Prostate Cancer

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for initiating this timely debate. Prostate cancer is now Northern Ireland’s most common cancer, and yet is the only major cancer without a national screening programme. According to the latest statistics, more than 1,300 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in Northern Ireland, with almost 300 men in the Province dying annually from the disease. At present, more than 12,000 men are living with and after prostate cancer in Northern Ireland. I am one of them, as well as having several other medical conditions.

I am extremely grateful to the National Health Service in Belfast for the treatment I have received, and I pay particular tribute to the consultants, Mr Benson, Miss McBride and Miss Shum, for enabling me to be with you here this evening. While we do not have a national PSA screening programme, it must be pointed out that that exists in some countries, including Lithuania and the Czech Republic, with many other nations, including the Republic of Ireland, conducting pilot schemes. That said, men living in the UK aged 50 and over can request a PSA test through their GP.

In recent weeks, former news presenter Dermot Murnaghan, who was educated in Northern Ireland, went public with his own stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis. He said that, in the continued absence of a screening programme, he would advise men of a certain age to “go and demand it”. I fully endorse that call.

Mr Murnaghan is planning to join six-time Olympic cycling gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy, who was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer two years ago, on a charity bike ride to raise money for the cancer charities and raise awareness. I wish both men well with their heroic endeavours and with their treatment.

Musculoskeletal Health: Chiropractors

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend helpfully emphasises the point about the need to provide for local populations, and ICBs are in the pole position to do that. I am sure that noble Lords will recall that we recently announced changes in the NHS operating model to move power from the centre to local leaders. I particularly refer to the NHS planning guidance, whereby we follow the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, to take a whole new approach and reduce the number of national targets from 32 to 18. The reason for that is to give the local systems my noble friend refers to greater control and flexibility on how local funding is deployed. Indeed, one such model could be the one my noble friend referred to.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, an estimated 30% of the population of the UK are burdened with a painful and debilitating MSK condition. That is over 20 million people in the United Kingdom. Given the Government’s priority of shifting treatment into communities in the 10-year health plan, will the Minister meet again with representatives from the chiropractic profession to hear how they can increase capacity for community MSK treatments?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am certainly happy to have such discussions. Perhaps I could use this opportunity to say to noble Lords that part of the recently published elective reform plan sets out funding to boost bone density scanning—or DEXA—capacity, to provide an estimated 29,000 extra scans per year. The work goes on also to support workforce health. For example, we are commencing training so that over 200 doctors and nurses can undertake occupational health training and qualifications. The numbers of physios and OTs are increasing. This is very much work in progress. I certainly agree with what the noble Lord said about the impact and extent of this; it really does affect so many.

Ambulance Response Times

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. We are all aware of the difficulties in different parts of the system. We have invested £450 million to upgrade A&E facilities in more than 120 separate NHS hospitals ahead of last winter, and this is being used to boost the physical capacity of A&E through expanded waiting areas, increasing the number of treatment cubicles, reducing overcrowding, et cetera. This is alongside an additional £1.8 million to place more hospital ambulance liaison officers at the most challenging acute trusts to help address the long delays, to reduce ambulance queueing and to get crews back on the road quickly.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and its personnel hold a special place in the hearts of the people there because of their bravery, selflessness and professionalism during 30 years of terrorist violence. With Northern Ireland currently registering the highest Covid infection rate in the UK, the ambulance service is now facing a new challenge, with waiting times trebling and some patients having to wait for up to six hours outside emergency departments to be admitted to hospital. What assurance can the Minister offer the people of Northern Ireland that Her Majesty’s Government are aware of this problem and will offer all possible support to local Ministers to help solve it?

NHS: Primary Care Surgeries

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord on his contributions to the Blair-Brown documentary, which I am sure a number of noble Lords enjoyed watching and learning from. It is important that we learn the right lessons from whichever political party, so when Tony Blair, a former Labour Prime Minister, says that we should encourage the private sector to be more involved in partnership with the public sector, we will take that advice.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, I have great respect for GPs, but with general practices paid for the number of patients registered with the practice, profit-driven services might carry the risk of some GPs choosing to register younger and fitter patients, who will need to be seen less often than older patients. Would the Minister really be comfortable if that situation played out?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure that noble Lords agree that it is appropriate that GPs register as many patients as they are able to see, and that their patients, whatever their needs, can access our great system of healthcare in this country. I would indeed be concerned if there were barriers to accessing GP services.

Social Care Reform

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rogan (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, as well as declaring that he had a clear plan to fix the crisis in social care, Mr Johnson stressed in his infamous Downing Street speech of July 2019 that he was the Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom. When the social care plan is finally brought forward, what guarantees can the Minister give to demonstrate that Mr Johnson’s Government value the social care needs of the people of Northern Ireland every bit as highly as those of patients residing in England?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an entirely fair point. The needs of those who reside in Northern Ireland are paramount in our minds. I would be very glad to meet the noble Lord and discuss how their views and needs can be best incorporated in the policies we are developing.

Heathrow Airport: Border Control Passenger Safety

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I also saw the images circulating last week of queues at Heathrow Airport, and I agree with the noble Baroness that we do not want to see a repeat of those kinds of scenes. However, I do not agree with her analysis. The Managed Quarantine Service has worked extremely well, and I pay tribute to Border Force for its contribution—we have more Border Force staff working today than we did during the 2012 Olympics. It does, unavoidably, take between five and 10 minutes for Border Force personnel to process each passenger; that is an unavoidable bureaucratic burden, but we have taken the necessary steps to ensure safe travel and minimise the circulation of mixed passengers within the terminals.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, widespread concerns have been raised by travellers arriving at Heathrow, but clearly there are many other border control points in this country. That being the case, can the Minister give a commitment to urgently share the lessons that are being learned at Heathrow with airport authorities in Belfast and Londonderry? As we begin to welcome family, friends and tourists back to Northern Ireland, after the most testing of periods for the Province’s travel and tourism sectors, there is real concern that our relatively low infection rates could take a turn for the worse if common sense and procedures are not followed in all terminals. As the United Kingdom, we simply cannot afford to get this wrong.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely and utterly acknowledge the concerns expressed by the noble Lord and by communities who live proximately to regional airports. As we look to the opening up of more airports, we are enthusiastically and energetically engaged with those communities. I reassure the noble Lord that the systems that we have in place around both red and amber quarantine have extremely tight restrictions on them, and there is no evidence of leakage into the local communities. We are doing our best to communicate that fact to those who are concerned.

Osimertinib Cancer Treatment

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is, as ever, all over the detail. It is my understanding that the gap is a matter of weeks rather than there being any clinical divergence in assessment of the evidence. However, I am afraid to say that I would have to leave it to the EMA to think for itself on that.

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly mentioned waiting lists. According to the most recent statistics, 9% of the population in England are on hospital waiting lists—the highest figure since records began in 2007. In Northern Ireland, the figure is 23% of the population, by far the highest proportion in the four home nations. The drug that we are discussing has been widely used in Northern Ireland to treat mid and late-stage lung cancer until now. Cancer patients in Northern Ireland now feel that they are being placed at greater risk than cancer patients elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Will the Minister confirm that the supply problems that Northern Ireland is facing would not exist if the United Kingdom Government had not agreed to the European Medicines Agency having jurisdiction in Northern Ireland?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I do not agree with either the basis or detail of the noble Lord’s assertion. There is absolutely no delay or problem of access for this drug. He is entirely right to say that Tagrisso is currently offered to patients across the UK, including Northern Ireland, for mid and late-stage disease and it will now be offered to patients across the UK, including Northern Ireland, on exactly the same terms for early-stage disease.

Dentists: Covid-19

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, as I said earlier, 88% of NHS dentists are open. I was at an NHS dentist earlier today, and I pay tribute to all those dentists that are open. I do not know the specific situation in north and east Cornwall, but those in acute pain have access to the 695 urgent dental care centres, which are around England. I have enormous sympathy for those who have painful teeth, and I urge them to hunt down an appointment at one of those centres, where the service is excellent.

[Lord Rogan (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, official statistics show that the number of patients seen by general dental service dentists in Northern Ireland fell from 163,537 last February to just 8,825 in June, but rose again to 49,059 in September. With many of the current Covid restrictions having been put back in place since then, what discussions have UK Ministers had with their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the other devolved regions to encourage people to visit their dentist rather than suffer pain at home?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that account of the Northern Ireland statistics, which tell a very similar story to those in other parts of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord is entirely right that those statistics tell a story of the massive challenge dentists face in order to increase the number of appointments per day. We are looking at a number of measures to try to improve that, including ventilation, which was referred to earlier by the noble Baroness. Testing is another option we are looking at. We are trying to put in place the kind of pre-appointment and point-of-care testing that can protect both the employees of dental practices and their patients. I hope that will help accelerate improvement in this area.

Covid-19: Vaccines

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is entirely right: from March, we will have considerably more work both to deploy the second dosage and to supply it. We have those plans absolutely in place: the supply of the vaccine has been put in place to ensure that we have a sufficient number of doses, and the workforce and locations are in place to ensure that we can deliver them.

[Lord Rogan (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, among Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann’s many achievements since the start of the pandemic, he has overseen the establishment of seven regional centres across the Province where the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is now administered. I understand that a further significant consignment of the AstraZeneca vaccine is due in Northern Ireland this week for distribution to general practitioners. Can the Minister assure me that the Province’s stocks of the Pfizer vaccine are also being replenished to allow the regional centres to continue their excellent work at the fastest possible pace, including the delivery of a second dose?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to the good work of the Northern Ireland Health Minister, Robin Swann, whom I commend for his collaborative approach during this entire pandemic. I reassure the noble Lord that we are allocating doses on the business-as-usual, Barnett formula split, with 2.85% going to Northern Ireland. I pay tribute to the NHS there, where 214,601 people have had their first dose. A further 24,323 have had their second dose, and I reassure the noble Lord that we will maintain that velocity of delivery in the weeks to come.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct inasmuch as the statistics published for the original app would suggest. However, new statistics about the new app will be published after its launch on Thursday. I reassure her that the circumstances between then and now have changed considerably. The impact of an app that is widely downloaded and implemented across the country can be profound. We are extremely optimistic about its impact.

[Lord Rogan (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, it was announced in Stormont this afternoon that Covid-19 restrictions are to be extended across all Northern Ireland from 6 pm tomorrow. However, given that the Prime Minister is to make his own set of announcements tomorrow, can the Minister offer some clarity on whether the changes in Northern Ireland could be overwritten by Mr Johnson? Can he also offer some insight into what work is going on to try to achieve more consistency of messaging across all four nations of the United Kingdom? It is obvious that the differences are causing profound confusion among the public and putting more lives at risk.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I note the move by Northern Ireland, which has taken a sincere and thoughtful approach. It is true that there have been some small differences between the different countries, but the vast majority of guidelines, restrictions and lockdown arrangements are shared by all the countries of the United Kingdom. I commend the huge amount of collaboration between all the DAs in working together to fight this horrible disease.