurred with both the social care sector and other sectors that will need to bring this in from March next year—we are bringing it in now but with a grace period until next March. A lot of this engagement and consultation discussed how we can support staff who are unwilling to be vaccinated as well as understanding their concerns and whether employers see these as legitimate.

Thinking back to the beginning of the crisis, one of the reasons this was called for in care homes as quickly as possible was the data from the early part of the pandemic, when there were a disproportionate number of deaths in care homes. A number of people, including patient groups and families of patients, were quite adamant that if their relatives were in a care home, they wanted to make sure that they were being looked after by staff who had been vaccinated.

There is another vaccine that is a condition of deployment, that for hepatitis B. I have asked medical staff whether they are concerned about this and a number have said no, because they are already compelled to have the vaccine for hepatitis B. That is a condition of deployment and staff see this vaccine as just as essential. That assuaged some of the concerns I had over compulsion. These are difficult, unprecedented times. We would not ordinarily want to go with compulsion, but the health of the nation is at risk and many people want to feel much more reassured that they, or their family members who are receiving care, are looked after by people who have been vaccinated.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Evidence-based policy is really important on this. Statistics from the Nuffield Trust show that, with the mitigations that healthcare and hospitals are putting in place, hospital-acquired Covid rates have been coming down since the middle of the year, while rates in the community have been rising. The reason for that is that the mitigation includes face-covering measures which, as the NHS Chief Nursing Officer, Ruth May, said in July,

“will remain in place across healthcare settings so that the most vulnerable people can continue to safely attend hospital”.

If that is the case, why was the Prime Minister not wearing a face covering when in a hospital this week?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question and other noble Lords for their questions. I am not the Prime Minister’s keeper; it is as simple as that. We all decide for ourselves. I wear a mask whenever I can and when I talk to different people, I make sure that we are seen to be wearing masks. I thank noble Lords across the House who are leading by example by wearing a mask.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

Patients in care homes and hospitals suffered very badly from not receiving visitors during the three lockdowns. Family ties were strained and a lot of extra distress was caused. From next April, if all, or the majority of, health service staff are vaccinated, what plans do the Government have for ensuring that visitors do not bring Covid into hospitals and care homes?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

In many cases, that decision will be left to the individual trust or care home. We know that a number of care homes and different trusts are already concerned about unvaccinated visitors. Many will know already that during the previous lockdowns it was very difficult to visit your loved ones in hospital. I was not able to see my father between January last year and when he died last September. It was incredibly challenging, but we understood the reasons given by the care homes.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

The wearing of masks is a public health issue. It should not be left to individuals to make a decision on whether or not to wear a mask when they are coming into contact with vulnerable people. Can the Minister explain why the Prime Minister takes the view that he does not need to wear a mask?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for pressing on that point, as a number of others have. I am assured that the Prime Minister and his team followed all the rules that they were required to follow in that hospital, whether about face masks or otherwise. This is what I have been informed and it is all I can report.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Since we have a little time left, could I ask the Minister to go back to the question of the support that care homes, hospitals and other healthcare settings may need in the not unlikely event that they will lose staff as a result of this policy? I completely understand that vaccination is highly desirable and that the intention is to encourage people to be vaccinated. However, it is pretty clear that some will not be and that will have an impact. What support will be on offer in healthcare settings to people who are having to cope with the impact of losing staff as a result of this policy?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

In consultation with the social care sector and the wider NHS, including trusts, discussions have looked at the impact and what would happen, but also how to make the message more positive, how to encourage staff to take up vaccines and how to listen to their concerns. In some cases, employers have said that they do not feel that staff have given a legitimate reason for not taking up the vaccine, but they are also under pressure from patients’ families to make sure that they employ care staff who have been vaccinated. They are trying all the different areas of persuasion, including targeted campaigns and one-to-one conversations in some cases, to encourage them as much as possible. At the end of the day, even before the introduction of vaccinations as a condition of deployment, many care homes were already trying to push their staff to take vaccinations because they are concerned about their patients.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

As we have time, the Minister has just said from the Dispatch Box that the Prime Minister was following the rules of the trust he visited. That trust says on its website that you must

“wear a face covering when you enter the hospital until you leave”,

and adds:

“You must ensure that you wear your covering or mask throughout your visit and you must not remove your face covering/mask or kiss your loved one.”


By not wearing a mask, in either a clinical or non-clinical area, how was the Prime Minister carrying out the policy of that trust to try to save vulnerable people from being contaminated with Covid-19?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Whenever I have visited hospitals during the lockdowns or restrictions, we have sought advice from the staff around us. We have asked what measures are appropriate and whether we should keep face coverings on at all times. There have been times when they have said that, in particular areas, you can take your mask off. I was not at the visit yesterday, as I am sure the noble Lord will acknowledge—in fact, I was here answering questions—so I cannot go into detail. However, having visited hospitals myself, I am aware that you go in wearing a mask by default, but there are times when staff say, “In this area, you can take it off”.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

Is not the answer to the question asked by my noble friend that the Prime Minister was acting irresponsibly and was wrong?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am afraid that I was not there, so I do not know what advice he had been given at that moment by that particular trust. Noble Lords can do trial by TV as much as they like, but while you go in with a mask on by default, when you are there with workers from the NHS who are often giving advice, they may say at times, “In this part, it’s fine. You do not need to do that.” That may well have been the case, but I am afraid that I do not know the details.

Gametes and Embryos: Storage Limit

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

The department has been working with the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to ensure that it gets a chance to input into how the new scheme is implemented and that the fertility sector is properly prepared for any future legislative changes. The department has just completed a focused technical consultation that informs the final policy detail for certain categories of storage. We will bring forward legislation to enact the new policy when parliamentary time allows.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of the HFEA. For years, there has been disquiet over the arbitrary 10-year storage period for frozen eggs, which has forced women to make less than optimal decisions about their careers and fertility. My Bill to extend the period was in 2019 and the Government’s consultation closed in May 2020. In September 2021, the Government rightly responded that the period should be extended to 55 years, but that has not happened yet. Thousands of women know that the period will be extended but face the misery of seeing their eggs destroyed because it has not yet happened. The two-year pandemic extension will soon expire. Will the Government commit to making that change now by an amendment to the Health and Care Bill or by regulation? Will they put a moratorium on the destruction of any frozen eggs right away?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are still considering the responses from the technical consultation in terms of extension of storage, but as I said previously, and I hope the noble Baroness will be assured by this, we hope to bring forward legislation to enact a new policy when parliamentary time allows. If an amendment is laid, we will give it due consideration.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, accurate information about the benefits, risks and success rates of egg freezing is essential to enable women to make their own decision. What progress is being made by the Competition and Markets Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority to investigate whether the provision of information is done accurately and ethically?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising this very important issue, because not everyone is aware of the biological facts around fertility, particularly the decline of fertility with age. If a woman freezes her eggs in her 20s, she has a higher chance of success than if she does it in her 30s. In fact, while IVF treatment has improved over the years, the success rates of IVF are still only around 30%, so it is important that as many women and couples know as much as possible. On the detailed questions that she asked, I will write to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously encouraged by the Minister’s warm words and look forward to holding him to account for them. We know that women have a much better success rate when freezing their eggs at a younger age. However, the Minister knows that there are also proposals to introduce requirements to renew storage permissions every 10 years. What arrangements is the Minister considering to put in place to ensure that this does not become a bureaucratic nightmare and does not create disappointment for those who somehow do not keep up to date?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his work on the subject when he was the responsible Minister to help change the policy so that all people, regardless of medical need, may benefit from greater choice about when to start their family. The 10-year renewal periods will be put in place to give people the opportunity to decide whether they wish to continue with their storage of gametes or embryos. The department is currently working with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to set out the plans for detailed implementation, including on how the renewal periods should be handled by fertility clinics to ensure that they work.

Fertility clinics will be expected to contact people storing their gametes or embryos a year before a renewal period has ended, so there would be 12 months’ notice. In addition, people will have a six-month grace period following the expiry of any renewal period, in which they can get in touch with clinics to re-engage storage if they wish. I am sorry that I am going on longer than usual, but this is an important issue. It is our view that we would provide an appropriate amount of time for clinics to contact their patients, and for patients to decide what they wish to do with their gametes or embryos in storage.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I return to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, because we need some clarity here. For some people, months count. They will be having their eggs destroyed now, in the next few months. Therefore, while I congratulate the Government on the regulations that added two years to the 10-year period in recognition of the need to provide an extension during the pandemic, the Minister needs to be absolutely clear because time is fast running out. Are the Government going to provide interim transitional arrangements before the legislation is before the House? From these Benches, we are very keen and across the House there is an enormous amount of support for this to happen. Frankly, if the Minister brings forward the regulations tomorrow, they will go through.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that very kind offer, but we have already stated that it is the Government’s intention that no one misses out on the opportunity to extend the storage of their eggs, sperm or embryos. As she will be aware, in 2020 in light of the Covid pandemic, we took steps to extend the storage. We are currently considering options to make sure that no one misses out on the benefits of the new policy. Given the detailed consultation we have just been through, we hope to announce details in due course. Of course, if an amendment is laid to the forthcoming Health and Care Bill, we will consider it.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will have seen in the press today the case of Megan and Whitney Bacon-Evans, a lesbian couple required to undergo 12 cycles of treatment before they can access NHS-funded fertility treatment. In effect, that makes it impossible for them to access safe, well-regulated healthcare in this country. That is contrary to the aims of the Act under which lesbians were enabled to access fertility treatment, so will the Government move to stop it?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point about same-sex couples’ access to insemination services. In England, details of the local fertility services are determined by the clinical commissioning groups, which take account of the NICE fertility guidelines. These were updated in 2013 to include provision for female same-sex couples who have demonstrated a clinical infertility. The criteria in the guidelines were developed as a way of achieving equivalence between opposite-sex and male or female same-sex couples. However, it is clear that the NICE guidelines are now outdated, and the department has therefore agreed with NICE to start a review of these fertility guidelines. We want the same thing as the noble Baroness: equality.

David Fuller Case

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible]—but that such a prolonged period of abuse was able to take place without it being noticed. We echo the sincere condolences to the families and friends of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, as well as the many families and friends of those whose bodies David Fuller so foully desecrated.

The Statement says that the families and friends will have access to mental health support and counselling. That is good, but can the Minister confirm that it will be available for as long as they need it and will not be time limited? Will the staff at the mortuaries and hospitals, as well as the police and the over 150 family liaison officers involved in this case, also have access to counselling? They too have had to deal with this very distressing series of events.

We must obviously be very careful in our discussions today pending the sentencing of David Fuller, but we welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement for the upgrading of the trust’s independent review to an independent inquiry, to be chaired by Sir Jonathan Michael.

In August 2018, the Health Service Journal reported that 58 mortuaries that had been inspected in 2017-18 revealed that more than 500 “shortfalls” were exposed during that period. Worryingly, that included eight critical failings. At that time, the Human Tissue Authority as regulator and the various other regulated bodies undertook to look at the large increase in failings that year and to review practice. What actions were taken following those 2017-18 reports and were measures on access by staff to mortuaries among them? I ask this because, looking at the Human Tissue Authority’s codes of practice online, almost the entire focus seems to be on those whose role is to be involved with bodies. In Code A: Guiding Principles and the Fundamental Principle of Consent, the only reference I can find that does not relate to those with direct responsibilities for bodies is in paragraph 14 on page 7, which begins:

“Quality should underpin the management of human tissue and bodies.”


It goes on to say that this means that:

“practitioners’ work should be subject to a system of governance that ensures the appropriate and safe storage and use of human tissue and which safeguards the dignity of the living or deceased”,

and that

“premises, facilities and equipment should be clean, secure and subject to regular maintenance”.

One of the concerning issues relating to this case is that Mr Fuller ceased to be an employee of the Tunbridge Wells health authority in 2011 when the maintenance contract was subcontracted out. Will the inquiry look at not just whether employees of subcontractors working in sensitive areas are subject to DBS checks but whether there is a duty on their employer to report any findings to the hospital, or in this case the mortuary? Mr Fuller had a previous criminal record, but it is reported that the hospital did not know this.

There is another issue which I have not heard referred to either here or in the Statement in another place yesterday, and that is our criminal justice system’s approach to the desecration of bodies. The respected criminologist Professor Jason Roach from Huddersfield University has analysed the policing of and law in Britain towards necrophilia. He found an almost complete absence of case studies, which is not true in the rest of the world. Indeed, it was not until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that necrophilia became a criminal offence in its own right, but he says there is no evidence that anyone has ever been prosecuted. He reports that, as part of his research in 2016, he was told by one senior police officer that it was very unlikely that the police would ever urge the Crown Prosecution Service to charge an offender.

One hypothesis that Professor Roach explores in his 2016 work “No Necrophilia Please, We’re British” is that

“the attitude of the British criminal justice system towards necrophilia echoes that of the British public, i.e. one of embarrassment, whereby those caught are either not charged with a criminal offence or, perhaps for the sake of the deceased’s family, are charged with a less degrading offence such as grave robbing. Both routes will produce less attention-grabbing stories”.

Can the Minister say if the review will look at police and criminal justice system attitudes towards necrophilia or other forms of desecration of bodies? One of the deeply unsatisfactory legacies of Jimmy Savile’s extended abuse is the suspicion of his undertaking such activities. However, perhaps through embarrassment, there has been no real examination of that case and the cultures of the places where he was able to have access to the dead.

Can the Minister say if any lessons learned so far will be reported and implemented straightaway, before the full independent inquiry reports, to give the public confidence that hospital mortuaries are safe and secured? As ever, if the Minister does not have any of the answers to my questions to hand, please will he write to me with them?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, this is one of the most difficult issues that we have had to address and discuss in my short career at the Dispatch Box. It is one of those crimes that are beyond imagination. Who could think that an act of such depravity would occur? David Fuller has pleaded guilty to the murder of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce, and all our thoughts are with Wendy and Caroline’s families and friends.

In recent days the courts have heard about a series of David Fuller’s shocking and depraved offences. He is yet to be sentenced, so I am sure noble Lords will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details of the case while the legal process is still in progress. However, I will try to address as many of the questions about the response as possible.

This is a profoundly upsetting case that has involved distressing offences within the health service. I apologise to the friends and families of all the victims for the crimes that were perpetrated in the care of the NHS, and for the hurt and suffering that they are feeling. It has taken months of painstaking work to uncover the extent of this man’s offending. The fact that these offences took place in a hospital, somewhere all of us would hope to feel safe and free from harm, makes it all the more harrowing. This has been an immensely distressing investigation, and I thank the police for the diligent and sensitive way in which they have approached it. I also thank Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust for co-operating so closely with the police.

I am sure that in the inquiry all matters will be considered and that it will be as full and comprehensive as possible, but it is critical that we investigate this case thoroughly to ensure that lessons are learned. My right honourable friend the Health and Social Care Secretary is replacing the trust investigation with an independent non-statutory inquiry, which will look into the circumstances surrounding the offences committed in the hospital as well as their national implications. That will help us to understand how these offences were allowed to take place without detection in the trust and then to consider the wider national issues, including for the National Health Service. My right honourable friend has also asked the Human Tissue Authority to advise on whether changes are required to the existing legislation.

What will the independent inquiry do? We thank the NHS trust and its leadership for its quick initial work in setting up the investigation, but we have a duty to look at what happened in detail and to make sure that it never happens again. The Secretary of State has appointed Sir Jonathan Michael to chair the inquiry. Sir Jonathan is an experienced NHS chief executive, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a former chief executive of three NHS hospital trusts. He has been leading the trust investigation and will be able to build on some of the work that he has already done. The inquiry will be independent and will report to the Secretary of State.

The noble Baronesses asked about the timeframe. Sir Jonathan will split his time into two parts. The first report will be an interim one, which has been asked for early in the new year. The second and final report will look at the broader national picture and the wider lessons for the NHS and other settings. We will publish the terms of reference in due course. Sir Jonathan has been asked to discuss with families and others to ensure that their feelings are fully considered and that they input into the process. Sir Jonathan’s findings will be public and will be published.

We all know that this is a shocking case. None of us ever thought that we would have to take part in a discussion such as this. Specialist police officers have contacted the families of the victims directly and privately. We want to, and we must, respect the families’ privacy at this difficult time. There is a comprehensive package of support for the families affected. This includes dedicated caseworker support, a 24/7 telephone support line and specialist support, such as mental health support and counselling, as needed and as appropriate. The trust is also talking to family members who wish to be contacted.

Kent Police has set up a major incident public portal and contact centre to manage calls, collect any relevant additional information and direct people to other sources of support. If people are interested in looking at that, they can search online for the major incident public portal and select Kent Police and Operation Sandpiper. We know that this is distressing for many people, both the families and more widely.

Wider support can also be accessed through the Ministry of Justice Victim and Witness Information page, which provides links to local support according to postcode, the 24/7 Victim Support helpline and My Support Space, a platform providing many guides and tools and access to a 24/7 live chat function. The trust has worked closely with the police to put in place a comprehensive package, and we thank the NHS trust for the measures it has put in place. We also recognise that, as the noble Baroness said, all those working in the trust and wider health service are profoundly shaken by the nature of these offences. The trust has put support in place for affected staff.

The trust and NHS Resolution are considering the right approach to compensation, but that involves getting further legal advice. The trust will provide support to the families concerned. As we have said, it is also important that we understand what is happening.

The police have so far found evidence of 100 victims of the offences committed in the hospital mortuary and have been able to formally identify 81 victims. They are seeking to identify all the victims, as is appropriate. Specially trained family liaison officers have spoken to all the families of those identified to date.

It is important to make sure that this is investigated thoroughly, and I want to be careful not to pre-empt the inquiry’s findings. Under the current regulations, the Human Tissue Authority regulates licences and inspects organisations that run mortuaries where post-mortems are carried out. Mortuaries that do not carry out post-mortems may not need to have a licence from the Human Tissue Authority. It is the responsibility of the organisation running a mortuary licensed by the HTA to ensure that the HTA’s licensing standards are met, including those relating to security. It is also for the organisation running the mortuary to ensure that safety procedures are in place.

I was asked about the DBS regime. In July the Home Office announced an independent review of the disclosure and barring regime. The review will consider the adequacy of current arrangements for criminal record checks for jobs that entail contact with the deceased. Ministers are finalising arrangements for the review, and further details will be announced as soon as possible.

I apologise to noble Lords if I have not answered their questions. I hope I will be able to follow up with answers.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the appointment of Sir Jonathan Michael will be very welcome; I have no doubt that he will do a very robust piece of work. My noble friend mentioned support for families, and the Minister made a number of comments about the support given, including care worker support and compensation. If families wish to appear before the inquiry, will the department consider making financial support available to those families in relation to legal advice, so that they can articulate their concerns before the inquiry?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am afraid I am not able to answer the noble Lord’s question directly, because clearly there are some legal issues around it. I am sure he will understand if I try to find an answer and write to him.

[Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former police officer, although it was some years ago. I warmly welcome the Statement made in the other place, particularly its tone in reference to the victims and those left behind. Among all those who have taken part in this horrendous episode, I pay particular tribute to the police and police authorities, particularly for the £1.5 million victim support package and the training and deployment of 150 family liaison officers. When does my noble friend the Minister, or the Secretary of State, expect the NHS England report to be made on the progress of measures? If he does not know at the moment, could he write to me?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As my noble friend anticipated, I am afraid I do not have a detailed answer. I am sorry; I wish I did have the answers, but I will write to him.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has quite correctly said that Sir Jonathan Michael has great experience of the NHS. Sadly, it is in the nature of this shocking case that his inquiry will have to range more widely than the NHS. Will the Minister therefore suggest to Sir Jonathan that he consults the National Association of Funeral Directors? It has a lot of experience, through the guidance it has issued on access to mortuaries, and advice that it could give the inquiry. I think it would welcome consultation. We must do all we can to restrict access in mortuaries to only those people who have an essential reason to be there.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion. As far as I understand, the inquiry will be as wide ranging as it can be and wants to include input from as many people and stakeholders as possible who are affected by, or will be affected by, the implications of the investigation. There are already a lot of calls. A number of people have spoken to me today informally, for example, with a number of suggestions, making me recognise how much wider this goes. It is not just about the storage of bodies in hospitals but in other places, including funeral directors’ premises. I am sure that the suggestion will be considered, but I will confirm that.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement and welcome the inquiry that is to be set up. I hope that lessons will be learned from it. The Minister mentioned the question of compensation and how legal advice was being sought in relation to that. I think that advice will indicate that the law is extremely complex in this area, unsurprisingly perhaps. Of course, it is also complex in the criminal area, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out.

On the question of civil compensation, there have already been certain stories to the effect that millions of pounds of compensation are going to be obtained. There is the likelihood, I suspect, of there being some great case—as there was, for example, in the Alder Hey body parts litigation, and I declare an interest as being one of the lawyers involved in that. I respectfully suggest that that is not something that will benefit very much all those affected by these dreadful events. I respectfully suggest to the Minister, for consideration by his department, that, rather than embark on long, complex and uncertain litigation, it would be wise to set up a scheme to provide some form of statutory compensation for a set amount which would be an appropriate recompense for these dreadful events.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion. As we are all aware, there is a wide range of experience across this House, and it is important that we draw on that when it comes to considering the terms and parameters of the inquiry. The trust and NHS Resolution are considering the right approach to compensation and, as the noble Lord acknowledged, that does involve getting further legal advice. The trust has been quite clear that it will provide support to the families concerned. One of the things that this Statement has brought out is the wide range of experience and the suggestions that have been made by noble Lords for helping the inquiry along. I welcome those suggestions and will feed them back into the department.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)]

Will the Minister very kindly pass on the condolences of this House to the families concerned? Will he accept that the presence of CCTV, as used by local authorities, can readily deter a great deal of crime, due to the fear of crimes being caught on camera? Pilot schemes have been tried out in Scotland and have been found to be very effective. I ask the Minister not to rule out the possibility of CCTV playing an increasing role against appalling crimes.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that suggestion. In conversation today with my officials, as I was preparing for the response to this Statement, the issue of CCTV did come up. At the moment, it is clear that we do not want to draw any conclusions yet. The inquiry will be as wide as it possibly can be and will carefully consider such suggestions but also make sure that we are aware of the consequences of any suggestions, including possible unintended ones, and where there might be concerns about further use of CCTV. We have to make sure that we get the right balance. We know that, where CCTV has been deployed in the past, there have been concerns about civil liberties. That may or may not be relevant here, but we always have to be aware of concerns that, whenever the solution might appear simple to us, we understand the consequences, intended and unintended.

Public Health England (Dissolution) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2021

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for securing this important debate on secondary legislation in relation to the Government’s public health reforms, and also for this opportunity to explain why they were made, and the context.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the country has faced its greatest health and economic challenge for decades. The pandemic has highlighted the immense economic, societal and personal costs that ill health can bring, particularly to the most vulnerable. It has also identified weaknesses in our public health system. That is why, in August 2020, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced the Government’s intention to reform the public health system in England. Since that announcement, we have worked to transform our national health protection capabilities to put prevention of ill health and the tackling of health inequalities at the heart of government and to more deeply embed prevention and health improvement expertise across local and national government and the National Health Service. These reforms are driven by lessons learned from the pandemic and by the need to make sure that we have a public health system fit for the future.

From 1 October this year, a new public health landscape was established, and Public Health England was closed. The health protection capabilities of Public Health England, the at-scale operational capacity of NHS Test and Trace, and the analytical capability of the Joint Biosecurity Centre have been brought together into the new UK Health Security Agency to lead the response to Covid so that we now have an organisation dedicated solely to identifying, preventing and managing threats to health. As some noble Lords have acknowledged, the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has been created in the Department of Health and Social Care, and the OHID will help our health system to go further in promoting good health and tackling the top preventable risk factors for poor health and disparities.

One noble Lord raised the issue of prevention and cure. One of the conversations I have had with many health experts in my short time in this job has been about how we make sure that we save more money and lives and achieve better health by focusing on prevention rather than, necessarily, cure. I know that noble Lords will remember the debate we had the other day on obesity and what is being done by the OHID there. Now, working with a new cross-government Cabinet committee for health promotion, we will drive and support the whole of government to go further in improving health and tackling health disparities. Alongside this, we have strengthened NHS England’s focus on prevention and population health, transferring to it important national capabilities that will help drive and support improved health as a priority for the whole NHS. Important national disease registries have also moved to NHS Digital.

On the recently laid secondary legislation and the question of ensuring that there is consultation and scrutiny, the amendments themselves do not give effect to the establishment of the UK Health Security Agency, or OHID, or the dissolution of PHE. Public Health England and the UK Health Security Agency are executive agencies of the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS Test and Trace was part of the department. The restructuring of public health functions in England was therefore an administrative process. The regulations in question were made and laid in accordance with the negative resolution procedure. They make minor consequential amendments to existing legislation, to ensure that the statute book accurately reflects the administrative changes that have taken place. They are not the vehicle for implementing the substance of our public health reforms. There will be further regulations containing references to Public Health England, which need to be updated. I assure noble Lords that they will be amended in accordance with the affirmative resolution procedure and will be debated in Parliament.

I turn now to some of the individual points made. On engagement with stakeholders, since the reforms were announced, a senior stakeholder advisory group was established to advise the Department of Health and Social Care on the best arrangements for national prevention and health improvement functions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for pointing out that praise for Public Health England was not universal. Many will have read articles from health experts, probably the most damning of which was You Had One Job. Questions had to be asked, but we looked at the stakeholder advisory group—its membership and terms of reference are published—and the group included public health, the third sector, think tanks, the health service, local government and other expertise. It worked quickly and we are grateful to all who contributed. Throughout the reform programme, we actively supported and welcomed views from key stakeholders across the spectrum of public health.

We have engaged quite widely, commensurate with the need to make quick progress and not foster a lingering uncertainty for staff, delivery partners and stakeholders. A Written Ministerial Statement was made in March, when we formally established the UK Health Security Agency from 1 April. We also published our evolved proposals in March, including the establishment of what is now OHID, and we invited views on a number of questions to support the successful implementation of the reforms.

Going forward, there is a new cross-government Cabinet committee for health promotion. This means that, across government, we will drive forward action on the wider determinants of health, ensuring that health is a shared outcome and priority. We will make sure that we work across government in a joined-up way.

Also, the creation of OHID—with the “D” for disparities—makes sure that, right at the centre of public health, we are looking at inequalities in the system. Far too often across this country, public health has been seen as the preserve of the privileged white middle class, as opposed to poorer communities. It is important that we make sure that this is no longer the preserve of the privileged white middle class, but of the working class, other people and immigrant communities, who understand some of these disparities in their communities.

Our reforms are explicitly designed to ensure that the different dimensions of public health have the dedicated national attention that each threat faces. The UK Health Security Agency focuses on health security; the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, on better health and tackling these health disparities; NHS England, on delivery of NHS services to protect and improve health; and NHS Digital, on securing our gold-standard disease registers.

This year, we increased the local authority public health grant and allocated over £100 million of additional funding to local authorities. We are also investing £500 million over the spending review period to improve the Start4Life offer, and we have confirmed additional investment of £300 million to help people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Rather than proposing a one size fits all, we are also looking at pilot projects. We look at this as a process of discovery; we all have to admit that we do not have infinite knowledge and sometimes do not always foresee unintended consequences. By piloting projects and allowing the discovery process to take place, we can learn more.

In terms of the pandemic and future pandemics, the UK Health Security Agency’s sole purpose is to ensure the UK is protected from all future health threats, including pandemics, and to make sure we continuously assess our preparedness plans for infectious disease outbreaks. In future, critics can no longer say, “You had one job; why didn’t you do it?” We are focusing on health security.

We are hoping that the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities will work on prevention across all parts of government, given the cross-cutting nature of public health, making health improvement and disparities a focus of government. We are looking at a number of projects and key Covid programmes, making sure that we build back better and that we learn from the issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about independence and accountability. The public health system in government needs a trusted source of independent scientific advice on health improvement to support evidence-led national decision-making and a focus on health inequalities. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities will continue to make available and publish public health advice, research, evidence and data analysis, as Public Health England did previously, through a newly recruited Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The Chief Medical Officer will provide professional leadership for the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, while Ministers will remain in charge of and responsible for policy decisions in that direction.

We hope that these reforms to the public health system that have been explained today will do that, and keep us safe and healthy into better times ahead. Vigilance, prevention and reform are the key words to keep us all safer and, I hope, improve the health of the nation, not only in certain communities but to tackle those disparities where they may have felt ignored in the past.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that scrutiny by Parliament is essential?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Maybe it is because I speak rather quickly, but in my remarks just now I talked about the difference between the negative and affirmative procedures, and the affirmative procedure needing parliamentary scrutiny—so I do agree.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, this Motion has given an opportunity to put dissent and concern on the record, and we have heard that through voices from across the House. I am left thinking as a result of this debate that any reorganisation, particularly one such as the one we have discussed, would have greatly benefited from proper parliamentary scrutiny. I literally regret that this was not the case.

I am grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions and consideration. I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport in giving thanks and appreciation of Public Health England and the entire team, led by the chief executive as was, Duncan Selbie.

Improvement of the health of the nation and the equal chance to live a long, happy and healthy life is paramount. As my noble friend Lord Stansgate said, sidelining Parliament is not the way in which to tackle this advance. Similarly, my noble friend Lord Hunt highlighted the fact that there had been a shift of blame from Ministers to officials—which again, as we have heard in this House, cannot be an acceptable way forward. I hope that the Minister heard his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who called for an inquiry and for Ministers to think again about the best way in which to manage public health responsibilities. I am sure that the Minister will listen to those words as well the others that we have heard today.

While I appreciate that the Minister has been left somewhat holding the baby on this one, I have heard what he has said. Although I am disappointed in many of the conclusions that he has drawn, I beg leave to withdraw.