Social Care (Liverpool)

Debate between David Mowat and Maria Eagle

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[David Mowat]

Indeed. On Thursday, I am going to Liverpool to give a talk at a care conference. I would be very happy during that visit to come along and talk to the council about some of the issues raised here today. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, I am sure that the Government can learn from Liverpool. Frankly, we can all learn from each other. When I went to Whiston hospital and saw discharges to St Helens and to Liverpool, I saw some wonderful things happening there. Anyway, the offer stands.

[Maria Eagle]

I am sure that all councils in Merseyside would be happy—I know that Knowsley would—to see the Minister on Thursday if he has a bit of spare time. Does he agree that it will be a bit of a blow if the Chancellor’s reported actions tomorrow reward those with a poorer record with smaller cuts to their resources than Knowsley’s? Knowsley has a good record on delayed discharges, but according to the formulation listed in some of today’s newspapers, it will end up getting very little, if anything.

[David Mowat]

I thought that I had said that I agree with the hon. Lady that it would be wrong to punish those that are doing better. She mentioned that Knowsley is one of the stronger councils in that regard; St Helens is even stronger. It would be completely wrong if that were the basis of the allocation. Frankly, that is not my understanding.

I want to talk a little about what the Government plan to do on social care. Part of that involves recognising the pressures that exist. One thing that we get into quickly in social care discussions is a debate about adult social care and frail people—people on the borderline between being ill and being old. If they are ill, they are in hospital under the NHS, and if they are not, they are old, and care is either means-tested or provided by the council. That is a difficult area.

One third of the pressure on councils such as Liverpool arises not from older people but from people with severe learning difficulties, autism and disabilities more generally. Over the past decade, thankfully, the health inequality from which that cohort suffers has decreased considerably, and the life expectancy of people in those categories has increased. The cost to local authorities is clearly severe. In addition, the Government are determined to press ahead with a programme called Transforming Care, which came out of the Winterbourne View case. Too many people with severe learning difficulties were in institutions and long-term hospitals, with all that goes with that. We are moving them into communities with the help of local authorities. There is a plan to move some 3,000 people out of institutions—places hopefully much better than Winterbourne View—and into care. All of that creates pressures of the sort that we have been hearing about in this debate, but that does not mean that it is not the right thing to do.

Defibrillators in Public Areas

Debate between David Mowat and Maria Eagle

Monday 16th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I accept that. Also, a number of sports governing bodies offer screening for people who participate in their sports, but of course that is not the national screening of all 12 to 39-year-olds, which was the issue that was looked at.

Let me finish by reiterating my willingness to meet the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, other Members and people from the Oliver King Foundation.

[Maria Eagle]

I conveyed a request for the Prime Minister to meet the Oliver King Foundation and Oliver’s parents. Could the Minister help me to facilitate that?

[David Mowat]

I can do many things, but I cannot answer for the Prime Minister. I think I am right in saying that those people met the Secretary of State a couple of years ago. Perhaps when we meet, however, they can start at the bottom end of the food chain before working their way upwards.

When the Government invest in any aspect of health, whether it be cancer drugs or access to GPs, efficacy and cost-effectiveness must be evaluated. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence uses the criterion “quality-adjusted life years”. Investment in defibrillators must be judged against investment in other necessities, such as cancer drugs, but it is clear from what has been said in a debate that has attracted interest on both sides of the House and the border that defibrillators save money as we start to save lives. The Government accept that, and I want us to make progress in this regard.

Question put and agreed to.

Social Care Funding

Debate between David Mowat and Maria Eagle

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Liverpool City Council has seen £330 million cut from its budget since 2010—58% of all its money. A further £90 million has to be found by 2020. In those circumstances, how will it be possible for the council to increase, as we all wish it could, the money it spends on adult social services, when it already spends more on them— £146 million—than it can raise in council tax?

[David Mowat]

It is not my role to lecture Liverpool City Council on how to deliver adult social care. I make the point, though, that Knowsley and St Helens, which are very close to Liverpool, have virtually no delayed transfers of care, and so possibly some best-practice sharing would be in order.

Community Pharmacies

Debate between David Mowat and Maria Eagle

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

I want to make some progress.

Secondly, we want to see an enhanced role for the community pharmacy network in providing value-added services. This is an aspiration that we share with the network and its representatives. To that end, NHS England has commissioned Richard Murray of the King’s Fund to produce an evidence-based report to determine which types of primary care services are best done by pharmacists over the next two or three years. The report, which will be published later this year, will inform NHS England’s decisions on how to use the integration fund of £42 million that I announced two weeks ago. There are many candidate areas, including long-term conditions, minor ailments, better care home support and more medicine reviews, as well as the work that pharmacists do in public health.

[Maria Eagle]

Many of the pharmacies in my constituency already provide such services, but they are now threatened by the Government’s proposals. Does the Minister not realise that, according to research carried out by Pharmacy Voice, in a constituency such as mine, which is No. 20 on the list of deprived areas, four in five people who cannot see a pharmacist will end up going to their GP? Does he not agree that that will achieve exactly the opposite of what he wants?

[David Mowat]

The impact review, which was published at the same time as my statement two weeks ago, estimated that the amount of extra time that people would have to spend going to a pharmacy would be a matter of seconds, even if we had, say, 100 closures. The impact review sets that out in some detail. Did someone sitting behind me wish to intervene?

Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between David Mowat and Maria Eagle

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

There is nothing in that intervention with which I disagree. We all want the inquiry to work. The Government have not established an inquiry in order for it to fail. We have not established an inquiry for it not to have the confidence of the association. We need to get to the truth, but that is a scientific process, and because it is a scientific process, it can be frustrating and long-winded; it can take a long time.

I want to talk about some of the concerns that have been raised. There were three types of concerns. The first was that the independent group of experts is not reviewing the regulatory concerns or the delays that took place at the time, in particular the failures of the then Committee on Safety of Medicines and the five or eight-year delay, which we have heard about. The UK was not the first country to ban the drug, but it was not the last either. The second concern, which I will talk about at some length, was that members of the expert group might not be independent and might not have fully declared their conflicts of interest. We have heard words like “colluding” and “cover-up” from some Members. The third concern was that not all the available evidence is being considered by the group, and we heard about the German material not being translated. I will address all three points.

On the first issue, we have heard that there was a regulatory failure and that the inquiry should look at it. I say to the House that if, when the expert group reports next spring, it finds a clear causal link, that will be the time to take further action on issues such as regulation and liability, and everything that goes with that. The first step we are taking is to establish the science. The group that has been set up is an expert group. It is science-led. It is important to make it clear in the House that we are not criticising individual members, because they are striving to get to the truth. It is a group of eminent people.

It would be quite wrong if we conflated the possible eventual need to look at the regulatory actions that were taken, the legal liabilities and everything that goes with that, with the first step of the process, which is to establish whether the science leads us to that link. In spite of some of the comments that have been made today, that has not been done yet in any country. The first serious attempt to do it is the one that is going on now.

The second concern is that the expert working group is not impartial. The MHRA has taken a vigorous approach to evaluating and handling potential conflicts of interest. No member of the expert working group can have any interest in any of the companies that were involved or their predecessors. Members should not have publicly expressed a strong opinion, favourable or unfavourable, about the possibility of birth defects arising from these drugs. We heard that one of the members had tweeted. If there is evidence of that, we will follow it up. It is true that one member not of the expert group, but of the advisory group was removed because it was felt that he had a conflict of interest that was not properly declared. Action was taken very quickly in respect of that.

The inquiry is chaired by a consultant gynaecologist from the Chalmers centre in Edinburgh. The group has 14 scientists drawn from some of the best universities in the UK. We have no reason to believe that any of them have any more reason not to want to get to the truth than Members on both sides of this House.

[Maria Eagle]

Does the Minister not realise how important it is that, whatever the rights and wrongs of this and whatever the qualities of the members of the panel, the families need to have confidence in it? There is no point in saying that they are all wonderful people. The families have concerns and if they are not assuaged, in one way or another, the outcome will not have their confidence.

[David Mowat]

I said at the start of my remarks that the learning point I have taken from this debate is that, whatever we think about the truth, the science and whether we are doing the right thing, the families are not happy. I also said that we will do what we can to amend that.

As well as that, Members on both sides of the House need to accept that we need to get to the scientific truth. In order to do that, there needs to be a scientific process. That has to happen and that is why some of this is time-consuming and difficult, even though we wish that it was not.