Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis]

Rather than get too party political, I think it is appropriate to talk about other difficulties that have led to reductions in staffing in real terms in the Prison Service, because we on this side of the House can give lots of facts and figures about how much more is being spent. The difficulty that I know about personally now in my Banbury constituency is in recruiting and retraining staff—not with the money to pay for them, but with finding the right people. I pay tribute to all who choose to work in the very difficult mental health sphere, with patients who suffer from dreadful illnesses; the House should pay tribute to the work they do day in, day out with people who are often very difficult to deal with while they are ill.

One matter on which I am sure we can agree is the importance of reducing further the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people detained for mental health reasons in police cells. The figures are disproportionately high. It simply cannot be right that black people are four times more likely to be detained under the 1983 Act than white people. The hon. Member for Croydon North mentioned the Angiolini review and the importance of standardised data recording. I apologise for again referring to my Prison Service experience, as the mental health system is completely different from the criminal justice system, but there are themes that run through the way BAME people are treated in both systems which we increasingly find utterly unacceptable.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) for bringing the Bill to the House. Does my hon. Friend join me in welcoming clauses 8 and 9 requiring mental health units to record the relevant characteristics of the patient on every occasion in which force is used, and to submit an annual report to the Secretary of State, so that health units and also the Secretary of State can review and understand where there are patterns of behaviour?

[Victoria Prentis]

I could not agree more. The provision of statistics and retention of figures and then the crunching of them is vital. It might not sound exciting, but it is the only way to deal with the big problem of racial imbalance in both the mental health and the criminal justice system. It sounds absurd to say that figures are what will push through action on racial imbalances, but I truly believe that facts and figures—such as those provided recently in the report on the Prison Service, where we learned that 277 black women are in prison for every 100 white women—will help achieve that. Such figures are unacceptable on any level. The more we can talk about such figures, backed up by good evidence, the better. A civilised society cannot put up with such things.

I have strayed far from my brief. I am proud that the Government have committed to addressing the disproportionately high rates of BAME people detained for mental health reasons, and I am proud of the work the Government have done generally on mental health.

We all know that the 1983 Act is outdated, and it will be reformed to make it fit for the modern era. In October 2017, the Prime Minister announced a comprehensive review of the Act, with a planned end date for the report of autumn 2018. I am pleased that the review is being led by Professor Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I worked closely with him in my previous role. We were working on a case concerning the pardoning of first world war prisoners who had been shot for cowardice, and he was able to recreate their mental health states from the limited records we had available and give invaluable evidence to the court. He is a great man and I am sure he is the right person to lead this review. He has said that he expects some of the solutions to the difficulties in the mental health system to lie in practice, leadership and culture, as well as in potential legislative change.

I have been encouraged by the work on mental health in my constituency, including in the veterans support group. It meets at Behind the Wire in Heyford Park, next to my constituency office, about once a month. It is a former military establishment and the veterans who access it feel very comfortable in that environment. It is well known that veterans as a group are more prone to experience mental health issues. This particular group offers drop-ins for veterans living in the local area so they can meet organisations including the Support, Empower, Advocate, Promote service, Help for Heroes, the Royal British Legion, Veterans UK and Rethink Mental Illness, which the hon. Member for Croydon North mentioned, and which does a great deal of good work across the country.

I have other local organisations who are doing great things in supporting my constituents, including Restore in Banbury, which I was also lucky enough to meet recently. I visited the local branch of Mind in September, which has contacted me in recent days urging me to support the Bill. Its letter said that

“the proposals in this Bill are crucial to protecting people experiencing a mental health crisis...With your support this Bill would lead to better training for staff, better data, improving transparency and highlighting problem areas”.

It therefore gives me great pleasure not only to support the hon. Member for Croydon North, but to stand up for those of my constituents who have asked me to attend this debate and to speak in it.

As a former civil servant, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that we have a joined-up approach across Departments. It is very much not just a matter for the Department of Health; the Ministry of Justice is also involved. I speak to it frequently about mental health and prisoners and the use of restraint in the criminal justice system, and I hope that the Minister will reaffirm the importance of cross-governmental co-operation, including work with NHS England, on the delivery of reforms to detention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

I quite agree that we need to have the right levels of staff, and that is why I am so pleased that the Government have protected police funding. I was going to come on to this point, but I will raise it now. In the health service, we are moving towards achieving parity between mental and physical health. Some of the stats on this are very welcome. We are now spending £11.6 billion a year on mental health, for example. I believe that that is more than we have ever spent before. Also, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is giving parity of esteem.

[Victoria Atkins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not just about the numbers of staff but about how well they are trained to work in the particularly difficult circumstances of a mental health unit? The pressure on members of staff is particularly acute in such an environment. Clause 5 requires training in the appropriate use of force, which will provide positive benefits for members of staff.

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not think anyone is suggesting that police officers are actively seeking to treat mental health patients in an incorrect fashion, but there is a need for training so that they understand the correct way to behave.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is incumbent on us as we go forward with this Bill to set these new markers to ensure that we get a cultural change; we need that understanding that mental ill health is part of our life experience and most of us may well suffer from it in one form or another. For those who are the most vulnerable we absolutely need to ensure that the practices are the best they can be, so that dignity and respect is afforded to every person who needs that support.

Transparency and accountability will also allow health professionals and emergency staff to manage the risks, protecting not only the patient, but our public servants. This can protect them from false allegations and allow us to have that evidence should things go wrong. Body-worn cameras are so important in this regard. The prison in my constituency, HMP Northumberland, was one of the prisons where body-worn cameras were trialled. This has been running for nearly two years now and there has been a dramatic drop not only in the reported cases of argy-bargy between prison officers and inmates, but in poor behaviour, because inmates who might have decided to have a go cannot be bothered anymore because they know it is going to be filmed; the relationship has improved so much as a result. This has created the same thing as we see where a teacher has good discipline in the classroom, understanding that if we provide a framework everyone within it works in a more conciliatory and more constructive fashion.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am a huge supporter of body-worn cameras on police officers and on prison officers, because I believe it protects not only them, but members of the public. Does my hon. Friend agree that just as—I hope—body-worn cameras will help victims of domestic violence who perhaps do not have the confidence to give evidence against their assailants, or cannot face the consequences of doing so, the same thing may apply in respect of prisons?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Interestingly, even in the social media world we all live in, a storm of anonymity allows a level of poor behaviour. If the body-worn camera empowers people to remember that anything from good manners and good behaviour to constructive dialogue rather than more violent interventions is the way forward, this must be a tool we should be encouraging across the board. One hopes that behaviour can improve once people remember how these things can be done more constructively and with less violent interventions.

Surgical Mesh Implants

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy]

I absolutely agree and thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that.

Currently in the UK, there are about 100 types of vaginal mesh implants. Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, has raised concerns about the evidence that mesh manufacturers need to provide before their products are approved and made available on the NHS. It is extremely worrying that the Pelvic Floor Society, which is associated with the surgeon Mr Dixon and was set up as a world expert group, is partly sponsored by mesh manufacturers. The BBC spoke to the Pelvic Floor Society on camera during the “Inside Out West” documentary and was told that it had discovered complications only in 2014. However, minutes of a joint meeting of the southern, midland and northern groups of the Pelvic Floor Society in October 2012 say:

“We need to ensure that all individuals are appropriately consented for the risks of mesh placement; Long term Shrinkage, Mesh erosion, Mesh failure. We need to have a prospective registry for”

laparoscopic ventral mesh. Why, if the industry knew about these problems in 2012, are they only coming to light now? That is further proof that the Government must do something about this.

One thing that could be done is to follow the recommendations of the all-party parliamentary group and bring forward publication of the NICE guidelines on mesh for stress-related urinary incontinence. Currently, NICE says that it plans to publish revised guidelines in 2019, but we think that is too long to wait. We want NICE to urgently prioritise them. Mesh as a first-line treatment for incontinence and prolapse should be suspended until the NICE guidelines are revisited.

In May this year, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Shona Robison, confirmed that the Scottish Government had suspended the treatment for people with pelvic organ prolapse. Until we have a proper understanding of just how many women are suffering from mesh injury, we think the surgery should be suspended, but in all cases, not just for pelvic organ prolapse.

Professor Carl Heneghan says that some of the devices used in mesh treatment have not been clinically tested or trialled and that the number of people affected by mesh injury means that this could be one of the biggest medical scandals of our time. Suzy Elneil, consultant urologist at University College London, has also warned about the number of women affected by mesh injury. She is one of the few qualified surgeons in the UK who can remove mesh once it has been fitted and she tells me that she sees about 15 women a week who are suffering following mesh surgery. Consultant gynaecologist Dr Wael Agur from the University of Glasgow was once an advocate of mesh surgery, but has changed his mind since seeing at first hand the evidence of mesh risks. He agrees that there is significant under-reporting of mesh complications and says that, as a result, the MHRA has only a fraction of the knowledge of adverse events associated with mesh.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Lady on holding this important debate. The point that she makes about long-term complications is just as important as that about the short-term complications. My constituent developed fibromyalgia as a result of the complications arising from her mesh surgery for stress urinary incontinence. Does the hon. Lady agree that long-term conditions such as that must be taken into account?

[Emma Hardy]

Absolutely. Studies need to go far beyond the two years.

I am delighted that Labour has called for a public inquiry into the use of mesh. As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) rightly said, it is extremely worrying that mesh surgery has been introduced so widely, with so little evidence and with limited trials to support it.

I call on the Government to do four things. First, they must commit to a full retrospective and mandatory audit of all interventions that involved mesh, followed by a full public inquiry. Secondly, they must suspend prolapse and incontinence mesh operations while the audit is being carried out. Thirdly, they must bring the NICE guidelines for mesh in stress-related urinary incontinence forward from 2019 to 2018. Fourthly, they must raise awareness among the general public and GPs.

Mesh implants have affected thousands of people all over the country. For some, the consequences of operations will be life-changing and devastating. A Government commitment to taking these actions will not undo the suffering and pain that these people have endured, but would go a long way to making sure that nothing like this happens again.

Contaminated Blood

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I join other Members in paying tribute to all those affected by this terrible tragedy, to the families of those affected and to hon. Friends and hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friends the Members for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). I also pay tribute to the new hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for delivering her maiden speech in this important debate.

I speak today to give a voice to a constituent, who understandably wishes to remain anonymous. He was born with haemophilia and has had to endure that terrible chronic condition, the treatment for which has poisoned him—he has been infected with both HIV and hepatitis C. Those infusions have condemned him to a life of pain, of serious medication, which has its own side-effects, of major surgery and of worry. “Worry” seems an inadequate word to describe the constant weight that must be on his mind, and on the minds of those who love him, each and every day of his life.

This tragedy has affected every single day and every single aspect of his life, from his marriage to his ability to work and his family. He told me recently that he and his wife have told their grown-up child of his condition and his infections because, as he told me, “when is the right time to tell your child that you have HIV and hepatitis C?” So my constituent welcomes today’s announcement. He asks for a Hillsborough-style inquiry because, as others have said, people affected by this do not have time on their side.

I must declare an interest as a barrister. I hope the public inquiry will ensure that public money is directed towards those who need it most, namely the victims and their families, not towards massively expensive tribunal costs. I state that warning to any of my former colleagues in the legal profession.

I am conscious that some of my colleagues wish to speak in this debate, so I will finish by talking about a school photograph that my constituent brought into a surgery. It was like any other school photograph—children smiling, and with teachers on either end of the row—but this photograph was different. It showed my constituent’s class at the special school he had to attend because of his medical condition. Eight of his school friends had haemophilia. Four of those eight are now dead as a result of contaminated blood infections, and another is so ill that, in his early 50s, he is forced to live in a specialist care home because of how his body has been left.

My constituent and the thousands of others we have heard about today are the victims of a terrible episode in our national life. They have fought for justice for 30 years, and I thank this Prime Minister and this Government for listening and acting. I hope this inquiry delivers answers for those affected.

NHS Shared Business Services

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The costs are in excess of £6 million, and we are seeking to recover as much of that as we can from the company involved. I know that the regime in the Labour party has changed, but to try to turn this into an issue of privatisation when under the right hon. Gentleman’s own party’s Government—and indeed, during his own time as Health Secretary—we had problems at Mid Staffs that were squarely in the public sector is wholly inappropriate. This is about proper assurance of what is going on in the NHS, and both sides of the House need to learn the lessons.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

In order to reassure my constituents, will my right hon. Friend confirm that NHS SBS no longer provides this mail redirection service, that all backlogged correspondence has now been delivered to the relevant GP surgeries for filing and that no patient harm has been found in this case?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Of course we welcome the fact that no patient harm has been identified to date. We have to wait until the process of the third clinical review is completed on at-risk patients’ records, which will happen by the end of December. She is absolutely right to say that SBS is no longer performing this contract; it has been taken in-house. Other parts of the SBS contract not related to what we are discussing today were given to another supplier.