Children’s Mental Health

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Allin-Khan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some children endure unspeakable circumstances that unduly affect their mental health in a way that we can never comprehend. It affects not just them but their family—their siblings and parents. I thank him for his intervention.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Unlike the UK Government here, the Welsh Labour Government are adopting a whole-school approach, viewing this issue holistically and offering a package of measures, while the English approach has been described as shocking and despicable.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

My hon. Friend is always a powerful advocate when it comes to the importance of positive mental health for young people. I have visited Wales and seen at first hand the fantastic examples of what can be achieved when Labour is in power.

One in six children are suffering with probable mental health issues, but only about a third are able to access treatment. Now things are getting worse: the Conservative cost of living crisis is causing more misery, uncertainty and upheaval in the lives of millions of children and young people. For weeks the House has been witness to the impact of that Conservative cost of living crisis on people and their families across the country.

Children are going to bed cold and hungry, and their life chances are impacted because they are unable to concentrate at school. Many are watching their parents worry and cry about being unable to pay the bills. Dragging an electric heater around the house before jumping under the covers just to keep warm because there is no heating—that, for too many of us, feels far too familiar. It is how my brother and I grew up, and it will stay with me forever. I had hoped that that perpetual fear of insecurity that never leaves one was a thing of the past, but sadly not: it is alive and well in Tory Britain in 2022. This is a “cost of Johnson crisis”.

Covid-19

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, this is incredibly important. Communities have a huge role to play in this; it is truly a national effort. I want to empower people on the ground in communities and within the NHS to do the right thing by what is in front of them. We will support wherever possible, but people should not wait for the instruction—they should get on with it.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

The World Health Organisation has given the advice of, “Test, test, test”. The Secretary of State has said that there is a limited capacity in terms of testing kits. When will those kits be made available? What is the timeframe? How many does he think we are going to need?

[Matt Hancock]

As many as possible, as soon as possible.

Cervical Cancer Smear Tests

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and I will be asking the Minister to look at that. Our first problem is getting people through the door. If there is something wrong with us, it is natural to think either that it will somehow go away or that it might be cancer—we kid ourselves that, if we do not get a diagnosis, it is somehow not happening. We need to have much more publicity to encourage young women to report to their GP if they have abnormal symptoms. After all, it might not be cancer and they might be reassured. Equally, if it is cancer, the sooner someone gets treated, the better their chances of survival. I do not think that that message is always getting through, particularly to younger women.

The other problem is that the rates of people attending screening, even among those who are eligible, are falling. In the last year for which I have figures, only 69.1% of eligible women attended their screening appointments. That is down from 73.7% in 2011. In practice, that means that 3.5 million women in this country have not been screened in the past three and a half years. That is very worrying. Even more worrying is the fact that 1.7 million have never had a test. Some 345,000 have not had a test in the past 10 years. What is more, there are significant regional variations in the rates of screening. For instance, for those aged between 25 and 49, the rate of screening in London is 61.6%. In the north-east, it is 72.9%. Among over-50s, the rate in London is 74% and in the east midlands 78%. We need to look closely at those figures and find out why women do not attend. It is no use getting into the blame culture. We need to ask the right questions. Are they frightened, for example? Are appointments not at convenient times? Are there particular groups of women who do not turn up for screening? It is probably a mixture of all three.

I was sent some very interesting information from Jo’s Trust, who asked a group of young women in a survey why they did not attend for their screening. Seventy-one per cent. said they were frightened of the test and 75% said they felt vulnerable. A whopping 81% said they were embarrassed, which is a particular factor for young women who are constantly bombarded with air-brushed photos of what they should look like and what their bodies should be like, so they suffer from a lot of body consciousness. Despite the fact that doctors and nurses keep repeating, “We don’t care what you look like, we are not interested in what you are wearing, we do hundreds of these tests”, the message is not getting through. It is therefore important that tests are conducted in a supportive environment.

Interestingly, in the same survey, 67% of the women said they had felt they were not in control of the test and 68% said they would not discuss their fears with a doctor or a nurse. That particular problem applies to survivors of sexual assault: 72% are put off going for their screening or do not go at all. It is vital that women are screened in a supportive environment where they get the chance to discuss any fears they have with a practitioner beforehand.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I apologise for not being able to be here for the whole of this absolutely critical debate. Cervical screening uptake in Wales is at an all-time low. More than a quarter of women did not attend their cervical screening in the past year. Importantly, last September, Wales became the first nation in the UK to provide high-risk HPV testing as the primary cervical screening test across Wales. It leads to more sensitive and specific tests, more certainty for patients and more appropriate referrals to colposcopy services, faster treatment and then faster discharge times. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Helen Jones]

Yes, and I hope those tests will be rolled out across the rest of Britain.

On the problem of women getting access to screening services, time and again they report that they ring their GP for an appointment that is then weeks ahead. Someone I met recently told me that, in her case, it is months ahead. It can be as much as 10 weeks. All are offered appointments at times they cannot attend, perhaps because they work shifts—that applies particularly to younger women who are more likely to be in insecure employment and therefore not eager to ask for time off.

I do not know why we persist in this, but very often the comments on screening give the impression that someone is saying, “These stupid women are not going for their screening.” Actually, there is a problem of access. I remember when we had mobile breast cancer screening units that came to a place of work. I got my blood pressure tested in the middle of Warrington shopping centre because the hospital had a programme to encourage people to go for testing in case they were at risk of vascular disease. Why can we not do more to take cervical screening to places where women are? Why can they not be screened in the workplace, for example, where groups of women are much more likely to say, “Come on! We will all go together”? It is not beyond the wit of man to arrange that.

NHS Pay

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) on an excellent maiden speech. Modesty prevented him from telling the House that he more than doubled the Labour vote, going from third to first and winning the seat for Labour for the first time since the seat’s creation in 1918. He has a bright future in the House, I think, and I look forward to him being joined by many, many more Labour MPs from the south of England after the next election.

I should declare an interest in speaking in this debate, not registerable but important none the less, which is that generations of my family have worked in the national health service. My grandmother, great-aunts, aunts and cousins were and are nurses and midwives, and my mother has worked in the NHS for over 30 years.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Is modesty perhaps preventing my hon. Friend from mentioning that he himself has, at times, acted as a midwife?

[Conor McGinn]

I am very rarely accused of modesty, so I shall certainly take that compliment. I did have one occasion to act as midwife when our daughter arrived slightly more quickly than expected. As I said to her godmother, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), it is not something that I intend to repeat, and I certainly would not recommend it to the untrained.

It was in tribute to my own family’s NHS pedigree, but most importantly out of necessity to properly value the nurses and midwives of today, that I tabled an early-day motion to end the public sector pay cap in the NHS. I thank the 67 hon. Members from every Opposition party—and indeed from the Government party on the Opposition side of the House, represented by the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly)—who signed the motion to scrap the cap. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who has relentlessly campaigned on the issue of fair pay for NHS staff, and who has brought this motion before the House today.

In my local NHS trust, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, there are over 1,000 nurses who do a magnificent job caring for patients in often incredibly difficult circumstances. I am very proud that the trust has been recognised as the best NHS acute trust in England in the latest patient-led assessments, achieving top marks in the country in every area of inspection.

The context in which NHS staff are showing such dedication and commitment to providing high-quality care makes it all the more remarkable. As we have heard, while working hard to meet increasing demands, nurses have seen seven years’ worth of frozen or capped pay. The rate of inflation has exceeded the pay cap of 1% in five of those seven years. That means less money at the end of the month for nurses—a 14% pay cut in real terms since 2010, according to the Royal College of Nursing, which has campaigned with great tenacity and passion on this issue, alongside many other organisations, including my colleagues in Unison.

For seven long years, Ministers have refused to introduce a fair pay package for nurses that reflects the skill set and dedication in the profession. They ignored the clarion call for the pay cap to be scrapped—until last night. In an act of cynicism, knowing they faced defeat in the House today, Ministers appear to have suddenly changed their minds—not because the Conservative party suddenly believed the pay cap was wrong, but because the Government might lose a vote in Parliament. What a morally and intellectually bankrupt Government this is, and what a disgraceful way to treat NHS staff—as a tool for seven years of ideologically driven austerity, and now as a tool of political expediency.

The announcement that the pay cap is to be scrapped is long overdue. Anyone in this House who believes that it should go needs to vote with us tonight, if indeed the Government decide to divide the House. But it is not enough: we need to see action. Thousands of nurses and NHS staff will be waiting eagerly to see what the Government offer above 1%, and millions more people across the country will be waiting to see when this Government are finally going to end their cuts to our public services and start properly funding our NHS.