Covid-19 Update

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I understand the question that the hon. Lady asks on behalf of her constituents. I pay tribute to my opposite number in Northern Ireland, Robin Swann, and because this is a devolved matter, I hope that she will understand if I allow him the discretion to provide an answer to that question, rather than to answer on his behalf.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Students and their families across the country will be very pleased with the news that students are to be offered covid tests as early as 30 November to ensure that they can go back for Christmas. Subsequent to the Secretary of State’s answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), may I ask whether similar arrangements will be put in place in January, so that students can then return to study in the new year?

[Matt Hancock]

One step at a time.

Covid-19 Update

Cat Smith Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I hope I can reassure my hon Friend on both points. First, we have largely resolved the problem of the supply of Roche kit for non-covid tests—mostly blood tests. There has been a huge amount of work on that and I thank my team and the Roche team for solving the problem with the warehouse in Kent. Secondly, I absolutely reassure my hon. Friend that the situation does not affect covid tests: although Roche supplies around 5,000 covid tests a day, they were protected throughout.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

At the beginning of last week, my constituents in Lancashire were already bound by local restrictions. Last week, the Secretary of State made it clear that Lancashire was being put into tier 2 restrictions, which was a relaxing of the restrictions that my constituents had been under at the beginning of the week; by Friday, my constituents were told that we were going into tier 3. This hokey-cokey of restrictions has left my constituents, who want to play by the rules, really confused as to what the rules are, even though they want to abide by them. I level with the Secretary of State: the communications that come from his Department need to be clearer.

I wish to ask the Secretary of State about support for businesses. Viable businesses in Lancashire are now knocking on the doors of our district councils to ask for financial support, but those district councils have not been told under what criteria they will be able to distribute that support and have not had the cash released from Government. When will the Secretary of State get a grip on this situation?

[Matt Hancock]

Again, I will defend the honour of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who has put in huge amounts of economic support. On the first point, one of the reasons to go to the tier system and one of the reasons I think it was, at the time, widely welcomed across the House, was to have a system where people can much more straightforwardly understand the rules. I say to everybody living across Lancashire that the very high alert level in Lancashire is because we urgently need to get the case rate down. The thing everybody should do is follow the rules and restrictions that are in place. They are there for good reason and they are agreed across Lancashire. What we can all best do together is work together to get those rates down.

Covid-19 Update

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Mr Deputy Speaker, we have had three voices of Wales in a row, including yours, Sir. I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman from Plaid Cymru. The impact of long covid can be very debilitating for many months, and some people who caught covid in the initial peak still suffer from long-covid symptoms. We have instituted more research, and we have started—in England at least—a long covid service in the NHS. Just today, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published an approach to assessing long covid, which I would recommend to the hon. Gentleman. That approach will clearly need continued effort so that we can make sure that people who suffer from long covid get the support they need.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

On Friday, I and my constituents learned via local media and press reports that there are Government plans to close the hospitals in Lancaster and Preston, with plans to replace them with a super-hospital, which would have obvious implications for other Lancashire hospitals, such as Chorley and Blackpool Victoria. Closing two hospitals in Lancashire to build one super-hospital does not make it easier for my constituents or the people of Lancashire to access vital medical care. Does the Secretary of State believe, as I do, that the next time we hear a Minister talk about building 40 new hospitals, it should come with a health warning that that also means closing 80 hospitals?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Before I invite the Secretary of State to answer that—I will give some flexibility—please make sure that your questions relate to the statement that has just been given.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his campaigning. It is the campaigning of Members of this House on behalf of their constituents that has got us to the position where we are today. It demonstrates how this place works at its best when MPs represent their constituents in campaigning on issues such as this. On his specific question, I would like him to write to me, because I am not quite sure why, if the operation was undertaken by the NHS, his constituent had to pay tens of thousands of pounds. If he would like to write to me and let me know the details, I will give him a more detailed response.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on valproate and other anti-epileptic drugs in pregnancy, I would like to put on the record my and the group’s thanks to Baroness Cumberlege for her work on this. We welcome the report. I believe that its recommendations should be implemented in full as quickly as possible, because it is 268 pages about four decades of women being let down and lied to. When those women have campaigned for justice, Members of this House have told them that they are bored housewives and they are being hysterical. We cannot allow these women to be denied justice any longer. I would like to invite the Minister to join a meeting of our all-party group so that we can talk about the recommendations in more detail in a way that we cannot do on the Floor of the House.

[Ms Dorries]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more. As I said earlier, whether it is Shipman, Paterson, Cumberlege or a maternity incident, women so often struggle to get their voices heard when they are at the heart of issues like this. I would be happy to talk to the all-party group, particularly on sodium valproate, where a huge amount of work is being done. We are seeing the number of users of sodium valproate in pregnancy declining, but there is more work to be done. I would be particularly interested in talking to the hon. Lady about how we get the message out about the dangers of sodium valproate, because there are women who suffer from epilepsy for whom sodium valproate is the only treatment that works effectively. That is the heart of the problem that we need to keep discussing and work through further. I am happy to meet and talk to her.

Covid-19

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are of course reviewing all those points, and there are some measures in the Bill tomorrow to enable them to be addressed directly.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

The week before last it was “shortly”, last week it was “imminently”. Does the Secretary of State know when the public health budgets will be announced, and if he does, can he shed some light on that?

[Matt Hancock]

It is as soon as possible. There are so many things that we need to get on with, and this is one of them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that his constituency has the highest average age in this country. As an assiduous reader of the Eastern Daily Press I recently saw the story outlining the trust’s plans for a UTC. I look forward to seeing those proposals develop further. The key to delivering them, or their making progress, will be partnership. I look forward to the hospital trust, my hon. Friend and the CCG working in partnership to deliver an outcome.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

19. What recent assessment he has made of trends in life expectancy.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

Life expectancy at birth is the highest it has ever been. Figures this week showed that last year mortality was the lowest since 2001, but we are not complacent. Already we have made clear our bold commitment to level up left-behind areas.

[Cat Smith]

The truth is that if you live in poverty you will get ill quicker and die sooner. For my constituents in Pharos ward in Fleetwood, life expectancy is 10 years shorter than just five miles down the road in Carleton, and following the report that came out last week we know that life expectancy has stalled and for the poorest women it is now declining. What kind of damning verdict does the Secretary of State think that is on his Government’s 10 years of Tory cuts and austerity?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with most of what the hon. Member said and the starting point in particular—that the gaps in healthy life expectancy are far too big. She will have heard me articulate from this Dispatch Box how important it is that we close those gaps. The news out this week of lower mortality in 2019 was good news that she ought to welcome, but it certainly does not mean that the campaign to close the gap in healthy life expectancy is over. There is far more to come.

Wuhan Coronavirus

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The process of contacting those who have been in contact with the two people who have so far tested positive for the virus is rapid and ongoing—it is a matter of days to complete and get in contact with all those people. This is an ongoing operation and it will be concluded soon. I will let him, the House and the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) know as soon as we can make that information public.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I put on record my thanks to all the officials who supported my 81-year-old constituent Veronica Theobald to make the journey from Wuhan to the Wirral. What lessons have been learned about the repatriation of older citizens or citizens with additional needs, who might be more vulnerable?

[Matt Hancock]

We have worked hard to try to make sure that the repatriation takes into account other health problems that some people had, and to make sure, frankly, that the accommodation takes that into account—we have tried our level best to make the accommodation as comfortable as possible. I have read some of the stories in the newspapers about the lengths that NHS staff have gone to. The Minister responsible went to Arrowe Park to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make the facilities not only safe—of course, both to the public and those who are quarantined there—but comfortable for the two weeks.

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing yet another Adjournment debate on the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is, indeed, a sorry state of affairs when we find ourselves debating the trust once again. He makes important points about the staff, who work incredibly hard. Does he share my concern that the CQC report said that the staff did not always feel respected, supported or valued, and were concerned about the culture within Blackpool Victoria Hospital?

[Gordon Marsden]

I share those concerns, and I will show how they are inextricably linked to some of the shenanigans in the confirmation of the chief executive. It is all the more reason why staff might share the concerns and sense of grievance to which I will refer.

In the autumn and winter of last year and into this spring, as the trust’s chair settled into his new position, the problems of cuts, waiting times and cancelled operations, which still leave the trust with some of the worst mortality rates and waiting times in England, continued. A snap visit by the CQC in January found patients waiting on the floor of Blackpool Victoria Hospital, because of a lack of space, and triage delays of more than three hours. As Blackpool’s The Gazette said when the report finally came out, the CQC was demanding that

“bosses must improve the standards of care and staffing…in the emergency department”.

Unfortunately, by this time, the trust had a further shadow hanging over it, with a police probe into issues of alleged poisoning in the stroke unit. That situation remains unresolved and I do not intend to talk about it further. The then chief executive, Wendy Swift, had left fairly unexpectedly in April, and the chair was at pains to tell The Gazette that her departure was

“in no way related to the trust’s performance.”

But he struck a very different tone last month when he told governors that the trust had

“needed a leader with gravitas and experience who could lead a different type of engagement with our staff.”

That person was Kevin McGee, who was appointed as the interim temporary chief executive for the six months to 31 October. Naturally, when I heard of that, in May, I spoke to the chairman, who assured me that there would be a full and proper process for appointing a permanent chief executive in due course. I said in a subsequent letter to him, on 10 June, that it would be helpful to confirm when the process would begin, with details of the period between stakeholders being advised and of the closing period, and that this had been one of the issues in respect of his appointment as chair. I heard no more until 20 June, when the trust’s secretary sent me a note, which said that the post had been advertised on 9 June and the shortlisting process would take place at the remuneration committee on 27 June. I want to emphasise that that was an even more rushed deadline that the one that the Minister’s predecessor had criticised for the chairman’s own appointment. In effect, it blocked MP stakeholders from having any ability to inform other potentially suitable applicants.

I began to be concerned, but what I did not then know was that the timeline described in the note to governors on 16 September to rubber stamp Mr McGee’s appointment as the permanent chief executive without due process had been given the following rationale:

“On 27th June, the Remuneration Committee reviewed the shortlist provided by Odgers”—

the recruiters—

“and determined that the candidates presented did not demonstrate either the experience or the leadership…required for the post…The Non-Executive Directors and myself did not believe that re-advertising the post would result in a stronger field of applicants and this had been discussed with, and agreed by, the Regional Director of NHS Improvement, after a range of discussions with experienced Chief Executives across the sector.”

How cosy! It was very cosy, and I think that to any impartial outside observer it would look like a complete stitch-up by the great and good of the region. The only communication I had received from the trust between June and 16 September was a staff bulletin from Pearse Butler, in which he had confirmed the cancellation of interviews and said

“we will now take a few weeks to consider our options”.

In the meantime, my attention had been drawn to an article published on 9 August in the Health Service Journal headed “Chief executive makes bid to lead second trust”. The journalist, Lawrence Dunhill, had interviewed Mr McGee about creating chain models and shared leadership. Mr McGee was admirably concise about what he thought—they were a jolly good thing. He told Mr Dunhill:

“Take personalities out of it, just the ability to work together in a different way”.

When asked whether he wanted to lead both trusts permanently, he said:

“If we can look at working in a different way across Lancashire then it would be a really good thing to do and I’d be really interested in doing that.”

The article stated:

“As reported last month, former Salford Royal chief executive Sir David Dalton…has been brought in to help trusts in Lancashire look at options for closer collaboration.”

Incidentally, this was the same Sir David Dalton who had been the independent assessor for the process of Pearse Butler’s own appointment as chair, which the previous Minister referred to last year.

I want to make it clear that I am not making any judgment—certainly not yet—on whether Mr McGee will be a good, bad or indifferent chief executive. He comes with some reputation, but as he has not met me since his appointment in May, I cannot say more. What is very clear is that for the second part of this exercise, having got Mr McGee as an interim chief executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in addition to his existing position as chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, there was a clear determination on the part of the chair at least to push through his confirmation without any attempt to reopen the selection process. We know that because of the answer to a parliamentary question that I received from the Minister on 8 October. I asked in what capacity NHS Improvement had given advice on discussing the possibility of mergers, and the reply said:

“The Chair at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Chair at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust sought the views of NHS England and NHS Improvement on the possibility of merging services and provision between the two Trusts.”

When the chairman had secured the agreement of the governors at the meeting to his proposal for Mr McGee, he finally decided to tell certainly me, and I think my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), of his news. This consisted of a rushed phone call to me, I think out in the countryside, just before he was about to go on holiday to Japan. I made it clear to him that I was surprised that he seemed to have learned nothing from the failings of process and transparency in his own appointment, that he was now preparing to foist a merger between the two trusts, that this was a major step and that there should be utmost clarity and transparency in the process. When I asked him why he had not taken that option in respect of Mr McGee, he dodged the question about putting him automatically on the shortlist and said that it would be a great move. When I said to him that it was effectively a merger, it said that it was not, saying that it was an alignment and that no decisions had been made about any merger. We know from the answer to the parliamentary question that that was incorrect. Perhaps the House will not be surprised that in the article in The Gazette entitled “More controversy at Blackpool Victoria Hospital”, I said that the process had been

“at best ambiguous and at worst evasive”

in respect of the merger and that we needed confirmation of what was proposed. I have no doubt that the chair will continue to try to muddy the waters but, to continue the analogy, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

We now have clarity from the answer to a second parliamentary question that I received from the Minister that Mr McGee will receive a single salary, agreed by both remuneration committees, although the trust still refuses to tell us what it will be. I said to The Gazette that the situation “beggars belief” after last year’s debate, and I still believe it does. It appears I am not the only one. The smooth and slippery stakeholder brief that was put out by way of formal amendment for the trust talks of “strategies of collaboration” and extensive discussions with, among others, the governors at Blackpool foundation trust. I am reliably informed that that is not the case. At least one governor has said that they were called on 16 September simply to ratify McGee’s appointment and that nothing was said about the implications of a merger. I gather that others are asking for more clarification. The Gazette, which was initially fobbed off about the truth and timing of the appointment, told us the same story. It seems that a number of other non-executive directors have also been confirmed without further press or selection.

It has to be said that this is not the first time that Mr Butler has attracted controversy with governors. When he was chair of the Morecambe Bay trust and outsourced Barrow hospital’s out-patient services, the media reported governors as saying, “I do not believe you got any influence on this structure. You drove the decision and due process was not done.” Governors were not informed of what was happening until July. In this case, it was not only MPs who were not consulted, as is confirmed by the Minister’s answer to my parliamentary question, and nor was the chair of the clinical commissioning group, or the CCG itself. Sadly, in the “not good enough” CQC report on the June inspection that came out just last week, this is amply and damningly exposed.

Health Infrastructure Plan

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the need for access to facilities in his county, given its geography. I have been clear today, the Secretary of State has been clear and the Prime Minister has been clear in our commitment to the list of schemes that we have said will get the HIP 2 funding. I know that officials in my hon. Friend’s trust will be looking forward to working with him to develop their proposals.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my persistent and passionate campaigning for the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust must have been heard by those on the Government Benches; I am sure it has nothing to do with the two marginal constituencies of Morecambe and Lunesdale, and Barrow and Furness, which fall into the trust’s footprint.

When constituents get in touch with me frustrated with NHS wait times, it is invariably about the wait for mental health services, and some of the most difficult conversations I have had to have as a constituency MP have been with parents who have lost children to suicide or eating disorders, so why is the Government’s announcement today so silent on mental health issues, particularly regarding CAMHS?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who I know has campaigned on this. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) has taken a real lead in fighting for improvements and investment in this area, so I pay tribute to him as well. The hon. Lady raises a point that other hon. Members have rightly raised about mental health services, particularly for children. She will know that before I was a Minister I campaigned in this House on eating disorder support services with the charity Beat. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of early and appropriate intervention in those areas. That is why improving mental health is at the heart of our agenda and why, alongside these announcements, since July 2017 we have, for example, announced investments of over £400 million in improving mental health services. Yesterday’s and today’s announcements are another part of our overall strategic vision for investing in and improving our NHS, and they should be read in the round with all the other announcements.

Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Cat Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Vaccinations are one of the best ways to protect health and reduce mortality, and I was pleased that the Government pledged to increase the uptake among people with learning disabilities. Will the Minister update the House as to what progress she is making with that Government pledge?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is right that vaccinations are very important. We have introduced the annual health check for people with learning disabilities because it is an opportunity for them to have a one to one with their GP to check that all things such as vaccinations are up to date, but also to see whether there are any other long-term health issues that have not yet been spotted. I speak about this from an entirely selfish point of view because a dear friend of mine—my self-appointed best friend, who was one of my constituents—very sadly died last year from a form of cancer that would have been curable had her case been picked up earlier. That is why health checks for people with learning disabilities are vital.