Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill

Steve Baker Excerpts

Friday 16th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I made the point earlier that the barriers to access of innovation are much broader than the fear of litigation, and I am happy to reinforce that.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

The Minister will know that in the treatment of wet AMD Lucentis costs £700 an injection and Avastin £60. Does he think the Bill could help clinicians use Avastin to treat wet AMD, thereby saving the NHS, I understand, some £84 million?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is quick to leap on to a very important point. The answer is no, because in law we have an important provision to protect people who invest billions of pounds in developing new innovations. Clinicians are free to use alternative off-label drugs where there is evidence they work, but not on the basis of cost. We have a presumption in law that where a drug is licensed or on patent for a particular indagation, which is the protection for the company that has invested to bring the drug to market, we allow an alternative to be used only where there is clinical evidence, not on cost grounds. The price falls dramatically when drugs come off patent and the generics industry picks them up. There is price protection for a short period of patent life to create the incentive for people to make the extraordinary investments up front. We then get the benefit of cheap drugs through the generics sector.

[Mr Baker]

The Minister raises a critical point. I am concerned that cost grounds do matter and that some people might be going without early treatment for wet AMD, because they cannot, for a range of reasons, access Avastin. My concern is that people might be going untreated for wet AMD at a point when the relevant drug, Avastin, might help them more than Lucentis at a later stage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I will take no lessons on transparency from the Opposition. Professor Sir Brian Jarman said that the Department of Health under Labour was a “denial machine” when it came to the problems of Mid Staffs. We have made the NHS more transparent than ever before, and we will continue to practise transparency.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

T6. What progress has been made towards the implementation of the Keogh review of urgent and emergency care?

[Mr Hunt]

We are making good progress and we expect to make a substantive announcement on that before the end of the year. That will be about improving the standard and the quality of care in A and E departments, which I know my hon. Friend has a great interest in, and removing the confusion that people feel about what precisely the NHS offer is in their area. It is looking good and I hope to have something to announce to the House before too long.

NHS Reform

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what the doctors and nurses working in our NHS hospitals see. They see 8,000 more hospital nurses on full-time contracts than when his party was in power, because we are doing something about the scandal of short-staffed wards that was left behind by his Government.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that neither the revalidation regime nor the NHS’s status as a near monopsony employer is allowed to promote anxiety among NHS staff who would otherwise wish to speak up? It is essential that they know they have that freedom and security.

[Mr Hunt]

As ever, my hon. Friend is spot on. At the heart of what I am saying today is creating a new learning culture inside the NHS where people are able to be open. In the airline industry, it is much easier for a junior pilot to talk to a senior pilot about a mistake they think the senior pilot has made without feeling it will impact on their career. We need to break down the barriers, so that when people talk about their concerns—even about what their boss has done, which is never easy—they are listened to and treated seriously, and there are no consequences as a result. We absolutely have to make that change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

I gently remind the hon. Lady that the difference is that changes to services provided at hospitals are now made on the recommendation of clinicians, rather than of bureaucrats and Ministers, as it was under the previous Government, in which she served. In respect of her own hospital, the number of diagnostic tests for cancer are up by 22,000 since 2010, the number of MRI scans by 6,000, the number of CT scans by 7,000 and the number of operations by 1,800. That is a record of which to be proud.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Wycombe hospital could benefit from one of the excellent models in the “Five Year Forward View”. Will my hon. Friend make sure these excellent proposals are carried through with energy and alacrity?

[Ben Gummer]

The strength of the NHS forward view is that it is a creation of the NHS itself, and we, as the only party to back it in full with cash, will give it the kind of support it needs to make sure it is delivered.

A&E Services

Steve Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and may I say what a pleasure it is to see her again in the House of Commons? She is entirely right in what she says. We all remember the pictures, and we remember the Prime Minister’s promises and those from the previous Secretary of State. My right hon. Friend is right to say that nobody should ever take any lessons from Conservative Members or believe what they are being told by them—not one bit.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Why is it that when an A&E department is lost from a Labour constituency it is the Government’s fault, but when one was lost in a Conservative constituency under the previous Government that was “clinically led”? Can the hon. Gentleman explain the contradiction?

[Mr Reed]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is not listening; the rules have changed. The system whereby these processes are undertaken has comprehensively changed. If he were to draw a golden thread through Conservative health policy over the past five years, it would be that the public do not matter and are not listened to, and that change is driven from the centre, irrespective of what local clinicians say.

Health and Social Care

Steve Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

As this is the first time that I have spoken in this Parliament, may I state for the record that I am married to a full-time NHS consultant forensic psychiatrist who also chairs the Westminster liaison committee for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and will shortly be taking up a role as the registrar of the Royal College of Psychiatrists? I also have a daughter who is a foundation junior doctor and another daughter who is a medical student. The House will be pleased to hear that my son has managed to escape; perhaps his handwriting was not quite bad enough.

I was honoured to have worked as a front-line clinician in the NHS for 24 years, and I wish to start by extending my thanks and paying tribute to all those colleagues who work across the NHS with such professionalism and compassion. In replying to the Gracious Speech, I wish to touch on four areas: the workforce challenge; the financial challenge; volunteering; and issues around prevention.

I was so pleased to see the Five Year Forward View right at the centre of our commitments in the Gracious Speech. I am talking about the commitment not just to back the Five Year Forward View but to the £8 billion that we will need by 2020. I ask the Government to front-load as much as possible of that £8 billion, because what we see alongside that £8 billion is the need to make £22 billion of efficiency savings. Ministers will know that in the previous Parliament those efficiency savings were largely achieved by pay restraint in the NHS, but in the long term pay restraint will start to have implications for recruitment and retention, which are already major challenges for the NHS.

I welcome today’s announcement because it was unsustainable to continue spending £3.3 billion a year on agency costs. Using agency staff not only leaches money from the NHS that could be better spent elsewhere, but has an undermining effect on permanent staff in the NHS. In fact, it starts to have a domino effect on the ability to retain staff, so it is simply unsustainable. When the Minister responds, I hope she will set out how the caps on those rates, which I welcome, will play in relation to the rates that are paid to NHS bank staff and give us more detail about the arrangements. Where there are crises in staffing, we need to know that safety will be paramount and how those caps will be overruled in emergencies. It is important that that clarity is delivered across the NHS.

Recruitment and retention are about not just pay rates but staff morale and the way that staff feel valued. They are also about the ability of staff to work in teams. We need to consider the effect of increased shift working across the NHS. I am talking about the effect of the structure of the service. There is also the burden of paperwork and administration on NHS staff. All those things are important when we consider how to retain permanent staff in the NHS and to move away from our reliance on agencies.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the work of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which is trying to change the way that emergency medicine consultants work in order to retain more of them in their particular specialty? At the moment, far too many of them leave that specialty, creating some of the problems that we see across the country.

[Dr Wollaston]

Absolutely, and I recognise and value the work that has been done. We also need to look at the skill mix across the NHS. It is unsustainable to deliver the commitments to primary care and to improve access to primary care unless we look further at the skill mix across the wider NHS. For example, we talked in Health questions about the use of pharmacists. The one area of the NHS where there is not any kind of workforce shortfall is in pharmacy, and that industry has much to offer to primary care. We also need to consider the role of physician associates and nursing assistants, and look at how we can diversify and provide better continuing professional development across the NHS. All those things will be important as we move forward.