Vaccine Roll-out

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The truth is that supply is the great limiting factor, so we do need to put the vaccination centres where they are most needed, and pharmacy has an important role right across the country. The hon. Lady is right that the great inhibiting factor is the amount of supply, and that is what we are constantly calibrating to get people as much supply, with as much notice, as we can, given the challenges that we all face.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I applaud my right hon. Friend and his colleagues across the NHS, especially here in Shropshire, for the massive effort by so many people to get this vaccination into those in the highest priority groups so quickly. However, there are still some parts of the country where only care homes and NHS frontline staff have been vaccinated, and in the South West Shropshire primary care network, no one in the community over 80 has yet received the vaccine, and none are expected to until late next week. May I ask my right hon. Friend, in common with the pleas made by a number of colleagues, to look at prioritising deliveries for those areas where the highest priority groups have yet to receive the vaccinations that they are being led to believe are now widely available?

[Matt Hancock]

Across Shropshire, and Telford and the Wrekin, 14,000 doses have been delivered to the over-80s. I will look into the specific question of the primary care network that my right hon. Friend raises, because I was not aware of that fact. Clearly, Shropshire is vaccinating the over-80s but I will look into that specific. It is true that, right across the country, the catch-up is absolutely vital in areas if they are behind, because it is right that this is done fairly across the country. I will get back to my right hon. Friend with the details of the individual case that he raises.

Ockenden Review

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; he is absolutely right, of course. The findings will be put in place, and in many trusts they already are. I was just looking for my data on the Morecambe Bay investigation, which I believe my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) also commissioned. If we look at the Morecambe Bay trust investigation, the predecessor to this, it is quite commonplace to say—I hear it all the time—“Well, we had Morecambe Bay and nothing has happened: the recommendations haven’t been implemented there.”

Actually, the Morecambe Bay investigation made 44 recommendations, 18 of which have been completed within the Morecambe Bay trust. There were 26 wider NHS learnings and recommendations, of which 14 were accepted nationally and 11 are being worked on now in the Department, to be rolled out nationally. I use that as evidence that reports such as this have consequences: actions that are implemented and make a difference in maternity units.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I add my sympathy and condolences to all those who have suffered loss or damage to their baby or mother in childbirth under the care of the trust, and I also add my voice to thank Donna Ockenden and her large team for the important work that they have done to review so many cases over the past two decades and more. I hope this will help each and every family who have suffered to reach a better understanding of the tragedy of their own case. However, the principal motivation of my then constituents, the Stanton-Davies parents, in coming forward following the loss of their baby daughter Kate, which prompted this review, was to ensure that other parents could be spared the trauma that they went through.

I am grateful to the Minister for her response to this report. In addition to what she has already said, can she tell the House, and the thousands of expectant mums whose babies are delivered by the committed clinicians at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust every year, about the improvements in safety and standards that prevail now in the women’s and children’s unit? That might reassure them that some lessons have already been learned, that more will continue to be learned on the back of this review in implementing its recommendations, and that the maternity service in Shropshire and Telford provides a safe place for babies to be born.

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. As he is aware, I have visited the trust. We have a chief executive in place now who I personally, and the Department and NHS England, have been working closely with, as well as with the team in the hospital. The trust has accepted the findings of the report and will take each of the recommendations forward, so that we learn from these tragic cases of the past and can give patients the safe and high-quality care that they deserve. My right hon. Friend was a Minister himself, I think possibly in my role, in the Department when this report was commissioned, so he has been involved with it right from the beginning.

We want the NHS to be the safest place in the world to give birth—I know I say that often at the Dispatch Box—and this report makes a valuable and important contribution towards that goal. That starts in Shrewsbury and Telford, where as I stand here now the recommendations are being discussed within the trust, and ways found both to deliver and to implement the recommendations that have been made, so that from today onwards Shrewsbury and Telford will be a safe place—as it has been for some time, while it has been on our radar and in special measures—for women to give birth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I am sorry, Mr Speaker, but it is that old habit from being a mother of four.

We procure goods and services, as I have said, with extreme urgency in accordance with procurement rules and Cabinet Office guidance. We are confident of our supply, with four months’ worth of covid-critical PPE, over 70% of it now manufactured in the UK, providing UK businesses with jobs and ensuring that all health and care providers have access to critical protective equipment needed to keep patients and staff safe.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on building new hospitals.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on building new hospitals.

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

On 2 October, £3.7 billion-worth of funding was confirmed for 40 new hospitals, with a further eight schemes invited to bid for future funding, to deliver a total of 48 hospitals by 2030. Four in the programme are already in construction, and three others have commenced early, enabling works on site. The hospital building programme is, of course, in addition to significant upgrades to 20 hospitals, which will be complete by March 2024, and is part of a wider programme of investment.

[Philip Dunne [V]]

I am grateful to the Minister for those clarifications, and I obviously welcome this programme, but before he came into office, in March 2018, his Department allocated £312 million for a major capital programme at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. Now that an independent reconfiguration panel has confirmed that these decisions were properly made and should proceed, the trust is seeking approval from his Department for advance of funds for enabling work by architects, structural engineers and others. Can he confirm when this requested £6.3 million will be forthcoming?

[Edward Argar]

I am pleased to confirm to my right hon. Friend, a distinguished predecessor of mine in this office, at this Dispatch Box that £6 million-worth of funding has been approved in principle, allowing Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust to develop its plans and produce a business case for this scheme. The Department will continue to work closely with the trust to understand how the right support can be provided centrally to develop an affordable case for the overall scheme and to maximise the impact of this funding, and I will be writing to my right hon. Friend with more detail later today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are putting this policy into action and it will be retrospective to the date of the announcement by the Prime Minister.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

Yesterday’s announcement on easing restrictions for those like me who are among the 2.2 million people who have been shielding for months is very welcome. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give on the scientific evidence that supported the decision to ease restrictions for shielders from 6 July and to finish them on 31 July?

[Matt Hancock]

I am absolutely delighted that my right hon. Friend will be able to follow guidance and take more steps out after 6 July. The decisions on shielding were all based on the best clinical advice. Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, has led the medical advice on this programme with great élan and wisdom. The reason that we are able to make these changes and recommend these steps to my right hon. Friend and the 2.2 million others in his situation is that we have protected the NHS and got the virus right under control.

Covid-19 Response

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is an incredibly important question, and one of the purposes of the £600 million extra that we are putting into the social care system and that will go direct to the frontline—local authorities are not allowed to use it for other purposes—is to ensure that when social care staff need to be away from work for infection control purposes, they are not penalised for doing so.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and my right hon. Friend in welcoming approval of an antibody test for use in the UK. I understand my right hon. Friend cannot elaborate on the timetable for its introduction, but can he tell us whether he is preparing for individuals to be able to input the results of an antibody test into the NHS covid app to help demonstrate their immunity and improve our understanding of the prevalence of this wretched virus?

[Matt Hancock]

It is not through the covid app, but we have a process for people inputting whether they think they have had the virus. As and when we manage to land an agreement on antibody testing the proposition my right hon. Friend makes is a very good one. After all, at the moment the science is not clear as to the level of immunity and the risk that we pose of transmitting to others if we have antibodies, as many of us who have had the virus hope that we have, but as the science becomes clearer, so we will also be able to be clearer with our guidance to people who have a degree of immunity on what they can do.

Public Health

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to you for calling me on my first occasion of trying this virtual system.

I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my thanks to the Minister and his team for the extraordinary efforts they have displayed during this crisis in galvanising both the health service and the entirety of Government to get behind combating this disease. This is no easy task, and I think they have done it admirably, if I may say so. I would also like to pay a brief tribute to everybody working in the NHS, in the care sector and in the public services generally—local authorities, emergency services—right across the country and particularly in Shropshire in keeping a grip. As some other speakers have said, we are some way behind the rest of the country, being a rural shire county, but that does not mean to say that the disease is not now present and, regrettably, killing people.

On the debate today, it is very clear that we are making regulations that are unprecedented in scope in taking away people’s liberty. It is therefore absolutely right that Parliament, which regards itself as the beacon of democracy around the world, is here to scrutinise, to hold Ministers to account and to hold the Government to account. I share the comments made by earlier speakers that it is absolutely right that we have the ability to review these measures every 21 days, and I encourage Ministers to acknowledge—perhaps the Minister can do so in his winding up—that it is the Government’s intent to speak to the measures as they are either repeated or relaxed over the coming weeks.

I would like to make three quick points in this debate. First, and directly related to the regulations before us, some of the most heartrending cases I have heard of during the weeks of lockdown have been the difficulties for family members of those who are patients in intensive care units in hospitals, where they quite properly cannot be visited because they are on incubator ventilators. However, when that treatment does not succeed and, regrettably, there is a tragedy and the death of a patient, it has been difficult for family members to be able to come to terms with their own grief because they are initially not able to attend either burials or cremations. I warmly welcome, first, the announcement by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government that close family members should be able to attend burials or cremations, but also that this is being confirmed in these regulations.

I would just like to add my support for care, when the Government look at relaxing the regulations, and for not imposing age-related restrictions on individuals. As we have seen all too vividly, it is possible to reach 100 and to walk—with assistance, but to walk—and take exercise in the way that Captain, now Colonel, Tom did so magnificently and galvanised the nation. We cannot introduce specific restrictions for those aged over an arbitrary limit—70-year-olds have been mentioned —without imposing very great inequality, in my view, on healthy individuals, so please do not do that.

Secondly, it is very clear from the Government’s five markers for relaxing restrictions that testing is one of the key platforms. I take my hat off to the Government again for the extraordinary effort in galvanising academia, the scientific research laboratories, the NHS laboratories, industry and even the military in achieving the very demanding testing target set by the Secretary of State for April. It is a tremendous achievement. However, these tests have all been swab tests—the antigen test—which tell whether an individual currently has the disease, so such a test is of limited use for as long as that individual is presenting symptoms. It does not help in identifying whether they have had the virus. Therefore, the antibody test is vital in order to allow us to get back to normal. It would be helpful if the Minister could give an indication to the House of what prospects we as a nation have of moving towards an antibody test that is effective.

Finally—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman is going to conclude very soon, because his five minutes are up.

[Philip Dunne]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would just like to echo the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) that the contact tracing and tracking app needs to be introduced on a voluntary basis, and the Government should take great care in explaining to the public why it is such an important tool in fighting this disease.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Once again, the Opposition Member who was next on the list is not now going to participate in the debate, so I go to another Government Member, Sir John Redwood.

Adult Social Care in Shropshire: Government Funding

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I would, but I will first give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) has just said. In south Shropshire, the population of over-65s is currently 29%, compared with 19% of the population across the UK and 23% across the county, as he said, so the issue is particularly pressing in the south.

Today, there are twice as many people over the age of 90 as there were on the day when my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and I were elected, nearly 15 years ago. However, it is not all gloom and doom about increasing demand, although that is a major problem. Shropshire is leading the way in this country in developing technologies to help cope with the growing pressure. I commend the Broseley project to him. It is one of the leading projects in the county, and in the country, trying to find technological solutions to keep people out of hospital or residential care. I encourage him to visit that project if he has not done so already.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am extremely grateful for those interventions from my hon. Friends and neighbours. I could not agree with them more. Shrewsbury is listed as one of the top 10 places to retire to in the whole of the United Kingdom because of the beauty of our town—we have more listed buildings than any other town in England. We have a larger number of senior citizens as a percentage of our total population, and that percentage is growing much faster than the national average. Governments of all political colours have poured money disproportionately into inner-city, metropolitan areas while leaving us in the rural shire counties as the poorer cousins, and it is vital that we now start to take action.

Ockenden Review of Maternity Care: Shrewsbury and Telford

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. Clearly, the majority of women using these services have an excellent and safe experience. It is good news that there is progress and improvement, but we should not gloss over any of these cases. Regrettably, there have been new, recent cases in my constituency where women have come forward, having been made aware of the review, saying, “This happened to me a couple of years ago.” It is good that the numbers are improving, but we must make sure that every one of those deaths is treated as another event.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

rose—

[Lucy Allan]

I shall be glad to give way to my other constituency neighbour.

[Philip Dunne]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I completely agree with my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), that she is making a powerful case. It is quite right that she has brought this issue forward. On the subject of current practice versus some of the cases that are being considered in the Ockenden review, which stretches back 40 years, she will remember that it was initiated by the case of a couple who were constituents of mine. They lost their baby in 2009, over 10 years ago. Their concern was that, as my hon. Friend rightly identifies, the case had been inadequately handled and effectively covered up by the hospital.

One of my concerns, in addition to getting to the bottom of what has happened over a long period of time, is that we need to be reassured, as local Members of Parliament serving our constituents today, that the maternity services available to people in Shropshire are safe and of high quality. It would be helpful if in some way, given the scale of the inquiry that Ockenden is undertaking, there could be some interim finding on the current state of practice in Shropshire and Telford, so that at least expectant mums who are going to use those services can feel reassured. That would not prevent a more detailed inquiry going back into past practice. Does she agree with me on that point?

[Lucy Allan]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That might be something that the Minister can address, because we want users of maternity services to have absolute confidence in the care that they receive. However, we do not create confidence by hiding facts. If we can get some of the facts out that have been leaked to the media, let us do that and deal with those. He is absolutely right that that will help to reassure parents and give them confidence in the services that are being delivered—the vast majority receive a very good standard of care, and safe care.

The trust, and possibly other trusts, must work towards a culture of openness and transparency and perhaps show more of a willingness to accept that, “This can happen here.” I kept hearing, “Well, this can’t happen here. It hasn’t happened here,” and I cannot feel comfortable if people cannot acknowledge where things have gone wrong.

I recognise that the Minister may not have all the answers today, and I do not expect all the points to be addressed, but we need to know why NHS Improvement sat on the review’s findings for almost a year. Given how serious they are, why has it not come forward to say, “This is what the Ockenden review has found at an interim stage”?

I want to ask who knew what and when. Were Ministers informed, or were they too kept in the dark? If this had not been leaked, when would we have been told? When will the review be completed? It has now been almost three years. When will the Secretary of State make a statement on this very, very serious issue? I also want to know whether the management still think that this has been cooked up by the media, or whether they genuinely now realise that there is a serious problem to be addressed. It is very important that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS bodies understand and acknowledge the seriousness, and that all parties are encouraged to be open about it.

As a constituency MP who has had women contact me recently to share their birth experiences at the trust, it seems to me that red lights are flashing. We need to know what is being done to ensure the safety of women and their babies using this service. I very much thank the Minister for her forthcoming comments and any reassurances that she can give my constituents on this issue.