Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Luke Pollard(6 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Health and social care hubs are a great example of health and care systems coming together through sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems to transform services in local areas. The NHS long-term plan will set out how we will enable and encourage better integration.
Luke Pollard
The Minister will know that Plymouth is leading the way in developing health and social care wellbeing hubs. She will also know that we have bid for £15 million of funding to create more hubs across the city, especially in our city centre, to bring together NHS dentistry and dental schools, sexual and mental health support, social care and new forms of general practice. Will she do all that she can to look positively on that bid, so that we can help to improve our health outcomes?
Caroline Dinenage
I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised this issue. Plymouth is indeed leading the way in creating hubs and showing how incredibly valuable they are in bringing together all the relevant services in one place, not only to tackle people’s current healthcare needs but to play a vital role in prevention.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Luke Pollard(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Much of the health and social care for people with learning disabilities in Plymouth is provided by Livewell Southwest, a social enterprise. The new pay increases for NHS staff will not be mapped over to social enterprise staff, so when they merge back into the NHS, we risk a two-tier workforce. Will the Minister consider extending the pay increases to support those who work with people with learning difficulties in the social enterprise sector so that we ensure that everyone doing the same job is paid the same amount?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. It would be terrible to see a health and social care sector in which people doing the same work are valued differently, so I will look carefully at the point he raises.
PACE Trial: People with ME
Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Luke Pollard(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. As has already been said, it is important that we listen to patients. As I will go on to explain, NICE is now looking at reviewing its guidance on this and, in the light of that, it may well be worth discussing the issue more fully.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that believing patients is also important here? Patients with the condition are often not believed and concerns about the PACE trial have not been believed, and that has just loaded concerns on those individuals.
Caroline Dinenage
As I have already set out, sometimes it can take a really long time for this to be diagnosed. People have to keep going backwards and forwards to GPs and others with their symptoms. Many other potential conditions have to be discounted before it can be fully diagnosed, which often leaves people feeling that their symptoms are not being taken seriously or they are being dismissed. Obviously, that is massively concerning, which is why, as we have already said, it is important that patients are listened to and that clinical professionals are well-equipped to be able to recognise the symptoms and identify them.
As I said, the data has been examined more widely. Critics, including some clinical academics, have suggested that it shows CBT and GET are not as effective as the trial results suggested. In turn, the trial authors have defended their work. They have responded to criticisms in medical journals and the wider medical printed press. I know the hon. Member for Glasgow North West raised one such criticism at the oral evidence session of the Science and Technology Committee in January, concerning possible conflicts of interest of the PACE trial authors. On that point, in line with normal practice, all such conflicts were published with the trial protocol as well as the results. If she has evidence to the contrary, I would be very happy to discuss that with her afterwards.