Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise the picture that the hon. Lady paints. I did have an excellent visit to the hospitals, and they are doing some fantastic work on patient safety. Collaboration between the partners in the local health economy is much better than it has been, but there are financial pressures. We are going to have a million more over-75s in this country in 10 years’ time, and that is why we have committed to increasing the resources going into both the NHS and the social care system.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

The NHS sustainability and transformation plan review in my region recently recommended that all acute services be maintained at North Devon District Hospital. That was a very welcome decision and a victory for the community. Will the Minister work with me and local NHS managers to ensure that the clinical need that has been identified can be fully met?

[Mr Dunne]

I share my hon. Friend’s ambition. I greatly enjoyed visiting his hospital in Barnstaple during the summer, and I have been impressed by the way in which the four trusts in Devon that provide acute services have decided to come together and provide a collaborative pool of, in particular, emergency department staff to ensure that each hospital is adequately covered and there is continuity of service. I think that is a model that we can adopt elsewhere.

Ambulance Services (Devon)

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course, as we know, demand can escalate considerably during the peak summer times, but many of our roads are single-track ones with passing spaces, and it can be very difficult to get an ambulance resource to the scene in a timely manner.

My first point to the Minister is that there are no concessions for rurality; there is no funding premium to allow SWASFT to meet the extra demands that it faces. In fact, overall, its funding has fallen by 2.46% per incident in 2017-18, compared with 2014-15. It has to meet the huge increase in demand with shrinking resource, in what is one of the most challenged areas in England because of rurality. I would like the Minister to acknowledge that key point and the impact of rurality on response times.

My second point to the Minister is that although overall SWASFT is doing a good job in meeting the performance target of 75% of category 1 calls receiving a response within eight minutes, that does rather mask the picture in the most rural parts of the area. Let us take the South Devon and Torbay clinical commissioning group area as a whole, for which we have some data that show that it just meets the target, with the figure of 75.65% of calls. If we look at the breakdown for the Totnes constituency, we see that during the past three months the figure has been 61%, so my point to my hon. Friend is that, when considering a county such as Devon, he should look not just at the overall, top-line figure, but at the impact in the most rural parts of the constituencies. I hope that he will ask for that as an ongoing measure, as a response to this debate.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

There is a specific example of exactly what is being described by my hon. Friend in my constituency of North Devon—the situation in Lynton and Lynmouth, the twin villages right on the north coast. At the beginning of last week, the South Western ambulance trust withdrew what was in effect a rapid-response paramedic vehicle that was traditionally stationed in Lynton and Lynmouth, specifically because of the rurality and the distance from anywhere else of those two villages. There is a lot of concern in the community because that service has been withdrawn. I pay tribute to the CCG, which is looking for an alternative arrangement, but the fear is that there is still a gap, and the response time, because of the distance of Lynton and Lynmouth from everywhere else, is key. May I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, through my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), to consider that particular example?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Likewise, very considerable concerns have been raised in my constituency about the withdrawal this month of rapid-response vehicles from Dartmouth and Kingsbridge and in Totnes. I understand the reasoning that double-crewed ambulances can provide the conveyance that people need to hospital and that utilisation of the single vehicles is less—about 24%. I understand the rationale behind it, but equally I ask the Minister to respond to precisely the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) has raised, because the worry in communities such as mine is that once the double-crewed ambulances are conveying a casualty to an urban centre, they tend not to come back again, whereas the rapid-response vehicles did. There is a genuine concern about how we will ensure that the double-crewed ambulances come back.

As I have said, I welcome the increase in the double-crewed ambulance resource as the rapid-response vehicles come away, and I am aware of the data whereby efforts are being made to provide a reassuring response that actually the number of hours in total will increase. However, that change is just coming in this month, and I would like the Minister to assure the House today that he will look very closely at the data as they emerge over the next few months, to ensure that those vehicles are returning to the rural areas, because I fear that otherwise we will again see that SWASFT is meeting the overall, top-line target for the entire patch, but that will be at the expense of rural constituencies such as my own, where there will simply be a worsening of the response. We need to look at that very closely, and I would like the Minister to assure me that, following this debate, he will specifically ask SWASFT to ensure that there is a response available and it does not worsen in the rural parts of Devon.

I would also like to address the matter of the workforce, which is an issue across the NHS as the Minister knows. Within our paramedic resource there is actually an 11% turnover of paramedic staff, in part because they are such a skilled and valued workforce, which means in many cases they are being attracted into other parts of the NHS, for example to work in casualty departments and minor injuries units. Everyone can understand that, but we need to make sure that we are recruiting and retaining within our blue light response services as well. For example, there are currently about 100 vacancies over the whole of the SWASFT area, and 16 whole time equivalent vacancies in Devon alone. What is the Minister doing to work alongside Health Education England to address the workforce issues? I will again make the point I have done in previous debates about the impact of the pay cap on the recruitment, retention and morale of the workforce. Again, I call on Ministers to consider giving the pay review bodies greater flexibility to be able to increase the rates of pay.

We know that there are pressures on our ambulance services, but we cannot view them in isolation. I would like the Minister to consider the impact that this is having on our other blue light services, particularly the police. They have raised some worrying concerns with me about not only the amount of time that they are having to spend on scene—as they did the other day in the incident that I described—while they wait for an ambulance resource to arrive, but the fact that on occasion they themselves have to take people to hospital who should really be conveyed by an ambulance resource. To clarify, in May this year there were 226 incidents where an ambulance was requested but no ambulances were available to be assigned in the Devon and Cornwall police area, and in June there were 158. These long waits are having a knock-on on the police’s ability to carry out their other duties, and that should concern us all.

Contaminated Blood

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

This is also the first time I have had the pleasure of speaking in this House with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, so may I welcome you to your position? I also echo what has been said in thanking the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for being able to secure this important debate. Let me also say that it was a pleasure to be in the Chamber for the maiden speech by the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). I congratulate her on taking her seat.

I am not going to take up too much of the House’s time in this debate, but I want to draw the House’s attention to the case of a constituent of mine, one that I have raised in this House before; I have been fortunate to be called to speak on this issue in a number of different debates. My constituent Sue Threakall has been communicating with me for more than two years. She was one of the first people to come to me after my election in 2015 to raise this issue, and this was one of the first cases I decided to take up and follow. Other colleagues have made this point, but I, too, have to feel a sense of shame that I was not aware of the background to this story before I started to hear some of the personal testimony.

I merely intend to read out part of an email that Sue Threakall sent to me yesterday, when it became clear that this emergency debate was going to be held—I have been in constant touch with her. She asked me briefly to share with the House her story, and I am doing so because it says in more powerful words than anyone else could why it is so important that we have this full public inquiry. At the time of this email, we were not aware of the Government’s announcement, which I warmly welcome. I pay tribute to not only my hon. Friend the Minister of State, but the Prime Minister for driving this forward.

Let me share with Members what Sue Threakall wrote to me in her email yesterday:

“My husband, Bob Threakall, died in 1991, aged 47. Despite being a severe haemophiliac, he had lived a relatively normal life until he was given commercial blood products. Following that his health, and his life, followed a deep and dark downhill path.

He contracted Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV. He died a terrible death, which I believe was wholly avoidable.

He was NEVER informed about the risks known at the time of imported Factor 8.

He was NEVER told he had Hepatitis C, and indeed I only found out myself a few years ago.

His HIV test result was withheld from him for many months, thus leaving me at risk. I was fortunate...many women were not.

From Autumn 1990 until two days before he died, months later, with shadowing on his lungs and despite being at high risk of contracting pneumonia, he was left UNTREATED.

He never had the chance of seeing his eldest son married, nor met his grandchildren.

He didn’t see his middle son graduate from university.

He didn’t see his youngest son pass his 11 plus and go to grammar school.

Following his death our family basically fell apart. Grief sent us in different directions and for many years we were completely broken. The fallout is still there today, bubbling away, just below the surface.”

Sue writes in conclusion:

“It is my firm opinion, following campaigning and researching since 1985, that haemophiliacs were used as guinea pigs. I believe that, had people acted differently at the time, Bob, and so many others, would almost certainly be alive and well today.”

I found Sue’s email extremely moving, and I have repeated her words to the House today because they say better than almost any of the rest of us could why the decision that has been taken by the Government to hold this public inquiry is so welcome. I will be following this process carefully to ensure that the form of the inquiry is the best it can be, so that victims and survivors, such as my constituent, can get the truth, fairness and justice that they deserve.