Infected Blood Inquiry
Alison Bennett Excerpts(5 days, 10 hours ago)
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Nick Thomas-Symonds
The Infected Blood Compensation Authority has operational independence. The Government have stewardship over the amount of money allocated. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, the £11.8 billion is a huge and substantial commitment. I do not pretend for a moment that any amount of money can actually provide recompense for the scale of the injustice, but at the same time it is an indication of the commitment—from the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and across the Government—to deliver justice.
In saying that, I should say that I am grateful for the work and co-operation of hon. Members across the House. In particular, I once again thank my predecessor as Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), for his efforts in government. As I indicated in the debate last week, I look forward to continuing to work in that spirit with the new shadow Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), on this hugely important issue. I also thank my ministerial colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), and the former Member for Worthing West. Their tireless campaigning and representation of the community’s interests over so many years has been invaluable.
Much progress has been made in responding to Sir Brian’s report, but much more remains to be done. I will set out the Government’s fuller response to the recommendations to the House in line with the timetable Sir Brian set out, but I hope in the course of this debate to assure right hon. and hon. Members, and most importantly those in the community, that we have listened, we have learned and we are taking long overdue action.
The inquiry’s report is persistent in uncovering the truth, unshakeable in its honesty and damning, frankly, in its criticisms. It is absolutely clear that fundamental responsibilities of patient safety in healthcare were repeatedly ignored, and that
“what happened would not have happened if safety of the patient had been paramount throughout.”
The culture of wilful ignorance runs through the report, and continued to proliferate as the scandal developed. It speaks to Governments across decades and a state more focused on discharging its functions, whatever the risk and whatever the cost. The report chronicles suffering of almost unimaginable scale: thousands of people died prematurely and continue to die every week; lives completely shattered; evidence destroyed; victims undermined; families devastated; and children used as objects of research.
It is a truly horrifying injustice.
However, Sir Brian’s report goes much further. He lays bare the institutional defensiveness that existed within the Government, and indeed the civil service, which led to the truth being hidden for so long, compounding the pain and the injustice. Sir Brian highlights
“the consequences of civil servants and ministers adopting lines to take without sufficient reflection, when they were inaccurate, partial when they should have been qualified, had no proper evidential foundation…or made unrealistic claims that treatment had been the best it could be.”
These actions are the very antithesis of public service, and that is why I know there is such collective determination to learn the right lessons and to act on them.
There is so much that can be said about the volumes of evidence that Sir Brian has uncovered, and I know that during this debate many Members will raise vital issues, but let me be absolutely clear: the report details utterly unacceptable failings on a chilling scale, and this Government will do everything in their power to address them. Through acting on these lessons, we must ensure that all those who have suffered, and those who have campaigned, have not done so in vain.
Let me now turn to the 12 recommendations that the inquiry made in its report. First, I will touch briefly on the progress that has already been made. I know that Members on both sides of the House are keen to hear the details of what the Government intend to do in response. The recommendations are wide-ranging, and are being given full consideration. As I have said, I will provide an update to Parliament by the end of the year against each and every one of those recommendations.
I will begin with compensation. I have already updated the House on a number of occasions on the progress that is being made. I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House for their contributions to the debate on the regulations that we have made to establish the Infected Blood Compensation Authority and the core route for compensation for infected people, but I am also grateful, crucially, for the support there has been throughout the House to ensure that the delivery of compensation is not delayed in any way by Parliament.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
What assurances can be offered that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority has sufficient staffing and resources at its disposal to meet expectations of the swift payments promised by the Government?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I can assure the hon. Lady that the Government will ensure that the authority has the support it needs. I expect it to be making the first payments to infected people by the end of the year, and to start making payments to affected people next year. Further regulations will be required for people who are affected, but that will not disturb the timetable that I have set out. I intend the second set of regulations to be in force by 31 March next year. More than £1 billion has already been paid out in interim compensation, and the Government have opened applications for interim payments of £100,000 to the estates of deceased people who were infected with contaminated blood or blood products and have not yet been recognised.
National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare
Alison Bennett Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The increase in employer national insurance contributions will erode the very investment in the NHS that the Budget sought to prioritise. Katie, a GP from Lindfield in Mid Sussex, wrote to me saying that the NICs increases
“serve to directly undermine access and patient care.”
The Government have promised to recruit more GPs, but hiking national insurance puts that pledge in jeopardy. Surgeries are set to see eye-watering increases in staff costs, equivalent to 26,786 appointments in West Sussex alone. GPs will have no choice but to cut services and staff numbers, and patients will pay the price.
Does the Minister agree that stronger primary care, with faster appointments and fewer people having to go to hospital, is better for both the NHS and patients? If so, will she protect services and press the Chancellor to end this GP penalty?
Karin Smyth
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point about the importance of GPs and primary care to the wider sector. Immediately after taking office this summer, we freed up the system to employ 1,000 extra GPs through the additional roles reimbursement scheme—which the previous Government refused to implement—because we recognised the need for that extra capacity. We will be talking to general practice as part of the contract reforms over the next few months, following the normal process, to determine allocations for next year.
NHS Dentistry: South-west
Alison Bennett Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) for securing this debate. The strength of the contributions by south-west Members from all parts of the House show how important this issue is for everyone in the region. I thank my hon. Friend for making the debate about the south-west. I grew up in Gloucestershire, and my dentistry as a child began in Tewkesbury. The comment by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) that dental treatment is preventive in its own right was helpful. Indeed, thanks to the insistence of my mother, Christine, on my going to the dentist twice a year, I never got a filling until I was into my 40s. I thank her for that.
While I welcome the Government’s injection of funds into the NHS as a whole, we must be clear that dentistry should not be forgotten. That is why I, along with many of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, have today written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask her to reconsider the proposed increases in employer national insurance contributions in the case of various healthcare providers, including the dentistry sector and those providing NHS dentistry. Commenting on that letter, the British Dental Association said that the changes, should they go ahead, will inevitably punish patients.
Before coming to this debate, I had meetings with the National Care Forum and the children’s hospice charity Together for Short Lives. In all those forums, grave concerns have been raised about the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions on the work that providers do, and the potential cuts to the number of people they employ and the services they offer. I ask the Minister to urge his team in the Department of Health and Social Care to reconsider and to press the Treasury to rethink the increase, or at least look at finding some form of dispensation.
As hon. Members have said, tooth decay is the most common reason for hospital admission in children between the ages of six and 10. Thanks to a freedom of information request commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, we know that over 100,000 children have been admitted to hospital with rotting teeth since 2018. That is shameful, yet also entirely preventable. That is what makes it so tragic.
Our failures stretch across the full breadth of age groups. Last year, a poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats revealed that a shocking one in five people who fail to get an NHS appointment turn to DIY dentistry. Indeed, during the general election, I knocked on the door of somebody who told me that he had pulled his own teeth out. It is simply Victorian that that has happened to dentistry in our country in 2024. The Darzi review found that
“only about 30 and 40 per cent of NHS dental practices are accepting new child and adult registrations respectively.”
To me, and I think to everyone here, the fact that our dentistry system is in a position where people feel the need to pull out their own teeth is appalling.
The south-west is feeling the full force of the crisis, having lost more than 100 dentists last year alone. However, the issue is not limited to the south-west. Only one of the 13 dentists in my constituency of Mid Sussex is accepting children as NHS patients, and none is accepting adults. Using data from the House of Commons Library, it is estimated that 44% of children in West Sussex did not see a dentist in the year to March 2024.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are calling for three things and we have a plan to make them happen. First, we need guaranteed access to an NHS dentist for everyone who needs urgent and emergency care. Secondly, we need guaranteed access to free NHS check-ups for those already eligible: children, new mothers, those who are pregnant and those on low incomes. Thirdly, we need guaranteed appointments for all those who need a dental check before commencing surgery, chemotherapy or a transplant.
The first thing that we can do to achieve those vital baselines in dental care is to deliver a dental rescue package, including investing in extra dental appointments, fixing the broken NHS dental contract and using flexible commissioning to meet patient needs. Secondly, we need to ensure that a proper workforce plan for health and social care, including projections for dentists and dental staff, is written into law. Thirdly, we would reverse the previous Government’s cuts to public health grants to support preventive dental healthcare. We must tackle the root causes of the oral health catastrophe in the south-west by focusing on investment in prevention. In doing so, we can put an end to the suffering of so many children and adults, take away the need for DIY dentistry and provide some much-needed respite for the NHS system as a whole.
NHS Dentistry: Rural Areas
Alison Bennett Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Stephen Kinnock
We are working at pace, and I will say more about that shortly. I share my hon. Friend’s reflections on the complete absence of the Conservatives. They made a complete mess of our public services, called an election and ran for the hills.
On 4 July, we inherited a broken NHS dentistry system. It is a national scandal that tooth decay is the leading cause of hospital admission for five to nine-year-olds in our country. It is truly shameful and nothing short of Dickensian. In the area served by the NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire integrated care board, which includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Chippenham, 33% of adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months up to March 2024. That compares to a 40% average across England. In 2023-24, there were 44 dentists per 100,000 of the population there, whereas the national average was 50.
When we look at the problem in the round, it is not so much that we do not have enough dentists, but that not enough of them are doing NHS work, and they are not in the parts of the country that need them most. That challenge is compounded by the fact that some areas of the country are experiencing recruitment and retention issues, including many rural areas, where the challenges in accessing NHS dentistry are exacerbated. That of course includes Chippenham, where Hathaway dental practice has recently had a request granted to reduce its NHS activity, as the hon. Lady pointed out. I understand, thanks to a freedom of information request by the British Dental Association, that the practice had a £4.2 million underspend on its NHS contract. That is precisely the problem that hon. Members have pointed out. There is a quantum of funding, but the way in which it is structured makes private sector dentistry far more attractive than NHS dentistry. That is the root cause of the problem; we are alive to that issue.
Overall, it is clear that we have a mountain to climb. It is a daunting challenge, but we are not daunted, and we are working at pace. The golden hello scheme, for example, will see up to 240 dentists receive payment of £20,000 to work for three years in one of the areas that needs them the most. Integrated care boards have already begun to advertise posts, as we have accelerated that process. In the ICB area of the hon. Member for Chippenham, there have been seven expressions of interest, five of which have been approved. Providers can now include incentive payments when they advertise vacant positions.
Alongside that, we will deliver a rescue plan that gets NHS dentistry back on its feet. That will start with providing 700,000 additional urgent appointments as rapidly as possible, as set out in our manifesto. Strengthening the workforce is key to our ambitions, but for years the NHS has faced chronic workforce shortages, so we have to be honest about the fact that bringing in the staff we need will take time.
Stephen Kinnock
I have very little time left.
We are committed to reforming the dentistry contract to make NHS work more attractive, boost retention, and deliver a shift to prevention. This Government will always make sure that our health and care system has the staff it needs, so that it is there for all of us when we need it.
We are already working at pace with the British Dental Association and the dental sector to improve and reform the dental contract. The Secretary of State met the BDA on his first day in office, and I have met it a couple of times, including yesterday. We will listen to the sector and learn from the best practice out there. For example, I know that the ICB of the hon. Member for Chippenham has applied its delegated powers to increase the availability of NHS dentistry across the south-west through other targeted recruitment and retention activities. That includes work on a regional level to attract new applicants through increased access to postgraduate bursaries, exploring the potential for apprenticeships and supporting international dental graduates. In addition, a consultation for a tie-in to NHS dentistry for graduate dentists closed on 18 July, and we are now considering the responses. The Government position on this proposal will be set out in due course.
We are also working round the clock to end the appalling tooth decay that is a blight on our children, as I have mentioned. We are working with local authorities and the NHS to introduce supervised tooth brushing for three to five-year-olds in the most deprived communities across the country, getting them into healthy habits for life and protecting their teeth from decay. We will set out plans for that in due course, but it is clear that to maximise return on investment, tooth-brushing programmes must be targeted at children in the most disadvantaged communities. In addition to our supervised tooth-brushing scheme, the measures we are taking to reduce sugar consumption will have a positive effect on children’s oral health. We also know that water fluoridation is a safe and effective measure to reduce tooth decay. It currently covers 6 million people in England, and a decision on expanding that will be made in due course.
We find ourselves in an extremely challenging fiscal position, but we remain committed to tackling the immediate crisis, and to fixing NHS dentistry in the long term with dental contract reform. We are committed to: providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments; the golden hello scheme to recruit more dentists in areas of greatest need; continuing to work with the sector to help find solutions to improve access to NHS dentistry; tackling the disparities that are commonly seen in dentistry; rolling out supervised tooth-brushing for three to five-year-olds in our most deprived communities; making sure everyone who needs a dentist can get one, irrespective of whether they live in a city or in a rural area; and doing the job on long-term dental contract reform, which will take some time. We will clear up the mess we have inherited, we will get NHS dentistry back on its feet, and we will build an NHS dentistry service that is fit for the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Children’s Hospices: Funding
Alison Bennett Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg.
I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this really important and timely debate. I also pay credit to his efforts and the efforts of the good people of Liverpool for all the work they have done to save—hopefully—Zoe’s Place. However, the fact that all those efforts, including the trombone-playing, have been required means that today we are not where we should be. Based on the contributions across the Chamber this morning, there is widespread agreement among Members that this total dependence of children’s hospices on fundraising—putting out the begging bowl to keep them going—is unacceptable and something that we would like to see change.
In Mid Sussex, where I live, I know somebody called Carey who I first met in 2019. I went to his house for a cup of tea and he pointed to a photograph on the wall and said, “Just so you know, this is my son Fred, and Fred died when he was a teenager.” Roll on to 2024, and Carey and I are no longer fellow constituents—he now lives just outside Mid Sussex—but we are both served by the wonderful Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice in Arundel, which serves families right across west Sussex.
Chestnut Tree House did an incredible job for Carey, Fred and the whole of their family as Fred approached the end of his life. Carey said he is certain of the fact that
“without the support of Chestnut Tree House for our lovely Fred, and for us as we helped him, on his journey from lively teenager to death, we would all have been broken beyond endurance”.
What Chestnut Tree House did for Carey was to make his and his family’s most difficult years as bearable and as happy as they could be. Every child whose years are shortened and every family involved deserves such support. I fear that unless the Government take decisive action, such vital support services will continue to wither, and children like Fred and family members like Carey will be left to fend for themselves in truly dark times.
This is not an issue to be addressed at a later date, but one that has consequences for children and families throughout the country today. The challenges faced by children’s hospices are daunting. Each year hospices across the UK provide vital services to around 300,000 people, including approximately 7,500 children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. That is why we Liberal Democrats firmly believe in the necessity of a fair funding deal for hospices. It is time to address the inconsistencies that Members have spoken about in children’s palliative care funding, and ensure that all hospices are properly resourced to meet even the most basic NHS standards.
Charities such as Together for Short Lives have identified systemic problems that stop children getting the care they need. With the large majority of funding being private or charitable, the sector is precariously poised. Although the increase in the children and young people’s hospice grant to £25 million is a positive step, I am sad to say that it falls woefully short of the £295 million gap in NHS spending on children’s palliative care identified by charities such as Together for Short Lives.
A staggering two thirds of local areas in England fail to meet the required standard for 24/7 end of life care for children at home. Alarmingly, only 14% of integrated care boards—just six in total—currently fund services that provide round-the-clock access to children’s nursing care and specialist paediatric palliative care consultations.
The postcode lottery is very real. In 2022, NHS funding for children’s hospices varied dramatically. Areas such as Norfolk and Waveney allocated £511 per patient; others, such as South Yorkshire, provided a mere £28. This disparity is totally unfair. It leads to unequal access to essential services, including therapies like physiotherapy, which can make a genuinely life-changing difference for so many children. These are not just statistics: they translate into real-life consequences for families who need and deserve every bit of support they can get.
Meanwhile, rising costs have not been matched by appropriate funding increases, and the lack of transparency in funding and services is concerning. Freedom of information requests revealed that only 31% of integrated care boards could confirm how many children with life-limiting conditions accessed hospice care in their area, while 14% could not even report on their spending in this critical area. This is unacceptable. We must have a clear understanding of the needs in our communities to ensure that no child is left behind. We cannot allow our most vulnerable children and their families to be at the mercy of a fragmented and inadequate system.
We have a moral obligation to act. Together we can create a future in which every child, regardless of their circumstances, or where they live, receives the best possible palliative care. That can happen when, first, the Government fix the postcode lottery; secondly, they review the declining charitable incomes of hospices and the links to deteriorating services; thirdly, they review commissioning for palliative care, which too frequently leaves hospices out of pocket for providing basic services and which leads to significant disparities within and between communities; and finally, they introduce a specific national hospice workforce plan to cut vacancy rates with the utmost urgency.
It is vital that the Government commit to action to ensure that every child whose years are shortened, and every family involved, can make the most of every moment they have left together, just as Fred, Carey and the rest of the family were able to do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Bennett Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend has highlighted an issue that is often overlooked. Homelessness has risen to shocking levels in the last 14 years. When it was addressed under the last Labour Government, people were moved off the streets, and there was decent care at the front end of the hospital system and support in the community. My hon. Friend is right: there are good examples across the country, and we would like to see them embedded as part of our overall goal, across Government, of reducing the scourge of homelessness in society and once again supporting the front end of the health service.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I recently met representatives of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who told me that the inadequate state of social care was resulting in the deterioration of people’s physical health, leading to more presentations at emergency departments. Does the Minister agree that if social care were properly funded, pressure on our hospitals would be reduced?
Karin Smyth
What we see at the front end of the system is a result of the deterioration throughout the system, and the flow of patients from the community, through discharge and, indeed, through social care. Our ambitious 10-year plan will involve examining the entire patient pathway to ensure that care is provided in the community, closer to home. Prevention is a key part of that, as is the look that we are taking at social care.
Sepsis Awareness
Alison Bennett Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on bringing this important debate forward today. I also want to take a moment to recognise Abbi, who is in the Public Gallery, for her bravery in all she has done and for coming here today and the work she is doing just by being here and raising the profile of sepsis.
While initiatives such as sepsis six have helped to improve outcomes for people who have sepsis in recent years, urgent challenges remain, in terms of both the awareness and the treatment protocols we have, and the resources we put into treating the condition. In preparing for the debate, I was able to grab five minutes with a constituent and a dear friend. She has looked after her mother, who was hospitalised and very ill for a long time, after being bitten by the family dog and developing sepsis. Eventually, over a number of years, she has been able to come home.
As well as caring for her mother, my friend is a consultant geriatrician locally to me in Mid Sussex and has a great deal of experience of what it is like treating sepsis in hospital. She wanted to emphasise that awareness of sepsis has grown among healthcare professionals and is much better understood than it once was. The UK Sepsis Trust, through its action and activism, has seen a real increase in public awareness of sepsis. In 2012, only 27% of people understood the severity of the condition, but that figure had soared by 2019 to 76%. Awareness is going in the right direction, although more certainly needs to be done.
While raising awareness is a part of this, public awareness alone is not enough. We must improve things such as diagnostic testing for sepsis through investment in hospital equipment and increased laboratory capacity. We cannot expect healthcare professionals to act swiftly if they are not given the tools they need to do their job to the best of their skilled ability.
I was grateful to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) for raising the issue of maternal sepsis. In September, the Care Quality Commission reported that 48% of trusts were rated “Inadequate” or “Requires improvement” for maternity services. Sadly, that includes my own trust, the University hospitals Sussex NHS foundation trust. Sepsis is just one risk factor in having poor maternity provision. All maternity units must meet high standards of care. That includes having adequate facilities and equipment and access to best practice care around the clock, especially for those experiencing miscarriage.
Moving on to emergencies, we know that demand for ambulances is intense, not just because of the winter pressures that come around every year but because of longer-term pressures. In my seat of Mid Sussex, the South East Coast Ambulance Service is predicting a 15% increase in demand for ambulances over the next five years. Response times for urgent conditions such as sepsis need to be improved. Across England last year, the NHS failed to meet response targets in every region for category 2 emergencies, which includes sepsis. We need to increase the number of staffed hospital beds and improve social care to cut delays in ambulance handovers, and it is imperative that the Government publish localised reports on ambulance response times. We must create an emergency fund to reverse the closure of community ambulance stations.
In conclusion, while we have made significant progress in raising awareness of sepsis, the fight is far from over. We must continue to push for better diagnostics, increased funding and improved care standards, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their background, has access to the best possible treatment.
NHS: Independent Investigation
Alison Bennett Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Wes Streeting
I am delighted to see my hon. Friend here. His constituents can already see that he is not backwards in coming forwards. He will stand up and champion their interests in this House as a great constituency MP. When it comes to the Conservative party, sorry seems to be the hardest word.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I welcome the announcement of the Secretary of State about the shift from hospital to community care. My fellow Liberal Democrats and I fully believe that fixing social care is part of the solution in getting the NHS back on its feet, so I also welcome the announcement of a national care service. Part of care in the community is of course the hospice sector. I recently met the chief executive of St Catherine’s hospice, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). He highlighted to me that, although the hospice has 24 beds, it is currently using only 12 of them. What assurance can the Secretary of State give me, and people right across the country, that fixing the hospice sector will be part of the solution as we take the NHS forward?
Wes Streeting
I am so grateful for that question, not least because it gives me the chance as a constituency MP to say a huge thank you to St Francis hospice and Haven House children’s hospice for the care they provide to constituents, like so many other hospices around the country. I know that the sector is under real pressure. We look forward to working with the sector throughout the period of the spending review and the 10-year plan, not only to support our hospices but to improve end-of-life care, which is pertinent to debates that I know this House and the other place will have about how we ensure a good death for everyone, in every part of the country.
Pharmacy Provision: Hampton
Alison Bennett Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne
I completely understand the case the hon. Lady is making. I ask her please to understand that she is pushing on a bit of an open door. It is a completely different subject, but I have had exactly the same arguments about bank closures in my constituency. I am told that as long as the nearest bank branch is half an hour away by public transport, that is acceptable. Unfortunately, computer says no when it is two buses that do not meet up in between. I agree with her that there are complexities around drawing up arbitrary limits, but generally access to pharmacies is good. We need to maximise the use of the pharmacy network so that we get more pharmacists coming in.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s support for strengthening the pharmacy sector. The Minister talks about the workforce. Residents in my constituency have raised concerns about the pressure on pharmacists to take on more and more services that might traditionally have been provided by primary care. What assurances can he give me that he will make sure that the workforce plan for pharmacists is robust enough to cope with the extra demand?