Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

In response to the hon. Lady’s question about the use of the infection control fund, it was available to providers to use in a range of ways to keep their residents safe from covid, including, for instance, reducing the movement of staff between one care home and another, which is often part of the service model of how care is provided, and also, as I mentioned earlier, funding full sick pay for staff who needed to self-isolate because of covid. I am determined that as part of our social care reforms that we will be bringing forward, we will look at how best we can support the workforce.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

What progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review.

[The Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

A written ministerial statement was published on 11 January 2021, updating Parliament on the Government’s current progress on each of the nine recommendations. The Government will respond in full to the report later this year. It took more than two years to produce the report and we therefore consider it vital, for the sake of patients and especially those who have suffered greatly, to give this independent report the full consideration it deserves.

[Christian Wakeford]

Baroness Cumberlege’s respected report makes it clear that those harmed by sodium valproate have suffered great and irreparable harm for many decades and that redress is needed. The patient reference group adds more delay for people who have waited long enough already. Will my hon. Friend commit to doing the right thing today and take up this issue of redress and give those harmed the support they have waited so long for?

[Ms Dorries]

I would like first to convey my most sincere sympathies to anyone who has suffered as a consequence of taking sodium valproate during pregnancy. It remains still the only drug that some women who suffer from epilepsy can take to control their epilepsy. As set out in the recent written ministerial statement, the Government will carefully consider the recommendations and make a full response to the whole report later this year.