Bowel Cancer Screening Age

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Ansell]

Indeed. I am looking forward to hearing more from the Minister about the excellent work the Government are doing. I know that they have plans and prospects for hitting that low take-up. I fear that that low take-up might be a very British sort of thing, and we need to break through that if we are to strive to see the same survival rates as some of our European counterparts.

On early diagnosis, those diagnosed with stage 1 bowel cancer have a 97% chance of survival, which is hugely positive. That compares with a chance of survival of just 7% when the cancer is more advanced. Early diagnosis not only provides patients with a much better chance of survival, but would cost the NHS far less, saving an estimated £34 million according to the charity Beating Bowel Cancer. That is because treatment for the earlier stages of cancer is often less intensive and invasive than treatment for more advanced diseases.

Sadly we also know that we are lagging behind other countries on survival rates. A 2013 study for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was part-funded by the European Commission, found that in Britain we diagnose bowel cancer later than other countries, while our survival rate overall for bowel cancer was only 51.8%. That is lower than the European average of 57% and lower than Germany’s survival rate of 62%. That is not where we want to be. I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister about her Department’s sterling work, but my question today is: could the age of screening be revisited? Is there scope to further personalise and target testing in those younger years?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

For the Minister’s benefit, the debate will conclude at 4.57 pm.

Community Pharmacies

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

Thank you, Mr Streeter, and I thank Members for their contributions, which have been really helpful. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for seeking to tackle the many issues that have been raised. We all agree that the NHS is a fantastic institution. Community pharmacists hold some of the keys to improving patient care in the community and reducing pressure on GPs and other NHS services. I hope that the debate has gone some way to empower pharmacists to offer the solutions that the Government are seeking in order to secure a modern-day NHS, but this is all about the best care for patients, which we all agree is what really matters.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

[Mr Philip Hollobone in the Chair]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Will those who are not staying for the next debate please leave quickly and quietly? We now come to a very important subject to be addressed by the Member for the sunniest place in the United Kingdom, Caroline Ansell.

Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady does dangerous work if she tries to conflate the comments that I and others have made about the leadership of the BMA with the motivations of junior doctors, none of whom I have impugned. I recognise that junior doctors work incredibly hard, care passionately about their patients and have a vocational drive to do the best for the people they care for, but that is different from an organisation that refuses to talk, refuses to negotiate, lies to its members and is very slippery in the statements it puts out to the press.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Kettering general hospital is always under huge pressure, and the junior doctors there do a fantastic job. May I tell the Minister that my constituents will be extremely disturbed to hear him tell the House today that the BMA said at the ACAS talks that it would negotiate about Saturday pay but is now refusing to do so? The consequence will be a strike on Wednesday, and my constituents are appalled that 2,884 operations have already been cancelled, with that number possibly set to go even higher.

[Ben Gummer]

My hon. Friend is right about that. He mentions one of a number of agreements that we have come to with the BMA in the course of these discussions that have subsequently been reneged upon by that organisation. That is why this whole process has been so torturous for everyone involved.

World Prematurity Day

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. Statistics regularly prove that we are not doing as well as our Scandinavian colleagues, and we should look at that. I know that we are doing so—a lot of work is going on in the Department of Health and elsewhere to see where we can improve.

I really want to be able to say to my friends who suffered from a full-term stillbirth that the care available to parents in similar situations is much better than it was for them. I said in my 2010 speech that the mother of the full-term stillborn baby was told at the beginning of a weekend that her baby had passed away, but she was sent away because an anaesthetist was not available, so she had to come back on the Monday to have the baby delivered.

I do not deny that there will always be stillborn and premature babies, but what matters is how we look after the parents and how neonatal units look after the babies. I am absolutely sure that in this Chamber and this Parliament, and across society, we all want to deliver the best possible care in those situations.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The format in Westminster Hall is that we have the Back-Bench speeches and then, no later than 10.30 am because we are due to finish at 11, we will have the first of the Front-Bench speeches, from the Scottish National party, and then hear from the official Opposition and from the Minister, but if we get to the Front-Bench speeches before that, so be it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) on securing this incredibly important debate. I will start by picking up on some of the points made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that focused on mortality, because our prematurity rates are a national scandal. He is absolutely right when he says that they have stagnated for about a decade. We have one of the worst records in the western world; I believe we are positioned 33 out of 35 countries. That is totally unacceptable considering we have one of the best health services in the world. It is a scandal.

When we talk about statistics and about being 33rd out of 35, we forget that we are actually talking about babies—more than 5,000 babies a year. More than 5,000 families go through the absolute tragedy of stillbirth or neonatal death. I very much welcome the fact that the Government now have a focus on the matter. Statistically, the third biggest cause of stillbirth and neonatal death is prematurity, and that is poignant to this debate.

The Government have recently made an announcement on stillbirth and neonatal death, as the hon. Member for Strangford rightly pointed out, with an ambition to reduce rates by 20% by the end of this Parliament and by half by 2030. That is a huge number—more than 2,000 babies who will be saved and 2,000 families who will not have to go through this most traumatic and awful experience. My wife and I have been through a full-term stillbirth, and it is a traumatic experience. As a Government, we should do anything we can to avoid those tragedies. I am glad that there is that renewed focus. That is key— it is the driver to ensure that we have the training and the best possible equipment.

Looking at the whole NHS, some of our hospitals have the best maternity units and are doing the best work anywhere in the world—second to none. Sadly, that is not consistent across the country. The situation is patchy. That is something that I very much hope the Minister will address as part of this programme. We must ensure that we have the later-pregnancy monitoring equipment that can save lives and, more importantly, the training so that midwives know what to spot and have the confidence to stand by what they believe in terms of diagnoses.

There is also the question of what we do when things do not go well; of course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry suggested, we cannot avoid stillbirths or neonatal deaths. We can reduce the numbers, and the Government have measures in place to do so, but, sadly and tragically, there will always be stillbirths and neonatal deaths. I secured an Adjournment debate a few weeks ago in which I said that we must have the right procedures, processes and facilities to ensure that those who go through a stillbirth or neonatal death, particularly the parents, have a support network.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) talked about gynaecology counsellors and bereavement-trained midwives, and it is important that we have such facilities providing support in every maternity unit in the country. She rightly said that a huge number of marriages fail because of a stillbirth or neonatal death—I think the figure is a staggering 90%, which is enormous; I know the huge pressure that it put on my family and my relationship with my wife. I can entirely see how relationships can be broken up by that hugely traumatic experience. When I talk about the NHS, I know that we have the best facilities in the world, but we have to ensure that those facilities are available across the country. I am talking about specialist suites, bereavement-trained midwives, specialist nurses and psychological support, which is also important.

I am conscious of the time, but I will pick up on two other points. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) mentioned hospital car parking, which was almost flippantly talked about, but it is hugely important. We forget that not everyone can afford to pay the £20 or £30 a week that some hospitals are charging. My hospital in Colchester has a reduced rate of £10 a week, I believe, but for some people even £10 a week is a huge amount of money. It is not only the parents but the families, the grandparents and the carers who are paying, so it is important that hospitals follow the guidance to ensure that hospital parking is affordable—or, even better, free so that families who are going through the most traumatic experience of their lives are not worrying about money. That is really important.

The hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) touched on an interesting point about the pressure on parents from prematurity and from having to go to the hospital. The mother is likely to be in hospital on an ongoing basis, but we forget about the importance of the father’s role. A father gets only two weeks’ paternity leave, after which he will be going back to work and either thinking all day about his premature child and then racing up to the hospital to try to squeeze in time with the baby in the morning and evening, or putting his job at risk by taking that time off, regardless of the consequences. Government guidance on the importance of employers understanding and recognising the pressures of prematurity on families is important.

I am conscious of the time, so I will conclude by saying that we have one chance to get this right. I welcome the steps that the Government are taking. When they announced their ambition to reduce by half the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths the week before last, it was my proudest moment in the six months since I was elected to this place. I welcome those steps, but we need to go further and ensure that people have the facilities, the processes and the places to go to as they go through this incredibly traumatic experience. We must also make sure that stillbirths and neonatal deaths are as rare as possible. I welcome this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry on securing it. This is an incredibly important issue that we can all get behind and support.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

If the Front Benchers can keep their speeches to 10 minutes, and if the Minister can conclude his remarks just after 10.55 am, Mr Heaton-Harris will have three minutes in which to offer us a pithy summary of the debate and I will have 30 seconds to put the motion to the House. We will then have achieved everything we set out to achieve today.

Junior Doctors Contract

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The Secretary of State has gone out of his way to seek to explain to doctors the basis of the contract, partly to deflect what was said about it originally by the BMA during the course of the industrial dispute. He will continue to do that. There is no doubt that we all value the work of junior doctors enormously and fully appreciate that they will be looking very hard at their conditions and everything else. Proper union representation is not delivered by a union that refuses to negotiate after three and a half years and after independent recommendations have been made. I urge the hon. Lady, who also has a valuable role in the NHS in relation to pharmacy and a deep interest in carers, to recognise what will happen for those 50,000 or 60,000 elective admissions that will not be able to take place, to think about those who will be involved and to continue to stress, as I know she will, that negotiations are the answer and that conciliation is available if they are not successful.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents appreciate and value the work of junior doctors but are worried about the threat of strike action and its potential impact on patient treatment, and really would not want strike action to take place. For the benefit of my constituents, will the Minister tell the House what a typical junior doctor gets paid, whether that is likely to go up or down as a result of the contract and whether that typical junior doctor is likely to work more or fewer hours?

[Alistair Burt]

As we all know, the pay of a junior doctor varies. As the Secretary of State has made clear, there will be an 11% increase in basic pay; antisocial hours will still be covered; junior doctors will work fewer hours to ensure greater safety; and there will be more cover at the weekends to ensure that the burden junior doctors bear is more equally shared.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

As I have often had cause to observe, repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In Northamptonshire, 80% of end-of-life patients die in hospital, whereas 80% of end-of-life patients want to die at home, assisted by the hospice movement. I have discovered that GPs are ticking the end-of-life box on the quality outcomes framework form, but that that information is not being passed automatically to local hospices. What can the Department do about that?

[Ben Gummer]

My hon. Friend raises a terribly important matter. Clinical outcomes can be assessed in a complete sense only if they include end-of-life care for those for whom there is no clinical outcome in the commonly received understanding of the term. If that is what is happening in his clinical commissioning group area, it is unacceptable. I point him to the work that the Government are doing on a paperless NHS to ensure that the kind of bureaucratic muddle he has identified no longer occurs.

Cancer Drugs

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The debate is due to last until 11 o’clock. I want to call the three Front Benchers no later than just before 10.30 am—they will have about 10 minutes each. We will hear from Mr Shannon again for two or three minutes at the end as he sums up the debate. I will then put the motion to the Chamber. Now, the moment we have all been waiting for: I call Nic Dakin.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the first of the speeches by the Front-Bench Members. They have about 10 minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, but we are running out of time so I am going to call Jim Shannon to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I encourage Lady Hermon to grab the Minister and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on the way out.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the availability of cancer drugs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I must confess that I have not yet read that report, but my hon. Friend has reminded me of how important it is that I should do so. I will read it carefully while thinking about whether it could help us to get through the winter pressures this year.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Kettering general hospital, the local clinical commissioning group and the Government are all agreed that the best way to help the NHS in north Northamptonshire to cope with pressures all year round, including in the winter, would be to develop a £30 million urgent care hub at Kettering general hospital. That project is with Monitor. What can the Secretary of State do to encourage Monitor to speed up its deliberations?

[Mr Hunt]

Once again, I thank my hon. Friend for his persistent campaigning on behalf of Kettering general hospital. It is a very busy hospital under a great deal of pressure, and I know that people work very hard there. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who has responsibility for hospitals, met campaigners from Kettering recently to discuss this issue, and I will bring the matter up with Monitor as well.

Hospital Services (South Manchester)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jeff Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Clearly, Wythenshawe was the public choice for a specialist hospital.

On working together, which I was just talking about, there is clearly a growing and improved relationship between Wythenshawe and the Manchester Royal Infirmary. Some people see that as a concern, but I think that it is very much to be welcomed and we need to see it as an opportunity.

In south Manchester, we have the opportunity to be an exemplar of partnership working. We have two fine hospitals in Wythenshawe and the MRI, which are on either side of my constituency. My constituency also houses the excellent—and, I believe, underused—facilities at Withington community hospital, which was established under the last Labour Government. I look forward to an expanded role for Withington community hospital in health provision in south Manchester, supporting the two major hospitals and providing joined-up services for all our communities.

We have an opportunity to use Withington community hospital to integrate community services, primary care, secondary care and mental health support, with health services and social care services working together for the benefit of all the community in Manchester Withington and the whole of south Manchester. I urge everyone involved to make the most of that opportunity to expand and improve services at Withington community hospital.

I agree with many comments that hon. Members have made about the Healthier Together process, but I welcome the opportunity to use all those hospital resources together—to use Withington as a thriving community hospital to improve health outcomes for people in south Manchester.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Front Benchers, I should say that we are going to have the pleasure of hearing Mike Kane sum up the debate for three minutes at the end. I would be grateful if the Front Benchers would be kind enough to leave him enough time to do that and if he would be kind enough to leave me 30 seconds at the very end to put the motion to the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

I am acutely aware of the huge spread of sensibleness on both sides of the Chamber, and I would not want any of my remarks to be construed as suggesting otherwise. On the contrary, I restate that it is not only reasonable but right that local Members respond to the views expressed by very experienced clinicians in their local hospital.

In my short discussions so far with local commissioners —I am sure there will be more discussions—I have impressed on them the need to engage fully with all clinicians. I understand that they began the process afresh before I made that request and that they will continue that engagement. We will only get good reconfigurations across the country if we have the general buy-in of clinicians and the public. We are now doing that better than we were five, 10 or 15 years ago, when every reconfiguration of every kind was fought tooth and nail by everyone. There is now a general move to an understanding that we need to make some changes to some areas. Indeed, the shadow Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), has made clear his desire to see some services centralised:

“If local hospitals are to grow into integrated providers of Whole-Person Care, then it will make sense to continue to separate general care from specialist care, and continue to centralise the latter. So hospitals will need to change and we shouldn’t fear that.”

I could not agree with him more on that general principle, but it does not change the fact that commissioners need to engage with every single party.

My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, and every other Member, can be sure that I will pass back to commissioners their specific concerns about that engagement. In the discussions, which I am sure will continue between all of us, I hope that he and other Members will notice continued engagement between commissioners and clinicians at the hospital, and I hope that there will be a happier outcome than the one that might come about through judicial action.

The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and the shadow Minister both spoke about Manchester airport and made interesting and valid points about the need for a stated relationship between important national infrastructure and centres of major trauma care. I will respond to the shadow Minister in writing on that specific question, if he does not mind sharing that response with his colleagues. This is an important matter, and I want to ensure that I can answer it in detail and in full.

If I interpreted his remarks correctly, the shadow Minister also said that consultations had been taken out of the hands of clinical commissioning groups specifically to be conducted by a third party, such as health and wellbeing boards. Again, I have not previously heard that idea, but I am happy to respond to that specific point once I have been able to give it greater thought, with no implication for the current consultation.

I will now close in order to give the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East time to reply to my comments. We all agree that reconfiguration needs to happen. In this instance, there has clearly been support from those Members who have been the beneficiaries of the reconfiguration in their constituencies, but the most important beneficiaries will be the people of Manchester, who I expect will see world-leading trauma care connected to emergency stomach and bowel surgery as a result of these changes. We must be proud that clinicians are leading the review, we must be proud that clinicians have been prepared to make bold and difficult decisions and we must be proud that Members present have come forward to represent the concerns of some that clinicians have not made those decisions in the right way. Members have made those points with lucidity, care and passion.

I hope that in the next few weeks we will resolve this matter in a rather happier way than it might otherwise have been resolved, and I pledge to continue my discussions with Members on both sides of the House to ensure that that is the case.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I will call Mike Kane to give a winding-up speech of two or three minutes. Members who are here for the next debate should get ready, because we will go straight on to that debate rather than waiting till 11 o’clock.

[Mike Kane]

Thank you for your excellent chairing of these proceedings, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the Minister for his reflective comments on the process and for bringing us up to date on the latest developments. I stress to him that the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and I are not behind the curve, as he can probably tell from the excellent contributions made by them.

I also thank the Minister for what he said about Paul Goggins, who worked with local elected members long before I did on the reconfiguration of Trafford services. In some ways, the assurances that he had about those reconfigurations and about working with NHS England are not being met through the process. It was also Paul Goggins, along with colleagues, who campaigned for the improvements in accident and emergency at Wythenshawe hospital. A £12 million scheme will begin there in November to create a new A and E village, a world-class facility. The Minister is right that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to integrate health and social care. It is also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to show that large conurbations such as Manchester, which is moving towards 3 million people, can take control of their powers to deliver their own health and social care.

I thank the Members who have turned up. What my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) did not say about himself is that he was at the forefront of the campaign to build the new hospital in Withington all those years ago, when we reconfigured the services. We can make more of that hospital; we are already discussing 24/7 GP access there. If we can realise that vision to ease the pressures on A and E departments across the conurbation, it will be a major achievement, thanks in no small part to his campaigning activity long before he came to this place.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) is in her place. The hospital in her constituency has undoubtedly had a torrid time over the past six or seven years, but today NHS England lifted it out of special measures, which is cause for everyone to celebrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has been a constant defender of his local hospital, North Manchester General, and has been a visionary leader, in the sense that we are now getting to the point of being able to devolve powers on skills, housing, transport, business, investment and, eventually, healthcare to Greater Manchester. He has been at the forefront of that.

I thank the shadow Minister for his erudite contribution and for linking the issue to Manchester airport. We cannot consider health on its own. The decision on “The Northern Way”, or the northern powerhouse, can be pivotal in getting world-class inward investment in healthcare in Manchester. It will link to the airport next to the hospital, which had 23 million passengers this year, increasing to 40 million over the next couple of years. We have plans in our area to expand the Metrolink at some stage to connect Wythenshawe directly. Currently it connects to Manchester airport, but we want to send the loop around to connect with the High Speed 2 station and back to Wythenshawe hospital.

We in the north-west have had problems in the past, as hon. Members will know. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), who has been considering life sciences across the region, including AstraZeneca and regenerating Alderley Park, and linking the issue to our vision of a life sciences institute medi-park on the Roundthorn industrial estate next to our hospital. That could be further linked to the Corridor project involving graphene and the life sciences, associated with Central Manchester hospital. We need more links with that in the future. That site also ties into Airport City, which is in development both south and north of the airport. We are expecting massive change in south Manchester and Trafford over the next 10 to 15 years. It will be generational change that will drive the northern powerhouse, with the addition of HS2 and possibly, given the discussions that the Department for Transport is having, of HS3.

We have a wider vision for the site, and we do not want it to be set back by process issues. Let us all—people watching today and everybody in this Chamber—commit to the vision of making south Manchester and Greater Manchester a world-class place for economic investment and healthcare.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Would all those who are not staying for the next debate please be courteous enough to leave quickly and quietly?

Contaminated Blood

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of English votes for English laws. That has been deferred, because the House wishes to discuss it further.

On the issue before us, a report was delivered in March, but the general election then intervened, which effectively took six weeks out of the time in which the Government could make decisions. We began work the minute we returned to government, and I have now provided an update and the prospectus for a consultation in the autumn. It will be the first consultation that the sufferers have ever been able to enjoy, and we will finish it as quickly as possible in order to arrive at a settlement. That is rapid progress, given that it has taken us more than 30 years to reach this point.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I have been listening very carefully to my hon. Friend. Will he be kind enough to make it crystal clear to the House exactly what his intentions are? I understand from what he has said that he expects a new scheme to be up and running by the end of calendar year 2015. If that is incorrect, by when does he expect such a scheme to be established?

[Ben Gummer]

We shall be consulting this year, the consultation will be concluded by the end of the calendar year, and we hope that a new scheme will be up and running as soon as possible after that. It will, of course, depend slightly on the outcome of the consultation, but I expect the scheme to follow very rapidly on the heels of its conclusion. None of us has an interest in delaying this any further.