Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

It is absolutely essential that users of services know exactly who the staff are who are caring for them, and the issue of uniform is something that I would be happy to discuss further with the hon. Gentleman.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

8. What plans he has to review the health allocation formula.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

We will soon publish the final recommendations of the independent advisory committee on resource allocation. That committee reviews the approach and the formula under which money is allocated to clinical commissioning groups and local authorities so that they can fulfil their public health duties.

[David Mowat]

There have been two problems with how the formula has worked over the past few years. First, it has not placed enough emphasis on ageing as a criterion, and secondly the Department of Health has not implemented it properly, in so far as flat-rate increases have been given to primary care trusts, meaning that there has been no impact from changes. Both these things have worked to the detriment of Warrington. Will the Minister resolve these issues?

[Anna Soubry]

I am glad to assist my hon. Friend and assure him that fairness is imperative when it comes to distributing money and deciding where it goes. One reason the Government are keen to make the formula fair is our determination to reduce health inequalities, especially given the last Administration’s legacy of increased inequalities.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am most grateful.

Of course, the hon. Gentleman is playing with the figures. As he knows from previous discussions, he is talking about the SITREP—situation report—figures, which do not form the basis of the figures the Government use. [Interruption.] If he will keep quiet for a minute and listen, I will reiterate the point I made last night. Regarding A and E waits of under four hours and the percentile of 95, we are at 96%, which means we are within and above the level set down by the Government’s figures.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

11. What plans he has to review the health allocation formula.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The independent Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation is reviewing the allocation of resources for the NHS through clinical commissioning groups, and for local authorities in relation to their future public health responsibilities. ACRA’s interim recommendations on the preferred distribution of public health resources were published on 14 June. The NHS formula will be published in due course. The draft mandate for the NHS Commissioning Board makes it clear that it should provide resources to secure equal access for equal need.

[David Mowat]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. It is becoming increasingly clear that ageing is a key driver of health care costs, yet the ACRA formula currently does not properly take that into account, to the detriment of towns such as Warrington. Can he confirm that under the new formula, ageing will be more prominent?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes. As my hon. Friend will know, under the existing formula, age was the single biggest factor, but what is important is that the formula accurately reflects the factors that will give rise to need for health care, so that the allocation of resources can respond directly to that need. Ensuring separately that there is an allocation to local authorities for public health, which will be measured in relation to mortality below the age of 75 in particular, will enable those resources separately to be focused on, for example, areas of greatest deprivation which give rise to the poorest health outcomes.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

We have learned no such thing. Indeed, we published on the Department’s website today a survey that asked people who had been looked after by the NHS how well they thought their care had been provided to them. It showed that 92% of the patients said their care had been good, very good or excellent. In my view, that survey of 70,000 patients who had received care from the NHS completely trumps a survey that asked 1,000 people what they might have thought about the NHS in relation to the media activity that took place last year.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T8. The Cheshire and Merseyside treatment centre has been closed for just over a year, since the private sector contract let by the last Government expired. Can the Minister confirm that the centre is now going to be brought back into the NHS as a fully fledged part of the Warrington and Halton hospitals trust, and will he give me an indication of the time scale involved?

[Mr Simon Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to explain that the NHS trust and the PCT have made plans for the building to be used by the Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for orthopaedic out-patients and surgery. Those plans should enable clinicians to provide the NHS services needed by local people in much-improved buildings, and I understand that services will be recommenced from those buildings in weeks.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

No one could accuse the Secretary of State of being other than comprehensive. We are grateful to him.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that under the allocation formula a number of PCTs have built up historic deficits, which have required us in Warrington, for example, to reduce our in vitro fertilisation services. Can the Minister confirm that with the transfer to GP commissioning, those historic deficits will be written off, which will in effect inject large amounts of money into local health economies such as Warrington’s?

Vascular Services (Warrington)

David Mowat Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Minister is describing in some detail the process by which the nine centres that previously existed are to be reduced to two, and we can, perhaps, accept the logic of that. This is a piecemeal decision for one type of service, however. If every centralisation decision is taken in a piecemeal way, Warrington and Halton might well lose every single time. When decisions on centralisation are made, should there not be some kind of strategy for deciding what will end up where, so that every decision is not made on a piecemeal basis?

[Mr Burns]

If my hon. Friend means by “piecemeal” that the decision is dealing only with a certain part of the country, then that is indeed the case. However, the review was carried out in the context of a wider geographical area in and around Merseyside, and in that respect it is achieving its aim of finding the most relevant service for the local communities. That is why the recommendation was to have two arterial centres located there.

The hon. Member for Warrington North raised the issue of population, as she believes, I think, that there should be a third centre. The following point is based on advice from both the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the local clinical advisory group. The population in the area under discussion in respect of this decision on services is 1.2 million, whereas the figures that would be required to have a third centre are 1.4 million for the vascular networks and 1.6 million for abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programmes. Therefore, the population currently under discussion is too small to warrant an extra centre. I hope she will accept that.

Manufacturing

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

In the absence of Madam Deputy Speaker responding to that challenge, I will. The Prime Minister urges all of us in his Government to be as proactive as possible whenever we go abroad, ensuring that we are properly equipped with a sense of the key business opportunities that are relevant to the particular mission that we are on. We have asked UKTI to set out what we call a high-value opportunities programme to identify really big projects around the world where there are opportunities for British companies and suppliers to invest and provide. We are systematically reviewing the high-value opportunities provided by large-scale projects around the world, which we believe British companies can take advantage of by going out and battling for contracts. We are improving the tax system, we are backing R and D and innovation and we are committed to improving our performance on exports.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to the Minister’s points about how his Department is helping parts of the manufacturing sector. Many manufacturers tell me that the big issue for them is differential energy prices. Can he assure the House that his Department is on top of that issue, and that we will not lose process manufacturing in particular to countries such as France and Germany, and of course to the far east, due to high electricity prices and high energy prices in general?

[Mr Willetts]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the Department is very well aware of the particular pressures facing energy-intensive industries, and we are considering them very carefully.

Contaminated Blood

David Mowat Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No, they will not. From our point of view, eligibility will simply be based on a diagnosis of their condition.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the statement, particularly the attempt to get better parity between HIV and hepatitis C. However, I remain slightly concerned about the definition of stage 2. What proportion of hepatitis C complainants does the Minister expect to progress to stage 2? He must have estimated that number in order to put a financial amount on the settlement.

[Mr Lansley]

I regret that I cannot give such an estimate to my hon. Friend. The estimate that I have given is a range that extends from £100 million to £130 million during the life of this Parliament. If one were to go beyond that period, the parameters of the range would widen, not least because we do not, and cannot, know to what extent this infection is likely to progress to the second stage of these diseases.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) for being brief and thereby letting me contribute to the debate, and I shall be brief as well. Like many others, I welcome the movement from the Minister over the past couple of days.

I want to make three points. I would like the Minister to comment on them in her concluding remarks, and I would certainly welcome their being addressed in her review. The first is the difference between how this problem has been dealt with in this country and other countries. A lot has been said about Ireland, but Ireland is not the only country in question: there is also Japan, Canada and Italy. It has been said that past Governments have failed to address the problem and that is true, but it is only Governments of our country who have failed. I would like to know where our response to the problem will rank in comparison with that of other countries, and I hope we will finish at least halfway up the international league table.

Secondly, I want to draw attention to the distinction we have persistently drawn between hepatitis C sufferers and HIV sufferers. When I first looked into this issue, I simply did not understand that, time and again, whenever a compensation payment was made we drew that distinction. People with hepatitis C are unable to work in the same way as those with HIV, and people with hepatitis C are also dying prematurely in the same way. We really have to stop drawing that distinction. It has even been drawn latterly in respect of the Archer report. The annual payment now being made to HIV sufferers is, I think, £12,800, whereas hepatitis C sufferers, who have about the same amount of discomfort, have merely got a review in five years’ time. That is not right.

My third point is about money, about which a number of interesting comments have been made, in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee). The cost of matching the sums we have given to the HIV folk in payments to the hepatitis C folk is 3,500 people multiplied by £12,800 a year. That comes to £40 million a year. That is the cost of implementing Archer in the same way for the hepatitis C people as for the HIV people. I would be extremely interested to hear what my Front-Bench colleague has to say about that, and I would like it to be addressed in the review. How can we reconcile that sum of £40 million a year that will not be for ever—unfortunately the number of these people is declining—with the sum of £3 billion?

Finally, let me say that this is not just about money. Had it been just about money, we would have fixed the problem 10 years ago when more money was going into the national health service than it was able to spend. This is about principle, and we have the chance to sort it out.

I also regret that the motion refers to a comparison with Ireland. That country does give eight to 10 times more money than we have been able to find, but other countries come in between ours and Ireland on that list. We should not be constrained to signing up to a one-country approach, but we have to get this fixed.