Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

No, that is entirely unacceptable. What we see in some of the best parts of the country such as Torbay, one of the integrated care pioneers, is that they are completely integrating mental health with primary care, delivering better results for patients. The sort of attitude that my hon. Friend describes has to end.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There is lots of evidence to show that chronic traumatic encephalopathy is now a major cause of depression, dementia and in many cases suicide, but the World cup showed that many sporting bodies are still not taking concussion seriously enough. Will the Minister, perhaps with colleagues in other Departments, bring in all the sporting bodies, the doctors and the teachers so that we can take concussion in sport seriously?

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. As we commission NHS services, it is increasingly important that there is more focus on sports injury and rehabilitation, not just in relation to our elite sports people, but in relation to those people who play sport regularly at weekends, to ensure that they are properly looked after. If it would be helpful, I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the matter further and see how we can take it forward.



BILLS PRESENTED

Protective Headgear for Cyclists Aged Fourteen Years and Under (Research) Bill





Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Annette Brooke presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to commission research into the merits of requiring cyclists aged fourteen years and under to wear protective headgear; to report to Parliament within six months of the research being completed; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 September, and to be printed (Bill 74).

Amenity Land (Adoption by Local Authorities) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Annette Brooke presented a Bill to amend section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to allow local authorities to adopt areas of amenity land which are unregistered or vested in the Crown, for the purposes of maintenance; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 September, and to be printed (Bill 75).

Sugar in Food and Drinks Bill



Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Geraint Davies, supported by Jeremy Lefroy, Mr Mark Williams, Mrs Madeleine Moon, Mrs Linda Riordan and Dr Julian Lewis, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to set targets for sugar content in food and drinks; to provide that sugar content on food and drink labelling be represented in terms of the number of teaspoonfuls of sugar; to provide for standards of information provision in advertising of food and drinks; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 7 November, and to be printed (Bill 76).

Francis Report

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, absolutely right on this issue, which he has spoken about a great deal. The use of data allows inspections to be meaningful in a way that has not been possible before. We have to ensure that the public are happy that protections are in place on how their data are used, but at the same time we must be bold in using those data, because that saves a lot of lives.

The inquiry condemned the way in which complaints were handled in Mid Staffs. Following the excellent work carried out by the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and Professor Tricia Hart, all hospitals will now have to demonstrate to inspectors that they treat complaints as more than just a process and are actively using them to learn and improve.

Doctors have responded to the new climate of transparency by agreeing to a world first: to make England the first country anywhere that publishes surgery outcomes by consultant for 10 major specialties. More specialties will follow.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This point does not quite follow on from what the Secretary of State is saying, but I spent all day yesterday with rugby players and neuropathologists talking about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which often follows rugby injuries. One big difficulty is that concussion is regularly misdiagnosed, or completely and utterly missed, throughout the whole NHS, and that sports bodies are not taking the matter seriously. Will he seriously consider changing the whole way in which the NHS engages with sports and with that issue?

[Mr Hunt]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I used to be responsible for sport in this country, so I take a great deal of interest in the issue. I will certainly consider his point. We all remember what happened to Fabrice Muamba, and sport has a role to play in raising awareness of conditions that people might not otherwise be aware of.

Tobacco Packaging

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I will come to that point—particularly in respect of young people—later.

I am personally committed to stopping people smoking in the first place and to helping them give up. Both my parents died of cancer. My mother died at 47 of lung and throat cancer, and I still remember what she went through. It was the direct result of a long-standing tobacco habit.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It would also be great to cut the amount of each cigarette smoked. Would the hon. Gentleman like to take up the suggestion of not just changing the packaging of the box, but printing something on the cigarette itself to encourage people to stop smoking before they get to the end?

[Bob Blackman]

That sounds like a good idea. We are not talking about that today, but it could be included in the evidence.

We have an opportunity to debate these issues. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) said, we must take an evidence-based approach. The widespread consultation that the Department of Health conducted over the summer found a welter of evidence supporting the standardisation of packaging and its impact on the numbers of people taking up or giving up smoking. I am secretary of the all-party group on smoking and health and I regard tobacco control as a very high priority for any Government, and an issue that cuts across party lines and creates different views. I welcome the fact that members of the APPG from all parties are here to debate the issue.

Accident and Emergency Departments

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks extremely wisely, as ever. She is right. The reason why the 100 or so hospitals that have not benefited today did not get money is that our assessment is that they have outstanding leadership and will be able to cope. That is not, however, to minimise the pressure they will be under or the fact that it will be extremely hard work. I pay tribute to them because, as good hospitals, they often have to deal with more people wanting to go through their doors than through those of other hospitals with less good reputations. We need to support everyone and my hon. Friend is right to say so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One pressure that applies equally in Wales and in England is that on the recruitment of consultants for A and E. Last year, Welsh health boards advertised for 14 A and E consultants but managed to appoint only one, and that was after a nine-month interregnum. May I urge the Secretary of State—this has been impressed on me many times by those who work in the NHS—to speak to the Minister for Immigration, because many trusts and hospitals are saying that the new operation of the immigration rules makes it impossible to recruit from overseas, even from countries that deliberately train for the international market?

[Mr Hunt]

We have designed the immigration rules so that they are flexible enough to make sure that NHS hospitals can recruit trained staff where they are needed and where we cannot find people with those skills in the UK. I say to the hon. Gentleman that although some challenges may be the same in England and Wales, one challenge is very different in Wales, because Labour there decided to cut the budget by 8%, which has made life a great deal harder for NHS trusts.

Hospital Mortality Rates

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

These are precisely the problems that this review is designed to root out. There were problems with long A and E waits as well as with inappropriate medical interventions and poor communication with patients, but I hope my hon. Friend’s constituents will be reassured by the transparency of what is happening today, and the fact that I am making this Government accountable for sorting out those sorts of problems.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I suspect that in a quieter moment the Secretary of State will not think this statement was his proudest moment. [Interruption.] Well, it seems that he used to be run by Coulson and now he is run by Crosby.

Most voters will be more interested in the future and how we can make sure that people’s lives are protected, so what does the Secretary of State have to say about the fact that fewer people are coming from other countries to work in the NHS? Because of the Government’s immigration policy, there is a real danger that we will have a significant problem in A and E recruitment across the country.

[Mr Hunt]

I struggle to find the link between that question and Sir Bruce Keogh’s report on the 14 hospitals, but as the hon. Gentleman has asked about A and E, and as he is trying to take the moral high ground, perhaps he would explain why he has not been standing up in this House campaigning against Labour’s abysmal record, as it has missed its A and E targets in Wales since 2009.

Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman should listen to this. One reason for the problems in Wales is that Labour cut the NHS budget in Wales by 8%, or £814 million, and cutting the NHS budget is exactly what the shadow Health Secretary wants to do in England—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way to a Welsh MP?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman, as a Welsh MP, might want to listen to this. Both the NHS budget and spending—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I shall make some progress, because this gets even worse for Labour.

The shadow Secretary of State wrote to me at the weekend, asking me to relieve pressure on A and E by using the health underspend to put extra money into social care. There is a way of releasing resources into social care, but it is not that, because the underspend he talks of sits largely with NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups, which are allowed to keep their underspends and roll them over to subsequent years. If we took away that money and put it into social care, we would therefore have to take it away from hospitals, where it is needed most to help tackle pressures in A and E and other places.

Let us look at some of the hospitals that would lose money under Labour’s plans. Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, in the right hon. Gentleman’s own constituency, had a £4 million underspend in 2012-13. It would be prevented from using that money to reduce A and E pressures, as would the Royal Cornwall, the Royal United hospital Bath, Nottingham University hospitals—

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

I am going to make some progress. The Royal Wolverhampton, East Lancashire, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen, North Bristol, Coventry and many other hospitals would also be prevented from using the money. So Labour’s solution to the A and E crisis is to cut funding to hospitals—about as logical as wanting to reduce debt by increasing the deficit.

From a Labour party that wants to be a Government in waiting, this is not good enough. It is against a cut in NHS spending that did not happen, but when there is a real cut in Wales it says nothing. It is against hospital reconfigurations in England, where we are hitting the A and E target, yet says nothing about reconfigurations in Wales, where Labour is missing the A and E target. It says it is against reorganisations and it has just proposed its own huge structural reorganisation to merge the health and social care system. Why is that? It is because in the end it is more interested—we have seen this today—in party politics than the right policies. I think we can expect better from someone who used to be a Health Secretary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I shall make some progress.

Labour’s complacency on that issue is revealed as even more shocking when we look at the root causes of pressures on A and E departments, because nearly all of them involve issues that Labour either failed to tackle in office or made a great deal worse—for example, the IT fiasco, so heavily criticised by the National Audit Office. It is completely unacceptable that A and E departments are not able to access, with their consent, people’s GP records. Last year, there were 30,000 wrong prescriptions in the NHS and 11 deaths—something we know would be significantly improved with e-prescribing in hospitals. The Government have addressed that, with a fund that I announced last month and an ambitious programme to make the NHS paperless by 2018, learning from that procurement debacle for which we are now paying the price.

Let us look at other causes. The working time directive, which Labour signed up to, makes the recruitment of A and E staff very much harder.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Hunt]

I think the hon. Gentleman should listen to this. Professor John Temple described that as having the biggest impact on the emergency and out-of-hours parts of the NHS, which is why the Government are now having to increase recruitment into A and E through the mandate that the Government have set Health Education England. Or there is the total failure—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dorrell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We cannot blame people in the country for not understanding the need for change in the health service if politicians never explain why that need has arisen. I quite often quote Enoch Powell—not someone who wins a consensus across the House—who as Health Minister went to the equivalent of the NHS Confederation conference, which is now under way in Liverpool, to explain the need for the change in the service model in mental health. He said in his speech that

“Hospitals are not like pyramids, built to impress some remote posterity”.

That is the case that we need to begin to explain.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Dorrell]

I shall give way once more.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s generosity. One of the ironies is that Enoch Powell recruited a lot of doctors overseas. He would have had absolutely nothing to do with the argument advanced yesterday by one of the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues that all the problems in A and E are to do with the arrival of migrants. If anything, we need to change immigration policy in this country, so that more doctors can come here.

[Mr Dorrell]

I have four minutes, or with two interventions, six minutes, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not go off into a discussion about immigration policy.

I want to focus on the changing needs that the health service has to meet. I sometimes wonder whether people talking about rising demand on the health service and rising demand for emergency care have ever sat in a GP’s surgery. Have they noticed around them in a GP’s surgery the kind of people who present in a surgery and the conditions that bring them there—dementia, diabetes and drug and alcohol abuse? How can we expect a service that was designed to meet the needs of patients, inasmuch as it was designed at all, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to meet the needs of today’s increasingly elderly and dependent patients, without rethinking the way care is delivered?

This is—I come back to my core point—a shared analysis. It is not a subject of party political debate. It is a shared analysis between the two Front Benches, and what is even more surprising is that not only is the analysis shared, but the conclusions about the right policy response are shared.

Health and Social Care

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The point of a cap is not that we expect everyone to have to pay £72,000 towards their care. First, through pension plans and insurance policies people can make provision so that they never have to pay that £72,000. Secondly, as part of the package, we are increasing the threshold, below which the Government help, to £118,000—much higher than it is currently—so that it will be available to help, I think, around 40,000 more people than are currently helped because of the level of the means-testing threshold.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hunt]

No, I am going to make some progress.

Finally, the values of the NHS—compassionate care and free at the point of need—are its greatest asset, but they open it up to risk of abuse from health tourists coming to this country to exploit that generosity.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Hunt]

I am going to make some progress.

Over the summer, we will consult on proposals to make the system fairer and ensure that people who should pay for NHS services do in fact do so. That will also help to ensure that our NHS remains sustainable at a time of tight public finance.

These proposals represent our commitment to ensuring a compassionate, fully integrated and sustainable system of health and social care built entirely around the needs of the patient. They represent a commitment to the NHS and social care system, which lies at the heart of our determination to make Britain the best country in the world to grow old in. [Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

It is interesting, isn’t it? Here we are, in the middle of this Parliament, discussing the Queen’s Speech and health and social care, and what is the only issue Conservative Members can raise? Europe! We are talking about people waiting hours on end in A and E, about ambulances queuing outside, about a 111 service that does not ring anybody back, and about social care close to collapse, but they have nothing to say about those issues. Instead, they bang on about Europe. That is because they are preparing the ground for the 2015 election. The nasty party is back, scapegoating vulnerable people and stoking social division as a means of diverting attention from its own record, so get ready to hear how problems in the NHS are caused by health tourism and are nothing to do with the coalition’s toxic medicine of fragmentation, privatisation and budget cuts.

[Chris Bryant]

Is there not another side to the argument about immigration in relation to the NHS, which is that many of the people who keep the NHS functioning are from outside this country? One of the biggest problems facing accident and emergency departments around the country is that they cannot recruit enough consultants, yet the system that the Government have introduced on migration for those people is making it more difficult to recruit overseas. Would not a more enlightened attitude give us a more effective NHS?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Burnham]

We must wait to see what the Government produce, but we need to be sure that they are attacking the real problem rather than playing politics with an issue and creating the impression that all the A and E problems are caused by immigration. If that is their real intention, they will have no support from the Opposition.

[Chris Bryant]

Did my right hon. Friend have an opportunity to hear what the Conservative right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said during the debate on the Queen’s Speech last week? It was very intelligent and nuanced. He said that it was necessary to ensure that not just life-threatening diseases but notifiable diseases and mental health conditions would not be covered by the proposed measures. The position is not quite as straightforward as some newspapers might like to suggest.

[Andy Burnham]

Nuance, care and caution are precisely what we need in this debate; we do not need press statements written by Lynton Crosby which then turn up in the House as Bills. We want responsible government, ensuring that the NHS is not abused. We will support the Government as long as that is their intention, but if they are doing something more sinister and playing politics with these issues, they will not have our support.

We have had no answers on the NHS. Let me finally turn to public health. There was not much on which I agreed with the last Health Secretary, but he had my strong support when he spoke about tackling smoking. He said that he wanted tobacco companies to have “no business” in this country, and that introducing standardised packaging was an essential next step to ensure that young smokers were not recruited by the tobacco industry. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), looks confused, but I think she advanced the same argument on the radio a couple of weeks ago, saying she was an advocate of standardised packaging. Then, we read in advance in our newspapers that the measure had been dropped—one of the “barnacles” on “the boat”, we were told, by the said Mr Crosby. This is the same Mr Crosby who has represented “big tobacco” since the 1980s, who masterminded the campaign against standardised packaging in Australia, and who was federal director of the Liberal party of Australia when it accepted millions of pounds in donations from the tobacco industry.

The Secretary of State said last week that a decision has not been made yet because the consultation has only just finished. It ended nine months ago. He can make a decision. I say to him again today, here is another positive offer from the Opposition: if he brings forward these proposals, they will have our full support and we will get them on the statute book.

Immigrants (NHS Treatment)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We need to deal with all those issues, and they are all failures of the last Government.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There is a problem with recruitment in the NHS not only in England, but in Wales. Last year, Welsh NHS trusts tried to recruit 32 A and E consultants from the UK, but failed to do so and had to go abroad. Is there not a danger that the rhetoric in which the Government are indulging will put off the talented doctors that the NHS in this country needs?

[Mr Hunt]

We owe a great debt to the many talented doctors, nurses and health care assistants who come from overseas and make our NHS what it is. Nothing in our immigration laws will change that.

Social Care Funding

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is perhaps the biggest remaining issue that we have to face in the NHS and social care system today. There are interesting parts of the country, such as Torbay, where it is happening very effectively, but anything he can do in North Yorkshire to make it happen more speedily and more effectively will be very welcome.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Mining constituencies have some of the highest percentages of home ownership in the country, so this issue affects them. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), what discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Welsh Assembly, because I presume that there will be a Barnett consequential—money going to Wales as a result of today’s announcement? How much will that be?

[Mr Hunt]

All the Barnett consequential issues are decided by the Treasury, and we will of course comply with them.

Winterbourne View

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

The legal framework is satisfactorily in place to protect whistleblowers who raise their concerns with the relevant authorities, but this is about culture. We must do everything we can to ensure that providers encourage their staff to raise concerns—internally first, if possible, but with other authorities, if necessary—whenever they see abuse or neglect taking place. We must also encourage individuals to feel safe about raising concerns. The framework of protection is there for individuals to do that.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

There are two problems. First, the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality has meant that thugs have been able to get away with terrible behaviour in care homes. Secondly, despite the enormous advances in ischaemic heart disease, cancer and diabetes, for example, the amount of money invested every year to find solutions and treatments for mental health conditions remains very poor.

[Norman Lamb]

On the first point, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that these closed settings and institutions too often create the conditions for abuse to take place. It is all the more important, then, to get the regulation right for the sake of those individuals who have to be in such institutions—a minority have to be there for their own safety or that of the public. On the second point, he raised the general issue that for a long time—probably, it has always been the case—mental health has been a poor relation to physical health in terms of the amount of money spent on research and how the money flows within the NHS. I seek to address that.