Eating Disorders

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Kamall

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the eating disorders charity Beat conducted a survey last autumn and found that 69% of those with eating disorders had found that their GPs did not know what to do with them. That result was, if anything, worse than the same survey conducted five years earlier. It is good the Government are acknowledging that medical students need to learn more about how to deal with eating disorders, but could the Minister give us a guarantee that those GPs already in practice who know nothing about eating disorders at the moment—and choose not to—can be helped to understand the issue better?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

This is an opportunity to pay tribute to the work of Beat and to remind noble Lords that it is Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and we should be aware of these issues. One of those issues is understanding the different types of eating disorders. Eating disorders is a catch-all phrase and we have to understand that there is: anorexia nervosa, which is more common among people aged eight and over; bulimia nervosa, which tends to affect people at 12 or 13; binge eating disorders, which affect people in adolescence and also their later years—their 30s and 40s; and other atypical eating disorders. It is really important that we understand this and, when we look at training for the general workforce and specialist mental health workforce, that they are more aware of the issues of eating disorders.

Covid-19: Lateral Flow Tests

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Kamall

Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

It is interesting that an earlier question asked if we are looking at British-based manufacturers. We want to be very careful that there is no preference, it is all based on merit and we have tests that meet all standards. To answer the question about the wider procurement process, there was a Question last week when I gave some detailed answers about the write-down of some of the value. We bought some of that equipment at the height of the market when people were desperately trying to buy equipment all over the world. Ships were being redirected en route when people thought they were receiving goods. That is why we paid the market price at the time.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, there is still the occasionally ping heard. Can the Minister bring us up to date with how many people are still employed on Test and Trace and what the total cost has been so far?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

That is a valid question and if the noble Baroness could write to me, I will respond.

Vaccination: Condition of Deployment

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Kamall

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As ever, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. Once again, I thank her personally for her frequent advice and questions, based on her years of experience. This gives me the opportunity to be quite clear: just because we are intending to revoke VCOD does not mean that we should let up in the fight against this virus. We need to continue to be vigilant, to wash hands, to respect space, and we hope that many people will continue, as in this Chamber, to wear face masks in crowded places and to ventilate areas, particularly when you are with people that you do not know and do not normally associate with. We should not give up on those; in fact, some of those measures, especially handwashing and others, are good common sense anyway, whether we have a virus or not. We hope that one of the lessons from this whole Covid experience has been the need for better hygiene and for us to be more aware. We cannot yet let up. We may have revoked VCOD, but it is really important that we continue to battle against this virus.

On the first question, about understanding the very real concerns, as the noble Baroness said earlier, I do not think we should simply categorise people as anti-vaxxers or pro-vaccine and virtuous; I think we need to understand their reasons. I had conversations this week when I was chairing the round table with local community organisations and I made the point to them that we want to learn from them. It is all very well for me, as a Lords Minister, to say this, but they understand much better in the community. Sometimes, it is a lack of trust. Sometimes, there are historical trust reasons. Sometimes, it is people’s personal experience. Noble Lords will have heard the recent story about the police, for example: it does not exactly engender trust in figures of authority within certain communities. It just shows the spillover effect of all these issues—discrimination, racism, but also lack of trust—and we have to be quite clear that we understand individual communities. Sometimes, even though they are in the same ethnic community, they may live in different parts of the country and respond in quite different ways. It is very easy to group people and say, “Oh, all BME, all Asians or all disabled people feel this way.” These people are individuals, and we need to understand their concerns.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, whatever the reasons people refuse to be vaccinated, the Statement says more than once that it is a professional duty of those working in the health service or in care homes to have the vaccination. Therefore, I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that it is an unusual situation in which those who breach their professional duty will be allowed to continue in the role. Can the Minister tell us whether what appeared to be a decision taken through thorough research and as a matter of principle has now been changed, not because of principle but because of practicality—we need these people in the health service because of the terrible shortage of staff?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One of the things we have constantly done has been to listen—I had daily calls over the Christmas period, for example—and follow the evidence. Clearly, one of the issues may well have been staffing and warnings of potential shortages, and we had to balance all that up. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, these things are nuanced; there are number of different factors we have to consider.

As for professional responsibility, on more than one call I have been on with senior NHS staff, clinicians and senior practitioners, they have told me that in their codes—for example, the GMC code and the nursing code—there is a professional duty to be vaccinated against transmissible diseases. Clearly, that is an issue. The NHS has had to speak to individual clinicians, those who have been reluctant, to try to press that issue, but clearly it came up against freedom of choice. It is difficult and I may not understand it, but we all think differently, which is why we have such great diverse thoughts and debates. It is really important that we understand individuals’ concerns and we can address them, but we are not going to be able to persuade everyone.

Personal Protective Equipment: Accounting

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

If you consider how quickly the Government, and all of us, had to act during the early days of the pandemic, it was clearly an emergency. Lives were being lost. This is a stab in the dark, but maybe some noble Lords read a newspaper called the Guardian. One of its headlines from April 2020 read:

“Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates”.


Everyone knew that it was essential to get hold of as much PPE as you could in an incredibly challenging market.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister explained that the ultimate decision on what PPE contracts to issue came from the department, but I think the House would still be interested to know what proportion of the unusable PPE, or PPE that was unfit for purpose, came through the VIP trail.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

That seems a reasonable question, but I hope the noble Baroness will understand that I do not have the answer at the moment. This is very much a dynamic situation. Some of the equipment we have may be deemed to be out of date but may be reclassified as usable after scientific analysis.

Eating Disorders

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Kamall

Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The question from my noble friend highlights the difficulty of dealing with such a sensitive area. You have to be very careful how you address the issue of obesity. For example, it is quite right that we want to get the rates of obesity down, because it does lead to a number of other conditions that we have discussed many times here. One thing that you have to look at, however, is the unintended consequence of any laws. One possible unintended consequence is that some of the measures to tackle obesity, such as looking at food labelling, might affect people who have eating disorders. Every time we look at the obesity strategy, therefore, we make sure that we consult charities that look after people with eating disorders to ensure that we have the right balance. We will not always get it perfectly right, but we will try our best.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, anorexia nervosa is one of the most pervasive of mental health disorders. It can sometimes be successfully treated only in specialist in-patient units. What plans are there to grow the number of specialist in-patient beds? In 2019, the Government promised that people would not be sent to out-of-area beds after 2021, but I do not believe that that is currently the case.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure that the noble Baroness will appreciate that we had a strategy to tackle obesity, but some of it has been knocked back a bit by Covid and having to tackle the backlog. However, we are looking at ways to ensure that the strategy gets back on track as we emerge from lockdown and there is, we hope, less pressure on the NHS.