Dentistry: Access for Cancer Patients

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Dowd, to serve under your chairmanship.

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) for securing this very timely debate, and I also thank Michele for the wonderful campaign that she has been running on this issue. I declare an interest, as I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dentistry and oral health. Hopefully, that will remind the Minister that is a cross-party issue and that many of her party colleagues are concerned about it.

Dentistry is in crisis across the country, whether in Devon, Somerset or in constituencies such as mine—Bolton South East. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston has detailed the importance of free dental treatment for all cancer patients. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), who has just spoken, about the details of the effects of this crisis on cancer patients, which she knows because of her experience of being a nurse. I also listened to what the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) said about his dealings with a constituent who had a cancer issue and who then had to take out his own teeth, which really is not acceptable in 21st-century Britain. I strongly support an exemption for people who are suffering from cancer and who therefore should be able to receive all the treatment that they need.

In fact, I was contacted by a constituent who had breast cancer. She told me how confused—indeed, how overwhelmed—she had felt. The last thing on her mind was dental health. However, a dental check-up should be essential for cancer patients; indeed, it should happen before anyone starts chemotherapy. Imagine the complications in treatment for someone with a suppressed immune system who is recovering from an infection. There are countless horror stories out there about the expensive dental work required by many cancer patients and they simply cannot afford it, especially given the cost of living crisis and the rising cost of bills.

I urge the Minister to get things done so that free dentistry is made available. The reality, however, is that even if the Minister made such a commitment today, as I am urging her to do, many people will not be able to access the service due to the ongoing crisis in NHS dentistry. For example, pregnant women and new mothers theoretically enjoy free NHS dentistry, but official data shows that over the last three years 1.2 million of them missed out on this entitlement because they were not able to access an NHS dentist.

It is crucial for all patients that this crisis is addressed urgently. The Minister will be aware that in 2021 about 2,000 dentists quit the NHS. In 2022, a BBC survey found that nine out of 10 of the dental practices still offering NHS services were not accepting any new adult patients, and eight in 10 were not taking on any more children, even though children are supposed to be a special category. Many of them have been left without access to basic healthcare, resulting in “dental deserts” across England. The problem is getting worse because many dentists are leaving the profession. For those who have stayed, morale has reached rock bottom.

What are the Government doing about this? They have been in power for 14 years. Recently, they introduced a so-called dental recovery plan, which many dentists have said is not even worthy of the title, because it will not stop the exodus from the workforce or offer hope to the millions who are struggling to access care. If the whole point of this plan was to stop dentistry becoming an issue, I am afraid the Government have failed. This is a crisis that will remain a burning issue in our communities across the country until we get real change. Constituents like mine in Bolton South East can see that NHS dentistry has been abandoned and left to rot by this Government. The system is not working. Many constituents write to me about trying to access NHS dentistry, and I have personally made phone calls trying to get them an appointment. It has been impossible to get an appointment until my office writes and persuades them to accept someone.

When the NHS dental recovery plan was introduced, the Health and Social Care Secretary assured the House of Commons that the plan was backed by £200 million in new funding. She very clearly said:

“There is £200 million on top of the £3 billion that we already spend on NHS dentistry in England.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2024; Vol. 745, c. 264.]

She reiterated that the £200 million was additional money. I was therefore very surprised to hear the Minister who is here today explain to the Health and Social Care Committee that the plan to deal with crises in NHS dentistry was not in fact backed by any additional investment. She stated that it was

“all coming out of the £3 billion that is currently”

being “underspent”.

I hope the Minister understands that these two statements contradict each other. On 20 March, I made a point of order in the Commons Chamber in which I raised this matter with the Deputy Speaker. I asked the Minister to return to the House to correct the record. So far, she has not done so; I hope she will do it today.

Saving dentistry is not rocket science. We need an NHS contract that is actually fit for purpose, with funding that means practices can be sustainable. We need real reform now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

No. How it works is that the ICB commissions dentists to provide NHS dentistry, and the NHS contractor undertakes to fulfil a number of units of dental activity. If they do not do that, for whatever reason, at the end of the financial year the ICB claws back the money they gave the NHS dentist to fulfil that contract. I am not judging anything; I am merely giving the hon. Gentleman information that I hope is helpful to him.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, but I do not want to run out of time.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

On that point, it is very much an issue of being able to survive: many dentists say they return the units because if they took on all the NHS appointments, they would not be able to survive financially.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I hear what the hon. Lady says. My own assessment is slightly different, but I obviously respect her view.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) and I have worked together for many years on all matters to do with early years intervention. She made a really good point about less survivable cancers, but I would highlight to her the 160 diagnostic centres that are being opened, which will help with early detection. She also made some good points about the importance of good oral health assessments, and she is right to raise that. One thing I would point out to all hon. Members, which was astonishing to me when I came into this role in November, is that since 1948, when the NHS started, only between 40% and 50% of adults in England have ever received NHS dentistry. It is not like Scotland, where the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said the number is 90%—is that the right number?

Hospice Services: Support

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) on securing today’s important debate. It is personal to me, as I know it is to many parliamentary colleagues here. My mother died recently, and then my brother died about 11 months ago: the very least we can do for those who have been given a terminal diagnosis is to ensure that they die with dignity, surrounded by loved ones. Hospices are there to help and to alleviate physical, emotional and psychological suffering. Their work ensures that a dying person’s final days are made as peaceful as possible.

Bolton Hospice, which serves my constituency, has a reputation for providing outstanding care to its patients, but it is expensive to run and gets minimal Government support. A constituent recently wrote to me to praise its work, telling me that her husband had been given just months to live:

“The ‘hospice at home’ team supported me and the girls to make unforgettable memories from the comfort of our living room…later he was admitted to the inpatient unit at Bolton Hospice where he passed away with his loved ones at his bedside.”

Even beyond his death, the hospice continued to support her and her young daughters through those very difficult times.

Bolton Hospice needs to raise over £4 million each year to be able to provide its specialist services. It is an independent charity; it relies solely on the generosity of donations and fundraising from the people of Bolton. The cost of living crisis has tipped its financial difficulties from a challenging position to crisis point. In the current climate, it is £457,000 worse off than in 2008. Hospice care, as we have heard, is an intensive user of energy, because of the need to maintain temperatures as well as extensive electrical equipment, from oxygen pumps to ventilators. Rising food prices have also meant that the cost of feeding patients has increased by 10%, while the cost of transporting patients has gone up by 44%.

Like other hospices, Bolton Hospice has worked hard to improve its fundraising, but it is running at an operational deficit of £1.2 million. Unless the Government intervene with an uplift of funding for 2024, it will have to reduce beds by 40% and reduce its care or end other vital services. The Minister must acknowledge that if hospices have to reduce or close down, that will place pressure on the NHS and our hospitals. At this time, because of the rising cost of living, the local community is not able to give as much money. I ask the Minister to make an exception in the case of hospices, and grant them the money.

NHS Workforce Expansion

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is why current staff in the NHS are right to say that retention is urgent and that we need measures from the Government immediately to deal with retention. By definition, if we have a shortage of staff, retention is not enough, and that is why Labour has put forward a fully costed, fully funded plan for the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £1.3 billion that the NHS spent on agency staff last year could have been used to recruit proper, full-time NHS staff?

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree. It is why we are in the worst of all situations: the shortage of staff means not only that patients are receiving poorer care, but that we are paying over the odds as taxpayers for the Conservatives’ failure to recruit and retain the staff we need.

We are not alone in thinking that the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history and doubling the number of medical school places is the right solution. Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, has rightly said that we need greater investment in training to stop excellent British students being turned away. The Royal College of Physicians has called for medical school places to be doubled, and now the NHS is formally asking the Government to fund it. Why are the Government refusing to fund a doubling of medical school places, which the NHS and the Royal College of Physicians say is necessary, and which patients can see through experience is desperately necessary?

Future of the NHS

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing this important discussion; a discussion that, after 13 years of Tory managed decline of our public services, is crucial. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dentistry and oral health, and as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing.

We have heard discussion of various issues facing the NHS, and I know that many colleagues will talk further about them. I will focus on one aspect of the NHS that is not discussed so much: oral health and dentistry. When I was chosen as the chair of the APPG late last year, I said that I would focus on putting the mouth back in the body, and giving oral health parity with mental and physical health in our political discourse.

I start by asking Members to ponder what they think is the No. 1 cause of admissions to A&E for children. It is not broken bones, soft tissue damage or even respiratory diseases; it is tooth decay. We have children in hospital waiting rooms just so that they can be seen for tooth decay. I do not think any of us should stand by and watch that happen.

Let us assess the facts of the dentistry crisis. We have lost 40 million NHS dental appointments since the start of the pandemic, and NHS dentistry is in a wider crisis. The net amount that the Government spent on dentistry in England was cut by over a quarter between 2010 and 2020. We are losing dentists from the profession because they are taking early retirement or changing careers altogether.

I know that the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), is conducting an inquiry into this, and I have already told him my views. We want the Government and the Minster to step up and support our NHS dental practices, and to ensure that patients can access them. I am pleased to see that the Minister responding today has dentistry as one of his responsibilities. I hope that he will be able to answer some questions about this issue. I give praise where praise is due: before Christmas, the Government tweaked the NHS contract to incentivise dentists to carry out complex care. That is a good, genuine starting point; but it is only a starting point.

What people do not seem to realise is that our oral healthcare is in fact connected to our general healthcare. For example, researchers at University College London have found links between severe gum infections and type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular illness. To not treat that properly and in time is not only a serious healthcare issue but is a false economy. We can and must support our NHS dentists to take a preventive approach to oral healthcare, so that in the long run we can save the NHS money and stop people’s suffering. The principle is the same with tooth decay in children; a routine check-up twice a year will save the NHS money in the long run, and at the same time get rid of pain and other problems.

We have a system in our country where some dentists are completely private, but a number of them are mixed practices. The problem we are having—and what does not make sense—is that there are dentists who are not fulfilling their required units of dental activity as per the NHS dental contract, while at the same time offering private appointments on an early and more frequent basis. I will give an example. I was contacted by a constituent who was trying to get an appointment with an NHS dentist. I made six phone calls to dentists in my constituency who were supposed to be NHS dentists. I was unable to get a single appointment with any of them. Obviously, I did not tell them I was a Member of Parliament; I thought that was a fairer way of finding out what their response would be.

I know that this experience is not unique to Bolton; colleagues from across the House—and across the United Kingdom—will have had the same problem of constituents contacting them about being unable to get an NHS appointment. I know from speaking to the chief dental officer that many dentists are not fulfilling their contractual requirements, and are instead returning the NHS money. We need to stop this problem. We are told that one of the reasons dentists are doing it is that NHS work is so low paid that they have to finance their practice by doing private practice work. I recently spoke to some dentists and they said that the amount of money they receive has not changed much over the past 20 years. Perhaps we need to revisit dentists’ contracts and ensure that they are properly renumerated so that they do not have the incentive to return NHS appointments to the local commissioning group or the NHS.

The other group of people who have been completely forgotten include dental hygienists, dental therapists, orthodontists, dental technicians and many others who work alongside dentists to address oral health issues. At the moment, none of them is considered to be an NHS worker. They are employed by dentists, who set their contractual terms and conditions, which are not as good as those offered by the NHS. They need to be classified as NHS staff. Will the Minister meet me and an alliance of dental professionals to discuss that issue and what we can do to address it?

The second often overlooked issue is whistleblowing in the NHS. It remains the case that many people in the NHS—doctors, nurses and other professionals—talk about not only bad practices but bullying and harassment. However, the minute anybody raises an issue, their temporary contracts are not renewed and they are denied promotion and decent references. They are at a complete loss. When they try to take on NHS trusts, the trust bosses tell them, “We’ve got millions and millions of pounds in our legal funds. You are not going to be able to challenge us.” I have many friends in the medical profession, including nurses, and they have told me about what is happening. I know some who have actually been told, “If you take a case out against us, we have a bottomless pit of money.”

A recent letter in the BMJ said that the bullying and harassment that an NHS trust can inflict on a consultant are so extreme that life in the trust becomes unbearable. Even being proved right after an inquiry provides very little solace, as does anybody acknowledging what they have done wrong.

I ask the Department of Health and Social Care to consider the situation in Scotland, where a proper whistleblowing system has been set up by statutory law. There is legislation and guidance, and proper procedures as to who to go to, as well as an external person to appeal to if people are not satisfied. These things are very important. Whenever we hear news about big scandals in hospitals, we discuss it in Parliament, including in this Chamber, but then everyone forgets about it. It is a real problem. We are talking about the future of the NHS, and that means that we also need to address what happens when things go wrong in the NHS.

I hope that in his response the Minister will address how we can ensure that people can access NHS dentists, how we can make dentistry a real part of oral health, and how oral health can become part of the NHS generally. It should have the same presence as other parts of our health system. Finally, I also hope he will address the issue of whistleblowing. We need to make sure that we have good staff and that we maintain their confidence, and we need a proper system to deal with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Thirteen years!

[Yasmin Qureshi]

You have been in power for 13 years!

[Rob Roberts]

How right he turned out to be. However, he is watching it, and my phone has not stopped receiving messages such as, “Don’t agree with that intervention from the Opposition”, and, interestingly, “Hancock is making sense!” in respect of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock). My fiancé is not by any stretch of the imagination a traditional Conservative voter, but he gets it—he understands.

On 5 July 1948, the NHS was founded under Labour Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, who built on the initial idea in the 1944 White Paper, “A National Health Service”, introduced by Conservative Health Secretary Henry Willink, which set out the need for a free and comprehensive healthcare service. Aneurin Bevan is rightly hailed as the father of the NHS, but it is the Conservative Minister years earlier who can arguably be called its grandfather. And as we are all aware, grandparents always treat the grandchildren a lot better than their parents do.

There are 40 MPs in this place from Wales, the home of Bevan, and 26 of them represent various Opposition parties, but there are zero here today to talk about health services and to defend the record not of the UK Government over the past 13 years—right hon. and hon. Members have taken aim at them this afternoon—but of Labour’s control in Wales over the past 25 years.

In 1948, average life expectancy was about 68 years old; today it is almost 85. That is a 25% increase in lifespan. In 1948, hospitals had a couple of X-ray machines. CT scanners did not come into use until the 1970s, while MRI scanners appeared in 1984. Ultrasound, which was previously an instrument used to detect the flaws in the hulls of industrial ships, was first used for clinical purposes in Glasgow in 1956 due to a collaboration between an obstetrician and an engineer.

A new CT scanner sets us back £1 million to £2 million. An MRI takes up to £3 million, and ultrasounds a few hundred thousand each. Each hospital has multiple numbers of those machines. Drugs and treatment developments cost literally hundreds of billions globally every year. We are keeping people alive longer, diagnosing them with ever more expensive machinery and treating them with ever more expensive medication and devices. In 1948, the population of the UK was just under 50 million. Today it is almost 68 million—an increase of 36%.

My right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk talked about data earlier. I am no healthcare specialist or expert data scientist, and I do not in any way have all the answers, but I like to think that I have a reasonable amount of common sense, and my common sense tells me that, when 36% more people are living 25% longer and are being diagnosed by expensive machines and treated by a pharmaceutical industry that costs hundreds of billions, we cannot keep running things based on principles devised 75 years ago.

The main point I want to get across in my short contribution is one of openness and debate. I have sat and listened to right hon. and hon. Members in this debate and others over the years talking about various elements of the NHS in England. It is all a Conservative problem, they say. Tories are destroying the NHS, they say.

NHS Workforce

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree. In fact, I spoke to the general secretary of Unison last week. She said that as the unions look at safe staffing levels in critical services, in their determination to maintain patient safety in the event that industrial action goes ahead, they have found that on non-strike days, the NHS already operates at staffing levels below what the union would intend to operate on a strike day. That is an unbelievable state of affairs.

I am really worried about industrial action. Like patients across the country, I do not want industrial action to go ahead—it will mean ambulance delays, cancelled operations and even greater pressures on the NHS—but the tragedy is that we see the conditions that I just described every single day in the NHS. Pat Cullen from the Royal College of Nursing said, “We are striking for patients”. I have heard that line time and again from RCN members. It is partly about NHS staff’s pay and the conditions in which they work, but more than anything else, they are telling me that they voted for industrial action—some for the first time in their entire careers—because they have had enough and can no longer suffer the moral injury of going to work, slogging their guts out and going home petrified that, despite their best efforts, they still did not deliver the care that patients deserved. What an intolerable situation they find themselves in. Their backs are against the wall, and that is why the Government should negotiate.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that it is completely reprehensible for Government Ministers, when talking about potential pay strikes by nurses, to say that by going on strike, they are somehow enabling Putin’s regime?

[Wes Streeting]

That was a reprehensible thing to say and it shows how desperately the Government are scraping the barrel to make excuses for their negligence and mismanagement of the NHS.

As I said, I found it astonishing that this summer, in the middle of the biggest crisis in the history of the NHS, the Government took the infuriating decision to cut a third of medical school places. Thousands more straight-A students in Britain who want to help have been turned away from training to become doctors. It is like the clip of the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg saying in 2010 that there was no point in building new nuclear power stations because they would not come online until 2022. This country needs Governments who think beyond short-term electoral cycles and put the long-term interests of the country first. That is the approach that Labour would take, but it has been sadly missing for the past 12 years.

Just as the Government failed to build our energy security, leaving us exposed to Putin’s war in Ukraine, they failed to train the staff the NHS need, leaving us exposed as the pandemic struck. Their failure to prepare has left us in the ludicrous situation in which UK universities are now offering medical degrees only to overseas students. That’s right: the Government are refusing to allow bright British students to achieve their dreams of becoming doctors, so Brunel University is forced to take exclusively students from overseas. The Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has warned that there is a real risk that medical schools will

“only train overseas students who go off and get jobs elsewhere”.

What a criminal mismanagement of our higher education system. What a failure to plan to meet our staffing needs with our own home-grown talent.

Allergy Research and Treatments: Government Support

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for allergy research and treatments.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Sir Charles. I was at the Chester gang show not long ago, and was looked after very well on an excellent evening by a gentleman called Tim McLachlan. Tim, it turns out, runs the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, a memorial foundation that campaigns on allergy research. The House will remember that Natasha Ednan-Laperouse was the victim of an allergy. She ate a sandwich with sesame in it and died on an aircraft. It was an utter tragedy. In memory of her, her parents set up the charity that Mr McLachlan now runs, which really caught my imagination.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for securing the debate. He referred to a young lady called Natasha; I want to refer to my own niece who, because of her allergy, ended up on a ventilator machine three times in the space of three years.

[Christian Matheson]

That is an awful situation. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s family. That three times in three years is a shocking statistic, which we will come back to because there is a burgeoning rise in allergic disease in the UK. It is an issue of great importance to people across the country, as the recent parliamentary petition demonstrated. Indeed, I thank the Petitions Committee for incorporating that petition into the debate.

It is estimated that here in the UK one in three people are living with allergies and 3 million with food allergies. It is not only about food allergies. I was contacted today by a lady called Sue. She, her daughter and her grandson have a latex allergy. Her daughter has had to write, on behalf of her son—Sue’s grandson—to all the manufacturers of school sportswear equipment to find out whether their equipment contains latex, because of that allergy. Her daughter has lost 3½ stone in two years because of her allergies and has finally, after about two and a half to three years, got a treatment. However, it should not take that long.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in such an important debate. I congratulate, again, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) and it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). It is rare in these political times that this House is united on an issue, but it is united today, more than I have seen it for some time. I hope to speak directly for a moment to those out there who are watching who have been affected by hormone pregnancy drugs such as Primodos, like my constituents Kirsteen and Wilma Ord, or sodium valproate or vaginal mesh, or mesh that is used in men: this House is united and there are Members in this place who will not give up the fight to make sure that you get justice and redress.

I want to talk specifically about families affected by Primodos. I pay tribute to Baroness Cumberlege and I am very pleased that she is here today. She and her team did an incredible job on her review, “First Do No Harm”. I pay testament to the bravery, dedication and passion of the Primodos campaigners, led by Marie Lyon. She is the personification of persistence and I know that she will be watching, because it is unimaginable that families and victims of Primodos had been subjected not only to the harm of the drug, but years and years—decades—of waiting and campaigning. We have to recognise, as Members including the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) did, that it is so damaging that these things can take so long. They are corrosive and debilitating—I have seen that in my constituents.

Time and again, we see families treated this way, whether they are the victims of thalidomide, contaminated blood, the families of Hillsborough or now the victims of Primodos, sodium valproate and medical mesh. There have been years of inquiries and public money is being spent for those who have suffered and are still suffering, and very often, they do not get justice or have to wait for decades, or they and their family have died before they have the truth. It is a culture of kicking the can down the road and it is toxic.

One key thing, particularly in relation to Primodos, is the guilt that those women live with—that they somehow were responsible, and have been told by doctors that they were responsible, for the harm of their own child, which we all know is absolutely incorrect and not true. I hope that any family, any victim and any woman affected, particularly by Primodos or, indeed, sodium valproate or mesh, know that it is not your fault. You did not do anything wrong.

The Cumberlege review was a huge step forward in recognising the unnecessary and colossal harm inflicted on victims of the Primodos drug. The review was supposed to mean that victims had finally been heard and believed and I think that many, many felt that they had been. After it was published, the Conservative Government made a very welcome and long overdue formal apology to victims, and I pay tribute to the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey, and the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, for their part in the work that they have done in that area.

However, we need to be reminded, and those now in power need to be reminded, that an apology means nothing if the action to rectify those issues and make sure they cannot happen again does not happen. Only two of Baroness Cumberlege’s nine recommendations have been implemented. Given that these families—the Primodos victims—have waited almost 60 years, including my constituent Wilma Ord and her daughter Kirsteen, they cannot be forced to wait any longer, surely. An apology and a patient safety commissioner is a big step forward. In Scotland, we have also brought forward a review and intend to bring forward those plans, and I am sure that we will continue to work with this Government and the Health Secretary to make sure that we do all we can in Scotland.

The injustice continues, however, because the families have not received the compensation or lifetime care that was rightly awarded to thalidomide victims earlier this year. Like thalidomide victims, Primodos survivors face constant uncertainty about the cost of their care as they get older. Many surviving victims are now in their forties and fifties, and they are facing physical challenges with their bodies. Many have relied on care from their parents who are now getting older and facing their own challenges. That is truly heartbreaking.

My constituent Wilma Ord has spoken very candidly to me about the burden she feels, and the fears she has for her daughter as she gets later into her life and may not be able to cope. She worries about what will happen when she has gone. She just wants to know that her daughter will have the support she needs. I do not think that that is very much to ask. Financial support for these families is the least they should be offered. That should just be the starting point in addressing the harm that was done to them. Thalidomide campaigners did not have to obtain proof of a causal link in their fight for justice and rightly so, so why is there a higher bar set for Primodos victims before the Government will provide equal treatment? I hope the Health Secretary can answer that question.

The UK Government repeatedly cites—we have not spoken about this yet, I do not think—the 2017 expert working group report. Its failings have been widely acknowledged. Having worked closely with the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who has done a huge amount on this issue, and campaigner Marie Lyon who sat on that group, we know the expert working group was not only a whitewash but a disgraceful waste of public money. There are serious questions around the process and independence of that report, but we want to move forward.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady mentions the expert working group’s report, which was, as she rightly says, universally panned in this Chamber. The interesting thing is that the Cumberlege review took place after the expert working group. It had a look at the report and also came to the conclusion that it was not worth the paper it was written on.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She makes an excellent point. We know there were serious questions around the process and the independence of the report. I remember going with her across the road to the conference centre where it was being launched, and being denied entry. Two democratically elected Members of Parliament working for our constituents were refused entry to the launch of a report funded by public money. It was an absolute scandal.

The evidence uncovered by Sky News reporter Jason Farrell suggested that significant sections of the original draft were changed before publication, including the omission of a graph showing that the majority of historical studies found an association between the drug and malformations. In short, evidence was deliberately omitted and censored, and Government money was spent on that. You know the worst of it? Families and victims were strung along for months and months and months only to be let down. That can never happen again.

If the Government seek to rebuild trust after such devastating scandals as Primodos, they must give the public and most of all the victims a fair and open process. That cannot be achieved, however, if it relies on a report and findings that are not fit for purpose. Everybody in the House knows that and the public know that. How many times are we going to see public money spent on placating people, while report after review gathers dust on a shelf rather than action being taken? Processes have to be open and robust. When they are and when reports such as Baroness Cumberlege’s report are produced, they have to be put into action. It is vital that that now happens and that we find a way forward for Primodos victims, and for the victims of sodium valproate and mesh.

All the failings in the system that led to this awful situation are in the past and cannot be undone, but we have to be sure that the public have confidence not just in their medical practitioners, who have done a phenomenal job through covid, but in the processes and in our ability as parliamentarians to do our job. Now, in 2021, why are the Government continuing to perpetuate that wrong? They are compounding the pain and suffering that the families have endured at the hands of the state’s failure to regulate private pharmaceutical companies properly. It feels very much like profit over people. We do not want to hear, and I know that my constituents do not want to hear, “We’re in litigation; we’re engaged in a legal process.” That is all very well, but the Government have a duty to implement the recommendations of the report that they commissioned.

All I would say to the Minister and the Health Secretary is that they have the opportunity to right a wrong. Let us not continue down the road of defensiveness and turning our back on those victims who have waited decades—literally lifetimes—to get answers and justice. Ministers should do the right thing and give them the justice and the recompense that they deserve.

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[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on obtaining this debate. I am chair of the all-party group on hormone pregnancy tests, which contains 135 MPs. This is just one of the countless times I have stood on the Floor of this House on behalf of thousands of victims affected by the hormone pregnancy test drug Primodos to plead with this Government’s Ministers to do the right thing. I have used most of my Prime Minister’s questions and Health orals on this issue. Some 1.5 expectant women in the UK were prescribed Primodos, a hormone-based pregnancy test used in the 1960s and 1970s that caused them to have babies with malformations and disabilities, to have miscarriages and to have stillbirths. For decades, these families have been dismissed and have been told repeatedly that despite all the evidence of a cover-up, it is all in their heads and there is no link. So imagine my relief, and theirs, when one year ago today the Cumberlege review was published. It was the most comprehensive assessment of all the evidence on the hormone pregnancy tests and it said very clearly that Primodos caused avoidable harm. The report exposed widespread systemic failings, where warnings were ignored. For hundreds of Primodos families across the country who had campaigned for the truth and closure, the conclusion of this report was a significant moment of recognition. The review also said that had Primodos been removed from the market in 1967, when concern was first raised, many of these families would not have endured the decades of suffering. It was also very clear that compensation should be made available for these people.

Today, we are in this House to ensure that this report does not gather dust, which the cynic in me would say is the Government’s intention. I pay tribute to Baroness Cumberlege, who is sitting in the Gallery today, for conducting this review and to her colleagues. The review was thorough and sensitive over the course of two and a half years. Baroness Cumberlege has been so affected by this report that she has set up an all-party group on first do no harm. In her review, she found that the root cause was a failure of the healthcare system by some in the medical profession who have ignored the concerns of women and their families. From these findings comes clear guidance and recommendations on how to support these people and ensure that these things do not occur again. The Minister will be aware that in Scotland some of these measures have been implemented so I would like to ask: why the delay in this Department? The Government refuse to acknowledge the Primodos families and instead keep telling us, “We refuse to comment due to an ongoing legal action.” That is a smokescreen, an excuse, a deliberate refusal to accept that Primodos families deserve justice. Baroness Cumberlege remarked in the other place that

“rumours are…rife of a ritual burial”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 September 2020; Vol. 805, c. 385.]

of the report. Frankly, from the answers to the parliamentary questions that I have asked, it is easy to see why that conclusion is reached. Today is the Minister’s opportunity to give an assurance to the families that the report will be implemented in full.

In one of the letters that the Minister wrote to me, she said that there is no causal link between Primodos and deformities. She hides behind the expert working group report to justify her refusal to give the families of Primodos the dignity and justice they deserve. However, is she aware that the expert working group, which was done by the MHRA, a Department of Health and Social Care agency made up of civil servants, who decided who would be on the group, was so discredited by academics, campaigners and Members of this House? We had an urgent question in the House on its report, and I ask the Minister to look at that debate, because every aspect of the expert working group was discredited. It is surprising that the Government are using that group as a reason not to compensate these people.

I ask the Minister to remember that the Cumberlege review was set up after the expert working group. Baroness Cumberlege’s group looked at the expert working group’s report with a fine-toothed comb. Despite that, with all the other evidence it heard, it came to the conclusion that the harm was avoidable and that there was a link. In a Sky interview, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said of the expert working group report:

“At one point it says that they could not find a causal association between Primodos and congenital anomalies, but neither could they categorically say that there was no causal link.”

It was also found at the time that the report’s initial recommendations had been changed to its final recommendations. Even in that report, there were discrepancies.

Why does the Minister continue to rely on the findings of that discredited expert working group report, and why does she continue to remind us that there is no causal link when she knows well that there was no causal link for the thalidomide victims and they have rightly been compensated? She also knows that it will be impossible to test these drugs on pregnant women, so there could only ever be a possible link.

The Minister will know the inspirational campaigner for Primodos families, Marie Lyon, with whom I have had the pleasure of working for the last 10 years. Marie Lyon will refuse to let this scandal be swept under the carpet, just as I and my parliamentary colleagues will. We are often reminded of the bravery and dignity of the people who have suffered and the families who look after them, including children and older people. They deserve respect and admiration—and they deserve justice. It is outrageous for the Government to suggest that justice for Primodos families could be delayed or denied. If they were given compensation, then we would not have to consider any legal recourse.

I ask the Minister again: please do not listen to the civil servants. Do not listen to the MHRA expert working group recommendations, which have been roundly condemned. Instead, please look at the report of the Cumberlege review, which was carried out by a Conservative former Health Minister and the experts who sat with her. They went through everything, and they have made it very clear what needs to be done.

I ask the Minister please to compensate the victims of Primodos and, of course, all the victims of mesh and sodium valproate, and I urge her please to stop listening to the bureaucrats—the civil servants—in the NHS and give justice to the victims of Primodos, mesh and sodium valproate.

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[The Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

I thank the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for securing this debate on the implementation of the recommendations of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review.

Hon. Members have spoken passionately across a range of issues mentioned in the review, but before going into the detail of the recommendations I want to make a number of main points. First, the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) raised that issue of Primodos with huge passion again today, but I am afraid I have to rebut her criticism. I am not allowed as a member of the Government to discuss an issue that is sub judice and that is a live litigation in the courts at the moment; I am simply not allowed to do that. I have made this point a number of times and cannot make it much clearer: as a Government Minister, I am not allowed to discuss something that is in the process of live litigation.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Ms Dorries]

I will not, as I am about to move on to the other matters raised. I would also say that as a Government we make our decisions on the basis of scientific recommendations, and the scientific evidence provided to us at this moment in time does not support there being a causal link between Primodos and adverse outcomes in pregnancy. I am afraid that is all I am allowed to say. So on Primodos I say to those who have raised the matter that I hear everything they say and I hear the issues, but because it is sub judice I am not allowed to comment.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the Minister give way?

[Ms Dorries]

I will give way, but I am afraid I will not be allowed to comment.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I heard both the points she made, but would the victims be compensated if the legal proceedings were withdrawn, or is this issue about the expert working group still going to be an obstacle?

[Ms Dorries]

I apologise, but I cannot answer the question.

Moving on, I want to address sodium valproate, in general terms now and later in more detail. I have heard the speeches today and some pertinent points were raised, and I would like to make an overall point on valproate again before going into the recommendations: valproate is a drug that saves the lives of women who can receive no other treatment for their epilepsy. Some women suffer life-threatening epileptic fits of such severity that only sodium valproate can save them; their lives would be lost if they did not take sodium valproate. Therefore it is not possible to ban the use of sodium valproate, because those women’s lives would be compromised.

A number of changes have taken place, too. A letter was sent out to women taking sodium valproate to make sure they were aware, and other measures have been put in place, which I will discuss in a moment, including ensuring that prescriptions for sodium valproate go into one box rather than being partial prescriptions, and the boxes have very clear and significant warnings on them. I could go into further detail, but the inquiry covers—

Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

In February, I called for localised, community-based vaccination centres, and I want to pay tribute to Dr Helen Wall, Bolton’s clinical commissioning group, the NHS and volunteers for the roll-out of the vaccine. Last week, my constituents were wrongly accused of vaccine hesitancy, and then we had a quasi-lockdown that no one knew about and many people’s travel plans were thrown into chaos. My constituents can forgive the Government for that, but I am sure I speak for the country when I say that we cannot forgive the fact that:

“Tens of thousands of people died, who didn't need to die”.

Those were the chilling words of Dominic Cummings. Will the Secretary of State tell me when the Prime Minister and others will be investigated by the police for alleged corporate manslaughter? Why did we not follow the example of New Zealand, where they managed to control the virus with a minimum number of deaths?

[Matt Hancock]

What I would say to the people of Bolton is that they have again risen to this challenge. The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal—tens of thousands every single day.[Official Report, 7 June 2021, Vol. 696, c. 2MC.] It is heartening to see the queues of people coming forward both for testing and for vaccinations in Bolton. This has not been an easy pandemic anywhere, but it has been especially difficult in Bolton. In particular I want to pay tribute to the leadership of Bolton Council and Councillor David Greenhalgh, who has done such a remarkable job in very difficult circumstances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of isolation support for people who have tested positive for covid-19.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of isolation support for people who have tested positive for covid-19.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

The Government have put together a range of measures to support people through the current crisis. These include Test and Trace support payments for those on low incomes, support for renters, help with utilities, the £500 million local authority hardship grant, the £170 million covid winter grant scheme and a £7.4 billion package of additional welfare support in 2021. The Government keep all elements of their covid response under review, as is right, to support people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Let us try Yasmin Qureshi again.

[Yasmin Qureshi [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. My constituent, a shop worker, has a daughter who was sent home from school to isolate. She will not get paid, will not get sick pay and is worried about losing her job. She needs money to put food on the table for her family. Will the Minister tell the Chancellor that we cannot keep the infection rate down if people are not given adequate financial support?

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I would also like to point out that, in her area, 93% of cases are being tracked and people are being spoken to, which highlights the great work that is being done on the ground locally in that area. We are providing support, and I would urge her constituent to reach out to the council, because it is important that we give people the support they need in order to isolate. As I say, she will be hearing more on that subject from the Chancellor during the Budget next week.

Covid-19 Update

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We consider the approach to local action on a ward by ward level. For instance, in parts of east Lancashire and west Yorkshire we have a ward-by-ward decision. That is driven by the data, so we do have to look at the data across the board. I take very seriously the views of the local directors of public health. There are several parts of the country, including my hon. Friend’s constituency, where I am concerned about the rise in the number of cases.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

The lockdown in Bolton will devastate the hospitality industry and affect the physical and emotional health of my constituents, so will the Secretary of State ensure that they can be tested in Bolton as soon as they require it? Will he ask his friend the Chancellor to provide more financial assistance to the Bolton economy, because the maximum £1,500 for three weeks is not enough; it just about pays for one employee on the minimum wage?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, those who have been on furlough can reapply for furlough, and yesterday the Chief Secretary to the Treasury set out further support that is available for businesses in areas where we have had to intervene. The measures that we have taken in Bolton are strict but absolutely necessary, as I set out on Tuesday. I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s support for those measures and the discussions that we were able to have before they were introduced.