Chris Heaton-Harris
Main Page: Chris Heaton-Harris (Conservative - Daventry)Department Debates - View all Chris Heaton-Harris's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The move from disability living allowance to personal independence payments has been an exercise of huge consultation with the disability lobbies to try to ensure that we get this right. The fact is, there are hundreds of thousands of people on DLA who have never had a recheck since they started to take on that benefit, and many others—I know this as a parent who filled out the form myself—who have to fill out reams of answers to questions without the proper medical check that would actually get them the benefit quicker. We are moving from an old system that is out of date to a new system that will actually help disabled people.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
Q10. Selective dorsal rhizotomy is the name of an operation that allows children with spastic cerebral palsy, like my constituent Holly Davies, to leave their wheelchair behind and walk independently. It has been carried out successfully thousands of times in the United States but is available only privately in the UK as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence refuses to allow the operation on the NHS. Will the Prime Minister look at the situation and help me, and the families across the country who are currently raising money for their children to have the operation, to get NICE to change its mind?
The Prime Minister
I will certainly look closely at that. I quite understand, as a parent of a very disabled child who had cerebral palsy, that if there was anything that a parent could do to get their child out of the wheelchair, they would want that to happen. I have looked at this case, and NICE actually says that the operation is a treatment option for some children and young people, but it cautions against the potentially serious complications, because it is an irreversible operation with risks involved. However, I will look at the matter very carefully and see whether there is anything more that NICE should consider.