Oral Answers to Questions

Anne Milton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

6. What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the effects of fuel poverty on health.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

I and my officials have worked closely with the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the development and implementation of the cold weather plan for England, which aims to reduce the health impacts of cold weather on vulnerable people. We have also put £30 million into the warm homes healthy people fund to fund local authority projects to reduce the impact of cold weather.

[Nick Smith]

The Marmot report confirmed that cold homes are bad for our health. My local newspaper has highlighted the case of a low-income working family who have to choose between food and heat every day, with no help from their energy provider. Will the Minister ensure that energy companies do more to tackle fuel poverty, so that the NHS does not have to foot the bill for their profit?

[Anne Milton]

As I said, my colleagues in DECC are working closely with the energy companies. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that this coalition Government are the first to put in place the cold weather plan to reduce those 27,000 excess winter deaths. Perhaps his local paper would like to contact the Welsh Assembly Government to see what they are doing.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Fuel poverty clearly shows the link between housing, health care and well-being. Last week, the Prime Minister called for a merger of health and social care. Does the Minister agree with me that if we are to have a true merger of health and social care, housing—through health and wellbeing boards and other mechanisms—has to be a key ingredient of that?

[Anne Milton]

Of course, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the integration of health and social care is critical, particularly for issues such as this. The changes we are making to public health and the movement of public health into local authorities will only ensure better integration, so that we can reduce those 27,000 excess deaths.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

7. What research his Department has undertaken on the prevention of suicide.

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[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

9. If he will consider proposals to introduce a national screening programme to detect group B streptococcus in pregnant women.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

The UK National Screening Committee is reviewing the evidence for screening for group B streptococcus carriage in pregnant women, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be pleased to hear about that. The committee will review the international literature, and a public consultation on the results will open in spring 2012.

[Mr Hollobone]

Group B streptococcus is the UK’s most common cause of life-threatening infection for newborn babies. Will my hon. Friend agree to meet me and Group B Strep Support, the excellent campaign group, to see how calls for a national screening programme might best be advanced?

[Anne Milton]

I am certainly happy to meet my hon. Friend. I should point out that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is updating its guidelines and that NICE is also developing guidance. The issue is complex, however, and even testing is not 100% effective. Women who produce a positive result during pregnancy might be negative during labour and, more importantly, those who are negative during pregnancy might be positive during labour. It is important that we get the most up-to-date evidence and ensure that we reduce the tragic consequences of this infection.

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement, but may I urge her to consider carefully the kind of testing, as the false negatives and positives to which she refers come with the current testing and there are better tests? About 340 babies are affected every year of which one in 10 dies and one in five is permanently disabled. This is a very serious matter and I hope she will do all she can to deal with it.

[Anne Milton]

I will certainly do all I can to deal with it. As the right hon. Lady says, the consequences are tragic but this is a complex area that has changed quite rapidly. I think the US is now at a similar level of infection to us, but what remains a challenge is ensuring that we have an effective test that does not produce false positive or, more seriously, false negative results and that we have effective treatment that works in 100% of cases.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

10. What recent estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of NHS reorganisation.

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[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

15. What steps his Department is taking to prevent ill health and its associated costs through early intervention.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

The public health reforms have at their very heart the prevention of ill health and its associated costs, and the hon. Gentleman in his question clearly recognises the critical impact that intervening early can have. The health visitor work force are an important part of early intervention. We picked up a very demoralised and depleted health visitor work force, so I am pleased to report that training commissions for health visitors are up 200%, and we plan to double the number of family nurse partnerships available by 2015. We are also developing a vision for school nursing.

[Mr Allen]

The introduction of the family nurse partnership and the enhancement of the amount of money available to it is a great credit to the previous Labour Government and the current coalition Government. It enables single teen mums to get one-to-one help from a health visitor. Given the economic circumstances, does the Minister accept that we need to be a bit more inventive to ensure that that very good scheme goes even further? Will she discuss with the city of Nottingham and its health service a payment-by-results system to extend the family nurse partnerships further?

[Anne Milton]

Yes, we are supporting the development of social investment and outcome-based funding models, and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of being innovative about how we do that, because it is important. We had a rather static situation previously, so I welcome his interest in developing and testing a payment-by-results scheme in Nottingham, and we will be interested to see his detailed proposals and how that develops locally soon. What matters are the results that we get from the schemes.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) for his work on early intervention and applaud the efforts made by the Minister to recruit more health visitors, but when will the Government be able to deliver the additional health visitors on the ground, trained and in service, in order to reverse the cuts in the health visitor service under the previous Government?

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is right; we picked up a very depleted and demoralised health visitor work force. We have 26 health visitor early-implement sites and, as I said, a 200% increase in planned training commissions for health visitors. Turning this round takes a long time. I am sorry that we could not get started on it earlier, but this will have the critical impact: 4,200 health visitors by the end of this Parliament will give us the results that we need in turning round the fortunes of some of the most vulnerable families in this country.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Early intervention can transform health for children and young people and prevent bigger and more expensive problems down the line, yet the Government have cut funding for early intervention programmes, including Sure Start, teenage pregnancy and mental health in schools, by 11% this year and 7.5% next year. Is not the reality that it is this Government who are depleting and demoralising the health visitor work force, and that their short-sighted, short-term policies will make it harder to prevent poor health and cost us all more in the long run?

[Anne Milton]

The reality is that the Government are picking up a very depleted health visitor work force. School nurses, health visitors and the family nurse partnership are all critical. We picked up a very sorry state of affairs. The hon. Lady is right; early intervention matters, which is why we are doing it. I am just sorry that the previous Government did not take the action that was needed.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was doing my best to listen attentively—it is very difficult to hear clearly when there is so much noise. If there is to be a reference to another right hon. or hon. Member, advance notice of it should be provided. These courtesies must be observed. They are there for a good reason.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

I remind my hon. Friend that smoking kills over 80,000 people a year in the UK. We have published our tobacco control plan, are implementing the display ban and hope to consult soon on the future of plain packaging. The important thing to remember about improving public health is that it is not a party political issue. I cannot comment on the specifics of the case he mentions, but this is a matter that interests everyone across the House.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T2. The people of Newcastle are more likely to die early from cancer, health disease and stroke. On average, a child born in Newcastle today is expected to die five years before a child born in the Secretary of State’s constituency, so why is he changing the health funding formula so that in Newcastle we will lose 2.5% of our funding, whereas his constituency will see a rise of 2.1%?