Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, plenty of virus is still in circulation. At the Science and Technology Select Committee this week, witnesses emphasised that we have two months to prepare for winter, when we are likely to have a second wave alongside flu and other seasonal respiratory ailments. They recommended that, in preparation for winter pressure on the NHS and the Test and Trace programme, we must suppress the amount of virus circulating by September. The committee has written to the Prime Minister about this. How will the easing of restrictions in these regulations achieve that? Will government ensure that the planned walk-in test centres will be located in the vicinity of all these newly opened venues and every airport?

I am also concerned about the criminalisation of peaceful protest. I would like to see peaceful protest exempted and protesters given access to a pop-up test centre.

Smoking

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Government propose that pubs should aim at two metres between smokers and non-smokers when outside. However, the Minister should know that social distancing is already being flouted when alcohol is involved. Is he concerned that this so-called compromise is supported by FOREST, which is funded by the tobacco industry, and will he answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and ensure that the guidance will be issued by the Department of Health and Social Care rather than by MHCLG?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

I take a different view from the noble Baroness on the success of pubs’ efforts to introduce social distancing. I spent the weekend in a number of pubs and I was extremely impressed by the measures that publicans have put in place. That is why we support the role of local authorities in judging the right measures for the right pubs and why we will support the government amendment.

Medicinal Cannabis

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I cannot comment in detail on the specific situation the noble Lord refers to. I recognise the high costs of medicinal cannabis, and we have done an enormous amount to bring those costs down and to regularise the transport and regulation of those drugs, but this is the way our medical arrangements are made in this country. Private prescriptions are an option for those who can seek them, and we are working hard to get more of these medical cannabis treatments on the NICE schedule, but they require clinical trials.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the existing protocols and regulatory mechanisms suitable for most pharmaceutical medicines are not capable of handling medical cannabis, which has multiple active ingredients and is therefore not suitable for the usual randomised control trials? Does he therefore agree that a new regulatory system is required for medical cannabis, as there is in many other countries?

[Lord Bethell]

I do not think the noble Baroness is right. There are always groups advocating that their medicines are different from every other type of medicine, but the processes of clinical trials have served medical science extremely well. I share her frustration that the process of medical trials around cannabis has not moved quickly enough. That is why NIHR is looking again at the way these trials are funded; I have spoken to it about how this can be accelerated.

Ultra-processed Foods

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Baroness is entirely right to say that Covid has focused our minds on obesity and the role of diet. However, voluntary approaches are necessary. We have to take people, industry and government with us. That is the core of our approach and it will remain our approach.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, will the Prime Minister’s proposed obesity strategy include the full range of obesity services up to tier 4 in all areas, plus ensuring prevention measures such as calorie labelling, portion size, reformulation and the restriction of price promotions of HFSS foods? Will there be independent evaluation of the measures to be proposed?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, it is not my role to pre-empt the Prime Minister’s strategy formulation, but the noble Baroness has articulated a very reasonable list of the potential measures. We are closely focused on this area. We are measuring ourselves keenly and our objectives are clearly laid out. The focus is on getting movement on this important area.

Covid-19: Track and Trace System

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, we are in regular contact with many of the countries that are working with apps. Two things are crystal clear. The opportunity of using automated technologies to create extra tracing contacts is enormous, and we are working extremely hard to chase down that opportunity, but the technical challenges are also enormous. We are working very closely with our tech partners and with other countries to develop the best possible app, particularly for a moment when the prevalence in society might increase, for that is when the mass automation delivers its unique advantage.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, can I press the Minister on his answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Young? In the first week of “test and trace”, over 8,000 cases were referred, but the ONS said that there were 33,000 cases. If only a quarter of cases are being referred, how does the Minister think that we will ever stamp out this virus? When will we get more widespread asymptomatic testing and tracing?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, the epidemiological maths is as the noble Baroness describes, but our focus on symptomatic cases does not mean that the system does not work. Taking out more than a quarter of infected cases is a massively important and impactful event. Asymptomatic testing has started in healthcare and social care workers. It is making a big difference in both those forums, where prevalence is higher than the community prevalence, and we will be learning lessons from those schemes.

Covid-19

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend Lord Lucas is quite right about IP, although I bear testimony to the private companies and major corporations which have reacted incredibly generously and enthusiastically by supporting the Government during this crisis. Our supply chains absolutely need to be reviewed. Resilience is clearly more important now than it has ever been. When we look at the way in which our medical, pharmaceutical and device supply chains are put together, they will look quite different in years to come.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State said that he would mention treatments, but he focused only on vaccinations, which are of course important. However, I would like to ask about progress on developing antiviral drugs and the use of serum treatments, about which I have heard encouraging reports. Can the Minister say whether there are any plans to ask recovered Covid-19 patients to donate blood after a suitable recovery period so that the serum could be used to treat very sick patients and help them recover?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness is entirely right. Serum offers an encouraging opportunity, not least because it is a proven technology. The national blood transfusion service has been asked to start investigating how to collect serum, and a grant for the purchase of new machines to help that has already been made.

Major Trauma Centre: Westminster

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The NHS develops its plans in each hospital according to the Government’s national risk register and its planning assumptions underpin this. The security services then evaluate and publish the current threat level to the UK from terrorism and the NHS is made aware of any change to this, so that it can react accordingly. In addition, we provide training for paramedics for terrorist attacks, as I have mentioned. We have the hazardous area response team, comprising specially trained personnel to provide ambulance response to particularly hazardous or challenging environments, including following a terrorist attack. London also has the tactical response unit, which is designed to work as part of a multiagency team with police and fire services to respond to firearms incidents. In the most recent attacks, the response time for paramedics was within seven minutes. We have recently agreed to increase the number of marauding terrorist attack and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear trainee paramedic responders, and we will have a minimum of 240 responders in each ambulance trust.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s reassurances. Is she aware that in London last year 265 fewer members of the public attempted CPR on people nearby whose hearts had stopped? Does that not suggest that it would be more help to the people who work in and visit this building if we invited St John Ambulance to come to us again to deliver training on CPR and wider first aid interventions?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

As ever, the noble Baroness makes a very sensible suggestion about wider CPR training. I will take up that point.

Health: Sepsis

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I am not quite sure which data the noble Baroness was referring to. The study stated that the number of UK deaths was at 48,000. This was a modelled estimate; it was inaccurate. Our data, published by the Office for National Statistics, states that the figure is 22,341 and puts the UK’s performance at a better rate. We are not complacent in any way. This is why there has been concerted action through a number of routes not only to improve the performance in sepsis diagnosis and screening but to make sure that we raise public awareness and provide training for NHS staff. The early warning system has been introduced as the revised national early warning score. As the noble Baroness said, it is intended to improve and standardise the process of recording, identifying and responding to patients at risk. It was introduced as a CQUIN incentive and included in the 2020-21 scheme which was published yesterday. This means that it will be in every hospital across the country.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, it can be difficult to diagnose sepsis in people with learning disabilities and difficult for them to realise that they may have it. The NHS has a very good little video prepared by and for people with learning disabilities and their carers. Is there anything the Minister can do to make sure that that helpful video is disseminated more widely?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

That is an extremely helpful and constructive proposal. If the noble Baroness would like to raise it with me outside the Chamber, I will take it up as a matter of priority.

NHS and Social Care: Staffing

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and pay credit to the work she has done in this area. She is absolutely right that we have to make urgent progress in delivering a sustainable social care solution. In the first instance, we have given councils up to £3.9 billion of additional funding in 2019-20, and the Prime Minister has been clear that he wants to see cross-party consensus on a sustainable way forward this year. I look forward to seeing progress made as swiftly as possible and hope that we will see work across this House on it, as I know this place takes the issue very seriously. In addition, we have run a national adult social care recruitment campaign to raise the profile of adult social care and encourage applicants. This has been successful; we have seen a 23% increase in the number of vacancies advertised on the DWP’s “Findajob” platform, which is improving the situation in the short term.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, there are particular shortages of nurses in certain specialties such as children’s palliative care, children’s mental health and learning difficulties. What will the Government do to improve the situation in those very important and sensitive areas?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is quite right that we want to target recruitment towards the areas with the greatest shortages. That is one of the reasons why, when we announced the new non-repayable funding, we also announced a top-up for targeted specialties struggling to recruit. It is also why we have announced the availability of placements which can enable nurses to develop experience in specific specialties, which make it easier to recruit and retain those nurses in very rewarding and sometimes hard to recruit specialties.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the other winders for graciously giving me permission to speak, even though I may have to leave before the end of the debate because of a health issue concerning my husband. I wish to speak on health.

Our NHS is a precious national asset, which comes right at the top of most people’s priorities, and rightly so. In the gracious Speech, the Government promised a number of measures on health. I welcome the commitment to look at legislation proposed by NHS England to facilitate delivery of the long-term plan, and I look forward to working with the Government to implement it. However, I do not believe that the Government were addressing the right priorities when they promised to build 40 new hospitals over 10 years. The fact is that our hospitals are full, and one might think that a solution to that problem might be to build some more. But would it not be better to look at why the hospitals are so full and do something about it? The main problem lies at both ends of the throughput. Many people remaining in hospital beds would be better off in social care. This results in dangerously high levels of bed occupancy, with vulnerable patients having to wait for 24 hours in A&E for a bed on a ward. Yet we have been waiting years for the Green Paper on social care, and now all the Government can propose is cross-party talks. Fine—but when will we get a remit, a format and a timetable, and why not start with Dilnot and the report of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth? We urgently need a courageous solution which is fair to all patients and all generations. It must address the predicament of those suffering from that distressing condition Alzheimer’s disease, who face on average 15% higher care costs than other patients. A way must be found to spread the costs across the whole of society.

At the other end of the throughput is primary care. We are promised 6,000 more GPs but the last Conservative Administration did not hit the previous target. At the same time we disadvantage ourselves when recruiting doctors and nurses from other EU countries by leaving the EU. Speeding up visa applications and reducing fees will not help when people still have to pay thousands of pounds to bring their families and to use the very NHS for which they are being recruited. Primary care is under great pressure and nowhere near enough capital is being allocated to the facilities needed to attract GPs. Perhaps new local health centres do not make such good headlines as 40 new hospitals. What are the Government’s plans to invest in modern primary care facilities?

In December, A&E hit its worst-ever waiting times because people cannot get to see a GP. Patients who really need hospital treatment wait in ambulances outside, like the lady in my village who died of sepsis having waited for hours outside the hospital.

That brings me to staffing levels. The Government are relying on retaining 19,000 nurses who might otherwise have left to deliver their promise of 50,000 more, but they need to make staying on much more attractive. That means much better working conditions and less need for, for example, staying on for an extra two hours at the end of a 12-hour shift because no one is there to take over.

Finally, I turn to gambling addiction, a preventable mental health issue that is growing. More than 400,000 people in England are addicted to gambling, and hospital admissions have more than doubled in the past 12 months, while the age of sufferers is getting younger. I am pleased that 14 new treatment clinics are planned by 2024 but we need to do more now to prevent the problem while we treat those affected. Will the review of the Gambling Act seek to tighten the regulation of companies that promote gambling, which take more than £14 billion a year from the punters, and to restrict the way that they market their services, especially to young people?

We allow far too much gambling advertising. Companies would not spend £1.5 billion a year on this if it did not result in more gambling. We realised long ago that advertising smoking encouraged people to do something that damaged their health and that of others, so we banned it. We should do the same for adverts that endanger the mental health of susceptible people and bring misery to their families. Will the review of the Gambling Act seek to reverse the normalisation of gambling?