Mental Health Act 1983

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reform of the Mental Health Act 1983.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I thank everyone who has come along to speak on our last day here before the summer recess and in 38° heat—we are used to 38 Degrees in our inboxes, but not in the Chamber. I also thank all the organisations that have supported this debate. In particular, I owe deep thanks to Louise and the whole team at Rethink Mental Illness for supporting me in preparing for the debate, but a huge range of organisations work on this issue day in, day out, in many cases supporting people in very difficult circumstances. They include Agenda, the Mental Health Network, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Young Minds, SANE, the Mental Health Foundation, VoiceAbility, the Centre for Mental Health, the Association of Mental Health Providers, Mind, and Southwark Carers, which is represented here today. I thank you for everything that you do, on a daily basis, to support reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 overall and for what you have done to support this debate specifically. I also thank the individuals with direct experience and their families, friends, carers, supporters and loved ones. Their personal testimony and experience are what is driving the need for change.

The current Mental Health Act came into force in September 1983. Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister—what she would make of the current one I do not know, but that is a different issue. Labour had lost the general election that year with the “longest suicide note” in British political history—but luckily we have learned the lessons of the past. The iron curtain was still drawn. It was the year that Kim Jong-un was born. It was the year that my predecessor in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Sir Simon Hughes, was getting started on a 32-year stay, until I won the seat back for my party in 2015. I note that the biggest selling single in 1983 in the UK was Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon”.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, the Mental Health Act is the law in England and Wales that allows someone to be detained and treated for a mental illness without their consent. That is commonly known as sectioning, but for the purposes of today’s debate, I will refer to it as detention. The Act is designed to prevent people experiencing mental health crises from harming themselves or other people, and the Act can be the mechanism that prevents someone from taking their own life. It is hugely valuable when it works. I am sure that everyone here would agree that society and the state should protect the most vulnerable when they are unwell. But the current legislation is decades out of date.

The legislation came into force when I was just four years old, and I had already realised by that point that my life was very different from that of other children. My parents had four children together between 1976 and 1980, but mum then developed schizophrenia—a mental illness that causes muddled thinking or delusional thoughts, and changes in behaviour. The causes of schizophrenia are still very much unknown, but even less was known about the condition in the early ’80s and treatment was rudimentary to say the least. But because of mum’s condition, talking about mental illness has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. That has been the case throughout my family because of our circumstances. It has shaped my life.

Some of my earliest memories are not necessarily the easiest to talk about, but this is one of the earliest memories I have. After mum’s mental health broke down, my parents split up. We stayed with mum initially. She was unable to care for us properly. With the best of intentions, on a cold day when she could not work the heating, she lit a fire in our living room. That fire caused huge damage. The scars from the fire stayed with us literally—physically—because we could not afford to make the necessary changes for some time after that.

Mum kept me out of school, convinced that I was ill; there was no illness. For many years, I was convinced that I had been kept in an incubator after being born, because mum convinced me that I had had lung problems at birth. I found out later that that was not true.

Dad eventually got custody, and the four of us grew up with dad, but on visits to mum, she would be unsupported and unwell. I remember staying over and her giving me a bowl of cereal with what I thought was orange juice on it—the milk was so off that it was orange. But mum had thought that that was sensible; she was just trying to feed us. She did not know, because she was so unwell.

Mum had another son; I have a half-brother called Sebastian. She was unable to look after him because she did not have support. He was initially fostered, but mum’s behaviour became too problematic. I went to see her once and the front door had been broken in. She told me that there had been a burglary, but nothing was missing, and it turned out that the police had had to be called because she had taken Sebastian from the foster carers and they had had to break in to take him back. He was formally adopted at five years old, and I have not seen him since.

It may sound strange or scary to some, but this was my normal; this was my childhood. We are all socialised by our surroundings and families, and the personal situation for me and for many others who grew up in difficult circumstances helps to develop resilience, I think. It has also given me greater empathy, both as a child and now, particularly when I see constituents who are struggling with similar mental health circumstances of their own. I represent a constituency that has a higher prevalence of mental health conditions and psychoses.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend not only on the speech that he is making, but on the very moving way, if I may say so, in which he just spoke about his personal experience and how it informs his views today. Like him, I have had constituents who are dealing with these issues; and like him, I think that we have come to the point at which the Mental Health Act does need to be reviewed, particularly because of—this is the point that he has been making—the impact it has on the immediate family. How can we go forward such that the wishes of the person who is being detained are taken into account and the family’s wishes are taken into account, in a way that provides protection for the vulnerable but also recognises people’s particular needs and choices?

[Neil Coyle]

That is very much what I will be coming on to and what I hope we will hear more from the Minister on; it was the subject of an independent review.

I was talking about the prevalence of mental health conditions in Southwark and people I have seen at constituency surgeries. These statistics for Southwark are from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, which is my local mental health trust. Close to 4,000 people have what it defines as a serious mental illness; that does not include things such as dementia. Almost 48,000 people are currently experiencing a common mental health condition. Across the borough, 22,000 people have both a mental health condition and a long-term physical condition. And almost 4,000 children in Southwark have a mental health condition.

Batten Disease

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Seema Kennedy]

I pay tribute to Kaycee and Liam. The hon. Lady makes a very important point. We want pharmaceutical companies to develop their medicines here, so that they are brought to the market here first and our constituents have access to them. However, we also have an obligation to spend taxpayers’ money in a very fair way, so that every penny we spend is spent correctly and appropriately. When it comes to PKU, Orkambi or Brineura, what we are all—NHS England and all of us here—saying to the drug companies is that we will pay a price, but we want it to be a fair price.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Earlier in this Parliament, I supported a young constituent of mine in securing access to Brineura. Health is a devolved matter in Wales, but the NICE recommendations are still very important. The problem I have seen over the past four years, unfortunately, is that those guidelines do not work particularly well when a disease is extremely rare. Does the Minister plan to look again and review the guidelines, so that people are not penalised simply because the condition they have is rare?

[Seema Kennedy]

Right hon. and hon. Members have made clear to me their concerns about the NICE process for rare diseases. A review is ongoing, and I will keep a very close eye on it.

Acquired Brain Injury

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered acquired brain injury.

You might have noticed, Mr Rosindell, that we have considered this matter once or twice already over the past year or two, but today we are looking at some specific elements of acquired brain injury. As all right hon. and hon. Members will know, brain injury can relate to so many parts of Government: the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and so on. Today we have the Health Minister before us, so I am keen to focus on health-related issues.

I know that many right hon. and hon. Members will have been approached by the Headway charity, clinicians who work in their area, patients or carers of people who have suffered a brain injury, and will want to make a contribution, so I do not intend to speak at great length. I am passionately conscious of the fact that, since I first became involved in this issue in Parliament three years ago, I have met so many amazing people—not only clinicians and people who work in the charity sector, but patients who have had brain injuries and spoken about what that experience is like. It is so important to hear that experience directly from individuals.

One particularly poignant aspect of brain injury is that in the vast majority of cases it is completely invisible. Yesterday, I met Tom Hutton, who is here—I know we are not meant to refer to the Public Gallery, Mr Rosindell, but I have already and have got away with it. He was training on his bike for an Ironman a few years ago and had a collision with a small lorry. He was in an induced coma for a week. There is not a mark on his head. No one who saw him at work or in the street, including a Department for Work and Pensions assessor, would have the faintest idea that he had had a brain injury, or an injury of any kind.

The fascinating thing he spoke to me about is that he has to talk to himself all the time. One symptom of brain injury is phenomenal fatigue, and if the sufferer does not see the fatigue coming, they can experience phenomenal depression, or dysphoria, as it is called.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate, but on his fantastic campaigning work in this area. On the symptoms being invisible, Departments, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, cannot pick up precisely how such injuries affect day-to-day life, and that needs to be improved.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes. The all-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury—I see that two of the vice-chairs are in the Chamber—has been campaigning to ensure that everyone who does any kind of assessment for the Department for Work and Pensions, whether for personal independence payments, the employment and support allowance, or any other benefit, has a full training in acquired brain injury, so that they understand the variable nature of the condition.

One element of the personality change that may come about is that somebody with a brain injury might be desperate to please the person in front of them, so they might want to give what they think is the “correct answer” to the question being asked by the official. That can give a misleading idea of what that individual’s abilities are.

I have not asked Tom whether it is all right to say all this today—I see that he is nodding, so it is fine. When the Duracell battery inside someone’s head is running low, they talk to themselves to try to re-energise it, but that uses even more energy. That can lead to a vicious cycle: further depression and anxiety makes it more difficult to recharge the battery, in turn making it more difficult to get better.

There are others who have had much more dramatic and traumatic injuries, perhaps where something has penetrated the skull. However, in the vast majority of cases, the injury will be inside the brain. A fundamental part of what we have to address is how the mind and the personality sit inside the brain. Right hon. and hon. Members might have seen the television series “MotherFatherSon”, which deals with someone who has had a massive aneurysm and then a stroke. Lots of things in the programme are not entirely accurate, but many families and individuals have to cope with the very real element of personality change. I met a wonderful woman three months ago told me that she wished that her old self would come back. She could remember what her old self was like, but it is not the person she now is. She just does not know how to recreate that personality inside herself. Again, it is this thing of talking to yourself all the time.

If there has been impairment of the executive functions due to a brain injury to the frontal lobes, particularly in teenagers or as the young brain is still developing, it can lead to all sorts of other problems in terms of employability, and being able to engage with the wider world and their family. Sometimes people share far too much information; sometimes they are far too timid about being able to share information.

Children with Life-limiting Conditions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families.

I am conscious that other people want to speak, so I will limit my time and give them a chance to contribute, Ms Dorries. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place. I spoke to her last week and before today’s debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this important debate and the Minister for her attendance. I also thank everyone who is here to speak on behalf of their constituents. This matter is not for my constituency alone; it needs to be addressed UK-wide in a co-ordinated manner. As for the magnitude of the issue, 49,000 babies, children and young people live in the UK with health conditions that are life-limiting or life-threatening, and the number is rising. There are 40,000 in England alone.

I have three wonderful children and three perfect grandchildren. They are the best in the world, but every grandparent probably thinks that about their grandchildren. Hearing the news that one’s child has a life-limiting condition and is likely to die young is devastating. My heart always goes out to those who hear such dreadful news. The children have complex and unpredictable conditions and often need round-the-clock care seven days a week. Families have to cope with the knowledge that their child will die before them, and daily life for the whole family can become extremely challenging.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing this debate. Will he join me in praising the children’s hospice movement, including Tŷ Hafan, which serves my constituency in south Wales, for their excellent work in providing care not only for the children but for the families who need support?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right. By the way, several of today’s speakers applied for this debate along with me and I thank them also. Hospice care is important and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. Every one of us knows the role that hospices play in the lives of those who need help at a very difficult time. Although there are many excellent services, many families still have difficulty accessing the care and support that they need, which is why hospices are important.

Children with life-threatening conditions need palliative care from when their condition is diagnosed or recognised until the end of their lives. Families also need care and support throughout the trajectory of their child’s illness, including bereavement care after they have passed away. Palliative care for children includes, but is not limited to end-of-life care, and the two terms should not be used interchangeably.

Appropriate ME Treatment

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for securing the debate. The Welsh Association of ME and CFS Support confirms that 12,600 families in Wales are affected by this condition. Even with those numbers, awareness of fluctuating conditions such as these is crucial in society generally and in the Department for Work and Pensions.

It is true that ME receives far less funding than neurological conditions of similar prevalence. That must change, and the funding must also be appropriately targeted. If the World Health Organisation classifies ME as a neurological condition, clearly investment in biomedical research is required, whereas thus far funding has been concentrated on psychological and behavioural studies.

In the short time I have, I would like to pay tribute to two constituents who have contacted me. First, Sarah Oakwell spoke movingly about her symptoms and the need to develop new initiatives and additional forms of individualised treatment. She spoke of the need for new therapeutic strategies and multi-centre interventions, given the fluctuating nature of the condition. She also spoke of the need for more Government-funded research and said:

“We will wait as we do now in the hope that today will be the day you listen, take note and do something to help us all.”

I would also like to pay tribute to my constituent Reg Hann, who contacted me about his grandson and made these moving comments:

“I have had a close relationship with him all his life. Now he is too ill to travel to visit me. Too ill to speak on the phone… He is 18 at the beginning of February and will be unable to celebrate such an important birthday. I will be 95 the week after. My best present would be if he is well enough to visit me.”

What Reg and Sarah need is action. I hope they get the action that they deserve.

Diabetes

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered diabetes.

What a delight it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. C. S. Lewis, the great Christian writer, said:

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Every day, our constituents—people across Britain—are tested by the challenges that are the effects of diabetes, which is the fastest growing health crisis of our time. There is barely a family in Britain that has not been touched by it. As so many elderly ladies do, my late mother contracted type 2 diabetes when she reached her 70s. I spoke to colleagues from across the House in preparation for this debate, and many of them, including one this morning, said that they had a family member who had been affected by the disease.

In the last 20 years, the number of people in the UK living with diabetes has doubled, reaching 4.6 million. Every day, 700,000 people are dealing with the worst effects, and 700 people are newly diagnosed as suffering from some kind of diabetes. Amazingly, that is one person every two minutes, so this debate is not only necessary and apposite; rather, I would go one further and say that it is essential.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I shall just finish the next exciting sentence and then I will happily give way. By 2025, there could be as many as 5 million people living with diabetes in the UK.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing this debate. The statistic for Wales is that one person in 14 is affected. Does he agree that, going forward, we must look at prevention—seeing the warning signs and looking at lifestyle changes—as well as having excellent treatment for those who are formally diagnosed?

[Sir John Hayes]

Absolutely. I will deal with that during my speech. Information that leads to a better understanding of risk, which in turn leads to prevention, is critical, particularly with respect to type 2 diabetes, which is the type that I mentioned earlier when I referred to my late mother.

I spoke of hundreds of thousands of people who suffer from type 1 diabetes—about 500,000 at the moment, but that could easily rise to 700,000—but of course 90% of sufferers are type 2 diabetics, and prevention is particularly critical in their case.

Cancer Workforce and Early Diagnosis

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered early diagnosis and the cancer workforce in the NHS long-term plan.

It is a pleasure to see you presiding over our business this morning, Mr Howarth. I wish everyone a happy new year. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for supporting the bid of a number of colleagues for this debate, and the Chairman of Ways and Means for allowing it. I was lucky enough to be chosen as the chief sponsor, but I recognise the support of other Members in this Chamber. I will try to keep my remarks to 10 minutes or thereabouts.

I am grateful for the many briefings we have had—we have had briefings from the House of Commons Library, Barts Health NHS Trust, Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Care, the Fire Brigades Union, Macmillan Cancer Support, Breast Cancer Now, the Royal College of Pathologists, Maggie’s, the British Lung Foundation, the Royal College of Physicians, CLIC Sargent and the Royal College of Nurses. I have had more briefings from interested parties on this debate than on any other in my 21 years here. Interestingly, they virtually all agreed on two basic points. First, they welcomed the fact that the Government have addressed their issues in the 10-year review and, secondly, they welcomed the new investment but asked for more detail about staff training, recruitment and retention.

Running through most of the briefings I received were questions about the publication of the NHS long-term plan, which was promised by the end of 2018. In very timely fashion, the Government published it yesterday. It has focused the debate but not eliminated the need for it.

I want to highlight some of the issues raised in the briefings. The Royal College of Pathologists cited disturbing statistics. Notably, just 3% of services reported that they have enough staff to meet clinical needs, and more than three quarters of departments reported vacancies for consultants. The royal college emphasised the need for early diagnosis and called for increased investment in pathology services, particularly in the recruitment and training of pathologists and scientists. It said that histopathologists should be listed on the shortage occupation list as there is a shortfall in that speciality. The Migration Advisory Committee currently includes no pathology specialities on the shortage occupation list. Placing histopathology on that list would help overseas qualified pathologists to obtain a visa to work in the UK.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I lost my mother to bowel cancer last year, and I have been campaigning to reduce the bowel cancer screening age to 50. I understand from my campaign and the debates I have had that it is important that we get the pathology capacity right. Otherwise the reduction in the screening age will not work. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I certainly do. I am sorry to hear about the fatality in my hon. Friend’s family. I am sure the Minister will talk about staff and I will come to it later in my speech. Without staff in diagnosis and pathology services, the reduction in the screening age will be pointless.

The Royal College of Pathologists identified a growing demand for pathology services and predicted a 28% shortfall in staff by 2010. Cancer Research UK said, as we all know, that the earlier a cancer is diagnosed, the more likely it is that it will be treated successfully. The Labour Government’s initiative to reduce the time between an urgent GP referral to seeing a cancer consultant to two weeks was a success in ensuring swifter treatment, but 2018 was the first year in which that target was not met. I would be grateful if the Minister told us how the Government expect to address that slippage.

Cancer Research UK added that it expects new cancer cases to reach 500,000 a year by 2035—right now, it is 350,000. With more cases and more thorough screening measures, our NHS will need more diagnostic and treatment staff. Cancer Research UK highlighted that the promise to produce a workforce implementation plan after the 2019 spending review leaves the status of Health Education England’s upcoming cancer workforce plan unclear. Will the Minister give us more information about how the two initiatives relate to each other?

Macmillan said that it recognises and welcomes the focus on cancer in the NHS long-term plan, including the Prime Minister’s commitment radically to improve early diagnosis. However, it has concerns that the long-term plan will not adequately address the immediate and long-term pressures facing the NHS cancer workforce. It also asked when the workforce implementation plan can be expected this year. I note that the Health Secretary said yesterday that he expects Baroness Dido Harding to report to him by the end of March. I would be grateful therefore if the Minister can confirm that we can expect the publication of the workforce implementation plan by summer this year.

Breast Cancer Now made the point that only 18% of breast cancer screening units are adequately resourced with radiography staff, in line with breast screening uptake in its area. My area of north-east London is covered by Barts Health NHS Trust, the NHS North East London Commissioning Alliance and the East London Health and Care Partnership. Many of the points made by the national charities are apparent locally. Those bodies have made their concerns clear. They have raised the basic issue that cancer outcomes in north-east London are among the poorest in London and the country, and that presentation via the emergency route remains high and is clearly associated with advanced cancer and low one-year survival rates.

In my borough of Tower Hamlets, the one-year survival index of people diagnosed with cancer is 4% lower than the England average, and diagnosis through the emergency route remains high. The local NHS trust has plans to attack that problem with a new early diagnosis centre, which is due to open in December; the introduction of multi-diagnostic clinics, which were first introduced in Denmark and were supported here in the pilot phase by Cancer Research UK; and new faecal immunochemical testing for colorectal cancer in primary care from April this year. It plans a health and wellbeing school spread across the whole of north-east London, based on the principle of making every contact count. It is raising population awareness and screening initiatives, including placing staff to promote screening in GP practices, promoting text reminders for cervical cancer screening, video competitions for schools to promote vaccinations, prostate cancer targets, breast and bowel cancer target ads on Muslim TV channels, and the reintroduction of bowel screening reminder calling and other initiatives.

The North East London NHS Foundation Trust conclusions are relatively simple. The workforce is a key factor in delivering a faster diagnosis standard, expected by 2020 and beyond; earlier diagnosis of cancer needs a resilient and sustainable radiology, endoscopy and pathology workforce; the high cost of living, the lack of affordable housing and the disparity in salaries across London are barriers to recruitment; and there is a need to look at technology such as artificial intelligence and digital pathology, and innovations in careers.

CLIC Sargent raised the problem of diagnosing child cancer and said, worryingly, that more than half of young people diagnosed visited their GP with their parents at least three times before their cancer was diagnosed. That is of particular concern.

Breast Cancer Care also raised the workforce plan, and asked how the commitments of the current cancer strategy and the ambitions of the long-term plan will be met. The Royal College of Physicians told me that, in London in 2018, 27% of physician consultant posts advertised were not filled, and that across the UK a total 45% of advertised consultant posts went unfilled due to a lack of suitable applicants.

The British Lung Foundation made two key points: that early diagnosis is essential because almost half of lung cancers are diagnosed at stage 4 when survival rates are very poor; and that there is an urgent need to train and employ more NHS staff to diagnose lung cancer earlier. The Royal College of Nursing stated that in England there are nearly 41,000 vacant registered nursing posts in the NHS. It predicts that the number will increase to almost 48,000 by 2023 if the Government do not take action.

The Commons Library briefings said that the cancer workforce plan devised in 2017 recommended that action be taken to ensure that enough staff with the right skills are trained to deliver the cancer strategy by 2021. In November last year, the highly respected Professor Sir Mike Richards—NHS England’s cancer director—announced that cancer screening would be overhauled as part of the long-term plan. He also announced a review team to assess current screening programmes and a report is due this summer. I ask the Minister whether that timetable might coincide with the publication of the Government’s workforce plan. The Library stated that there is no measure of the total NHS cancer workforce. Will the Minister comment on that anomaly?

I would be grateful if the Minister addresses the fundamental issue raised in all the briefings: how the workforce implementation plan fits in with the strategy, and when it can be expected. I look forward to his response. He is highly regarded in his post. I look forward to the responses from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), the Scottish National party spokesperson, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), the shadow Health Minister, and to other colleagues’ contributions.

Nursing: Higher Education Investment

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Eleanor Smith]

I do agree, and my hon. Friend will hear me refer in my speech to what he has just said.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, and I commend what my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) said about the proposition that we need to pay our nurses properly to value them truly. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West agree that it is important that we have specialisms too, and that one specialism we require more of across the country is Parkinson’s nurses?

[Eleanor Smith]

Absolutely. That is where nursing is important. Nurses are becoming specialists in Parkinson’s, Turner syndrome and sickle cell, all of which are specialisms that will be required in the future of nursing.

Nurses are working in cutting-edge research on ethics, safety, improvements to care and new ways of working. They are leading from the frontline, and as professionals they should be at the heart of strategic policy making. Nursing is at a critical junction in our healthcare and systems, yet the Government are without an independent chief nursing officer after the removal of that critical leadership post from the heart of the Department of Health and Social Care. That is an insult to the nursing profession.

How many of my right hon. and hon. Friends are regularly contacted by their constituents about health and social care issues—people struggling, writing about services being reduced or cut, unable to access support without help? Increasingly, that is happening because there are not enough staff to run things safely. Across the country, nurses are clear that staffing for safe and effective care is their most important priority and their biggest worry.

Ovarian Cancer: Diagnosis and Treatment

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered ovarian cancer diagnosis and treatment.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the debate, as well as everyone who is here to support this important and timely event—both my colleagues in the Chamber, and everyone in the Public Gallery. The issue is extremely important, and I am privileged to open the debate. This will be the first time since 2014 that ovarian cancer has been debated in either Chamber.

Ovarian cancer is a quiet, invasive cancer, that robs wives, daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers of years of their lives, often unexpectedly and quickly, with devastating impacts on their families. Today about 25,000 women are living with the cancer and every day 20 will be diagnosed with it. Despite some progress in recent years the disease still takes away the lives of 4,000 women a year, and hundreds of thousands around the world. Because of its devastating effects its survival rate is, tragically, not as high as everyone would like, and 46% of sufferers do not survive for five years or more.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. To improve survival rates, we need earlier diagnosis. For many years ovarian cancer was known as the silent killer, but there are a number of signs and symptoms. Will he join me in encouraging anyone with those signs and symptoms to see their GP urgently?

[Lee Rowley]

I absolutely will. That is a timely and important point. I was on Radio Sheffield only this morning talking about the debate with someone from Target Ovarian Cancer. We spent an awfully long time talking about the symptoms, because it is important that people understand them, and are aware of them, so they can get the treatment they need if they are, unfortunately, affected.

All cancers are important. Extremely sadly—sometimes tragically—ovarian cancer tends not to receive the bulk of the attention or funding. That is partly because it does not affect as many people as other cancers, but it is also because of survival rates. The 46% rate of survival beyond five years compares unfavourably with the rate for breast cancer, which is 87%, and prostate cancer, which is 85%. There are simply fewer survivors of ovarian cancer in the UK who could highlight the importance of fighting the disease and succeeding than there are survivors of other cancers. There is a need for people to speak up about ovarian cancer. Thanks to the work of those who are doing so, it has started to receive the attention that it needs. Charities such as Target Ovarian Cancer work tirelessly every day to raise the profile of the disease, support those who have been affected, improve diagnosis and treatment, and work for a cure. I pay tribute to the work of the all-party parliamentary group on ovarian cancer, and in particular the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who chairs it. It has been a privilege to be involved in the work and I am grateful to be able to help in a small way.

What is it about ovarian cancer that requires a particular focus? From the work I have seen, there are four things: improving awareness of the disease, as the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) mentioned, so that it can be caught earlier; speeding up the diagnosis when it is suspected that someone has the disease; improving the data available for tracking the disease and our progress in the fight against it; and improving the treatment, allowing people to recover and be disease-free more quickly.

Paediatric Cancers of the Central Nervous System

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to have been granted this important Adjournment debate. In all honesty, I wish I was not having to take part in it, but on 29 January, Cian Case, a six-year-old little boy from Llanharan in my constituency, tragically died after suffering a relapse of an aggressive cancer of his central nervous system. Cian was a young, gentle and happy young boy whose life was lost too early—far too early. It was a privilege to meet Cian at a fundraising rugby match in March 2016. I will never forget his warmth and acute sense of humour about his condition, or indeed the look of joy on his face at the fact that the community had come out in their hundreds to support him.

Cancer is a foe that every single Member will have experience of. Whether it be a sibling, a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a friend or even somebody we have just got to know in passing, Members across this House, as well as the people we serve, will have had cancer touch their lives and will know of its life-shattering effects. There is no good time for anybody to get cancer, but as I am sure you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is particularly harrowing and particularly life-changing to live through your child’s suffering with, and eventually dying from, this terrible disease.

It may come as a surprise to many Members across the House that, on this occasion, I do not stand here to point the finger of blame at the Government or to take a swipe at the NHS in England, or indeed in Wales. Instead, I seek to tell Cian’s story in the hope that we can work together, on a cross-party and cross-Government basis, to help to ensure that no family has to go through what Cian Case’s family underwent.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and on speaking so movingly about his young constituent. Having experienced having a seriously ill child, I know that one vital thing in such a situation is the care that hospitals provide not just for the child, but for the parents and the carers who spend a great deal of time there. Does he agree that there should also be a focus on that as we move forward on this crucial issue?

[Chris Elmore]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to him for the bravery that he and his wife, Rebecca, have shown over William. I am so pleased to see pictures of him now looking so well and on the road to recovery.