Baby Loss Awareness Week
Anna Soubry Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (IGC)
It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). My contribution to the debate will touch on a lot of what he said about the situation, which is undoubtedly true. It struck me again because of two constituents in particular who came to see me. I had my children at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham. My constituents went in there expecting, as most of us do when we go into hospital to give birth, that they would be taking their baby home after a safe delivery. Emily was their second child, and she died—she was a stillborn baby. That was at the end of 2013.
Until I met Richard and Michelle Daniels, I had not appreciated some of the issues we are talking about. When I gave birth to my babies, I had two wonderful deliveries, although they were very painful. However, I do not talk too much about the great pleasure, joy and magic I experienced in becoming a mother on those two occasions. I felt real shock when Richard and Michelle came to tell me that, although they got the most terrific care, love and support from the remarkable staff at the QMC when Emily was born dead, there was no facility at all, as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole described.
It is true that there is nothing worse that could happen to any of us than to lose a child, but it must be even more heartbreaking to lose a child and then to be surrounded by people experiencing all the wonderful joy and celebration of a new birth and of having a new member of their family, but not to have somewhere to be able to say goodbye properly or to have quiet time. People also need the opportunity to bring in other members of the family so that they, too, can say goodbye. I was just blown away in my shock and horror when I heard that, in Nottingham, we had no such suite at all in the QMC or the City Hospital. That had been going on for many years, and one can only imagine how many people have suffered in that way, given all the touching speeches that hon. Members have made.
In early 2014, Richard and Michelle Daniels set up a charity called Forever Stars. They poured all their remarkable energy and dedication into making a great success of it, and they have raised over £400,000. Their first project was to install a serenity suite at the QMC—a place where a couple can go in the event of an unsuccessful delivery and the loss of a child. They can say goodbye properly, in the way that has been described, and siblings and other members of the family can come along. In due course, there was another serenity suite, at the City Hospital in Nottingham—again thanks to the Forever Stars charity that Richard and Michelle set up. That is now in operation.
By a remarkable coincidence, the hon. Members for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and for Colchester (Will Quince) set up their all-party group in this place in 2015, and we had that first debate. I remember it distinctly. There were so many appalling stories that there was not a dry eye in this place, and that included your good self, Madam Deputy Speaker. All us were filled with a mixture of grief, horror and disbelief that so many people suffered baby loss with none of the proper facilities that they should have.
It is full credit to the Government of the time and to the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), that they did not mess about. They took up the campaign, and huge progress has undoubtedly been made. It is thanks to a lot of cross-party working and the considerable efforts of the former Secretary of State and his team, as well as those two hon. Members and others, that we have seen such marked progress.
The work of Forever Stars continues. As you can see, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am wearing pink and blue. That was not necessarily my first choice to put on this morning. It was a bit of a bet with Mr Richard Daniels that I would do it. However, I wanted to do it because Forever Stars is painting Nottingham, and indeed Broxtowe, pink and blue. Like so many other charities that have come out of so much tragedy and that are doing great work, Forever Stars is raising awareness, on top of the other work that it does. We have heard why that is so important.
I, too, join the calls in the report that the Baby Loss Awareness Alliance put out today—“Out of Sight, Out of Mind”—for specific work to be done to make sure we cater for grieving parents, siblings and other members of the family. I may one day be a grandparent, and it must be terrible for grandparents to see their own child and son-in-law or daughter-in-law suffer in the way that we know people do. We also know the effect these things have on siblings; we often forget them and how one explains things to them, and they often need support.
Forever Stars tells me that, in just the last 24 hours, it has had four calls from parents who have suffered a baby loss and who would very much like to be referred to the counselling or the psychological, and sometimes psychiatric, services that they desperately need. It is really important to ensure that those services are in place. I am told not only that 60% of parents surveyed want those services, but that nine out of 10 CCGs do not commission the talking therapies that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) rightly spoke about.
Forever Stars continues in its great work and is now raising funds to create a serenity garden for parents in Nottingham. There will be a service every quarter when parents and, of course, other family members can go along to say goodbye again to a child or baby they have lost.
It is really important to recognise that this place does some terrific work when it comes together in this way. The APPG has done that terrific work on a cross-party basis. It is all too easy in the current political climate for people to criticise Parliament and set it up against the people, but that would be wrong in many ways. This is an example of why that is just not true, because this place can do genuinely great work that touches the lives of real people.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The right hon. Lady is absolutely correct. When this House comes together and works properly, we do achieve what those who send us here expect us to achieve and hope that we will achieve. It is just such a pity that more people do not watch the proceedings on days like this instead of on days when the Chamber is crowded.
Anna Soubry
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is very important and powerful when people are able to stand up in this place and talk with the experience and the big heart with which he is talking?
Health
Anna Soubry Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
It is a great pleasure to respond to this Opposition day debate on health. It is worth saying at the start that, for all we have heard from the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), today’s debate gives the House the chance to discuss the record £33.9 billion of extra funding that we are putting into health services in the UK, how we are going to spend that money and what we will do to improve the nation’s health.
I will respond to the many points that the hon. Gentleman made and explain why it is important to look at the facts when debating these things, but let me start by being crystal clear about what he is trying to do. This debate should start from a point of welcoming the record investment that is going into the NHS. Instead, all we get is Opposition Members talking down the NHS. I will get on to the details but, before I do, let us remember why we can put £33.9 billion extra into the NHS. It is because we have a strong economy, with record employment, not through increasing the tax that people pay, but by having more people in work paying income tax. [Interruption.] I hear those on the Opposition Front Bench say “No”, but just this morning we have seen record numbers of jobs—yet again, record numbers of women in work and record numbers across the board—which means that we can have this money.
It was Gordon Brown who said, “When you lose control of the public finances, it’s the most vulnerable who pay the price”. It is certainly true that we have had to do a big job of fixing the public finances, but now we are able to put in this record investment to be able to make sure that the NHS is always there in the future.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Change UK)
I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman has confirmed that this investment in the NHS, which we should all welcome, is as a result of an improvement in our economy and has absolutely nothing to do with what was written on the side of a bus. In other words, whether or not we leave the European Union, does he agree that this money is guaranteed to go to the NHS and it has nothing to do with Brexit?
Matt Hancock
Yes. We can only fund a stronger health service and we can only fund strong public services if we have a strong economy and that would be put at risk by the recklessness of the Labour party. Let us talk about the details of how we are going to improve healthcare in this country, but let us say first and foremost that we can fund public services only if we can ensure that the economy is run well.
Anna Soubry
As a former Public Health Minister, I understand the huge remit of what we call public health. The Secretary of State is right that we should invest more in prevention, particularly with regard to certain diseases and conditions, but the real concern about the Government’s plan is that, while that is happening, all the other important services not in the “prevention is better than cure” envelope, such as sexual health and the treatment of alcohol and smoking, delivered at a local level, will be cut in real terms.
Matt Hancock
I respect the right hon. Lady’s work as Public Health Minister—she was excellent in that role—and I was going to turn to this point. It is very important that we understand the base we are starting from, but we also have the spending review, in which these budgets will be settled, and that is clearly an important cross-Government question that we will be addressing in the coming months.
Smoking cessation services have been mentioned. Now, the smoking rate has fallen since 2010 from 20.1% of the population to 14.9%, which is excellent, although it is part of a fall over a generation, not just the last 10 years. Likewise, the drug use rate has fallen from over 10% to 8.5%. We have to provide the services for those we still need to get off smoking and to support people to stop using drugs, but the number of people smoking and using drugs has fallen too.
On clean air, the World Health Organisation has called the clean air strategy we published an example for the rest of the world to follow, so I think in this area the necessary action we are taking should be being welcomed across this Chamber.
Matt Hancock
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I are working incredibly closely on this because clean air is a public health matter. The challenge is that, although measuring outdoor air quality is essentially a public matter and in public buildings it may well be a public matter, inside most people’s homes it is far harder to make a direct intervention, but I accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s point. It may be something we can look at in public spaces. [Interruption.] He mentions schools and hospitals. I accept the premise of that point and I think it is something we can take away. The same is true inside vehicles, but that is a wider question.
Anna Soubry
I want to come back to the Secretary of State’s answer to my intervention. I am worried because, if I may say so, it is rather simplistic to say—I think this is what he said—that because the levels are falling we can accordingly reduce the amount of money being spent on those services. I would suggest that he listen to the experts and the evidence, because I suspect they will say that we must continue to invest to make sure those reductions continue and to take account of any eventualities. Police spending is a good example of how Government can cut too far.
Matt Hancock
I am glad I took that intervention because that was not the intention I was trying to convey at all. We need to do more to tackle smoking, and we will, and we need to continue to tackle the abuse of drugs, and we will. My argument is that this House decided that public health was better delivered through a broad approach by local councils working with the NHS than separately. On sexual health services, I gently say that many such services—for instance, the provision of PrEP—are preventive, not just reactive. However, the boundary between what is prevention and what is cure in sexual health services is, by nature, more complicated.
NHS Long-term Plan
Anna Soubry Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. The target for this March, which I inherited, was for a reduction of a third to a half. We are at a reduction of over 20%. The challenge has been that, while the number of people who are being moved into community settings has proceeded as per the plan, more people have been put into secure settings. This is an area that I care deeply about getting right, and I very much take on board the response of Mencap and the right hon. Gentleman to the proposals.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his plan. As a former Minister of public health, let me say how delighted I am and how much I agree with him that prevention is better than cure. As Governments of all shades have said for a long time, the reality is that people must take more responsibility for their own health—notably to keep their weight down and to take more exercise. This is all good messaging, but the problem is that obesity and being over-weight is an increasing problem, especially among the young. What new messages—what new approach—will we have to public health if he is really going to make the sort of progress that we need to make?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Throughout this statement, Opposition Members have been murmuring from a sedentary position about the public health budget. Let me address that directly. The public health budget, which was devolved five years ago with widespread acclamation across the House, has been set and will be set in the spending review. We are putting an extra £20 billion into the NHS—the scale far dwarfs individual budgets—and the whole long-term plan is about prevention being better than cure. The public health budget is important, and it is being delivered well because it is being delivered by councils in concert and tied to other subjects. The truth is that we are having the whole NHS focus on the prevention strategy, not just one individual budget; those who concentrate on just one budget are missing the point.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
No, because in the event, under any circumstances, we will make sure that there are no further burdens on ensuring that medicines can get licensed here so that patients can use them, but it is another reason why the hon. Lady should vote for the deal.
Mr Speaker
I will call the right hon. Lady on the condition that she can ask her question in one relatively brief sentence. [Interruption.] No? Go on, you can do it.
Anna Soubry
Many people say that the much-heralded £20 billion extra for the NHS is some sort of Brexit dividend. In the event that our country remains in the European Union, will the Secretary of State confirm that that extra 3.4% a year will continue and that £20 billion will be made available to our NHS?
Matt Hancock
I am afraid that I will have to let my right hon. Friend know that we are leaving the European Union on 29 March.
Assessment and Treatment Units: Vulnerable People
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
I do not see this as a dereliction of duty. I think of the fact that the Secretary of State has triggered a serious incident review into Bethany’s case, that more broadly there is this thematic review, and that we are building the right support by means of the ongoing transforming care process. There is a meeting today, which I have not been able to attend because I had to be here, between all stakeholders in this area, but also with the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, so that we can work together to ensure that children, above all, are protected.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I welcomed the Secretary of State’s words yesterday, when he made it very clear that he understands that the situation now needs urgent action. My constituent’s daughter died at the age of 25, having been sectioned, living in a padded cell; her weight rose to 26 stone when she was apparently being cared for. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about money and how we can better spend it; it is about the involvement of families, and a profound cultural change as well?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. I think that the setting she describes that her constituent was in has now been shut, but the point is well made, and actually it is not just about keeping people safe; it is about treating them with dignity and respect, and providing care that is compassionate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Steve Brine
Public Health England collects some data on foetal alcohol syndrome, but we recognise that the data do not reflect the range of FASD. These disorders are difficult to diagnose, which is why we are engaging experts and those affected to explore what more could be done to improve our understanding.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the extra £5 million for East Midlands ambulance service and for the £4.5 million extra for Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, which will mean at least 150 more beds this winter, all of which will help with winter planning, but does he agree that it behoves us all to play our own part in keeping fit and healthy and to use the NHS services responsibly?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point, which is that, while we drive to ensure that the NHS is prepared as possible for this winter, it is incumbent on everybody to exercise their judgment, yes, to access the NHS where it is needed and important, but also to make sure that they bear a personal responsibility, too.
NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth
My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. The problem is that, when the Government allow our national health service to deteriorate by such a scale and push it into this level of crisis, they are essentially forcing people, often reluctant refugees from a public NHS, into self-pay options. That is what happened last time the Conservatives were in government and it is happening again.
Anna Soubry
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that five GP surgeries in Broxtowe have been rated outstanding and that we yet again have a 2% increase in CCG spending? Why is he always talking down the NHS?
Jonathan Ashworth
I am delighted that GPs in Broxtowe have been rated outstanding, but patients in Broxtowe will be concerned that bed occupancy rates at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust are at 94.9%. That is what people in Broxtowe and across the east midlands are concerned about.
Anna Soubry
Would the hon. Gentleman like to speak to Nottingham City Council, which is run by Labour? It has repeatedly refused to unblock beds at NUHT, unlike Conservative-run Nottinghamshire County Council, which always ensures that it has social care available so that there is no bed-blocking in Nottinghamshire. The problem is Labour in the city—
Jonathan Ashworth
I know that Councillor Jon Collins of Nottingham City Council is a talented man, but he does not run Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. The people running the health trusts are the chief executives, who have to rely on the budget settlements that the right hon. Lady and her party have been denying—
Jonathan Ashworth
No, I am not giving way again. The right hon. Lady has had two chances; she can contribute to the debate later.
We have overcrowded A&Es and—perhaps the right hon. Lady can listen to this—patients are not even able to get a bed, often lying confused on trollies in corridors. In the last year of the previous Labour Government, 60,000 people were designated as trolley waits—
Anna Soubry
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could the record please record that indeed the leader of Nottingham City Council does not run NUHT, but he is responsible for social care in the city? That was the point I was making.
Jonathan Ashworth
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for that. I invite her to make another point of order, because Nottinghamshire County Council is closing five care homes.
Anna Soubry
I am happy to take that up. My understanding is that Nottinghamshire County Council is looking responsibly at the provision of—[Interruption.] Well, the hon. Gentleman invites me to give him information; I am trying to assist him. In my constituency, the county council is making sure that the money that it spends on social care goes to the very many care homes in my constituency that are rated as good or outstanding—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. May I just help a little? We have 25 speakers to come in after the Front Benchers, so I appeal to the Front Benchers to leave time for Back Benchers to contribute.
Breast Cancer Screening
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
My friend Emma Agnew, a woman in her own right but also known as “Mrs Aggers” because she is married to the cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew, is one of a remarkable group of women who have faced breast cancer and beaten it, but it must be said that she had huge support from her husband, and our thoughts are also with my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). Emma had mammography last February and thought all was good, but she kept on checking her breasts. Screening is wonderful, but she checked her breasts, which was why she knew something was wrong in July. She was immediately diagnosed, she received fantastic treatment on the NHS and she is a survivor. Will the Secretary of State reiterate that we must all keep an eye out for cancer, whatever age we are?
Oral Answers to Questions
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Steve Brine
There are record numbers in training, and I take note of the hon. Lady’s bid for the training school. One reason the Department and my brief have placed such importance on recruiting new GPs into the NHS in England and on making sure that people can stay working in the NHS in England is that we see general practice, rightly, as the cornerstone of the health service.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Mr Speaker
I do not know whether the right hon. Lady is referring to my age, a proposition on which I think the House would have to divide, or the rosette. [Interruption.] Yes, I thought she meant the rosette.
Anna Soubry
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer—or rather, for that statement—and also for the robust tweets that he makes on that and many other issues. Would he be amenable to the idea of following on Twitter the Oliver King Foundation? On the foundation’s advice, I have written to all the schools in Broxtowe urging them to install defibrillators. This is an important project. What assistance is the Department of Health giving to such an admirable charity and such an excellent project?
Mr Hunt
It is a fantastic charity. The boy concerned would have been 19 very shortly. It is a very sad story. I thank my right hon. Friend for her campaigning on this issue. We do indeed need to ensure that we have atrial fibrillators everywhere necessary to prevent these tragedies.
NHS Winter Crisis
Anna Soubry Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. She has been a passionate defender of King’s, speaking out in this House on numerous occasions. Before Christmas, we saw the resignation of Lord Kerslake as the chair of King’s, when he spoke out about the real pressures facing our NHS, which were dismissed at the Dispatch Box by the then Minister when we had a debate in this House.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that it was under a Labour Government that a walk-in centre in Broxtowe closed? However, I do not seek to blame that Labour Government, because it was a local decision made by local practitioners. Would he not at least accept, in a spirit of trying to build some sort of sensible debate about our NHS instead of always weaponising it, that this Government have put in an extra £437 million specifically for the winter period? Would he not at least give the Government credit for that planning, which we have never seen before?
Jonathan Ashworth
The right hon. Lady is a former Health Minister, so she will know that in her local hospital trust 771 patients have waited longer than four hours on trolleys, unable to get a bed. She talks about the winter money. We were calling for winter emergency money back at the general election, and we repeated those calls in September. That money did not come through until the November Budget, and hospital trusts were not told their allocations until a few days before Christmas. That is no way to prepare for the winter. I suspect that when she was a Health Minister, she would have been saying that to the officials in her Department.
Anna Soubry
The point is that for the first time a Government have done everything they possibly could—[Hon. Members: “No.”] They have, because no Government can predict what the weather may be like, or the uptake of flu vaccinations. It is wrong to suggest that this is the fault of the Government in England when there has a problem across the whole United Kingdom, including in Scotland and Labour-run Wales.
Jonathan Ashworth
The right hon. Lady will know that we have had eight years of sustained underfunding of our national health service because of decisions by this Government, of which she was a member until very recently.