Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Victoria Atkins
As someone who is proud to have gone to school in Blackpool, I do not need a lecture from the hon. Gentleman about what Labour has done to the town centre, or about the important work that Conservatives in Lancashire are doing to help communities such as Blackpool. On Labour’s record, I gently point out, as I try to do at every orals, that the record of the Labour-run NHS in Wales is lamentable. People are almost twice as likely to be waiting for treatment in the Labour-run NHS in Wales. That is not a record of which to be proud.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)
The hon. Member raises an important issue. It is vital that people with spinal injuries receive care in the most appropriate environment to support their care and rehabilitation. The NHS has developed a range of guidance on the subject, including NHS England’s excellent incontinence care guidance. In addition, guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence set out the care that patients with spinal injuries should receive, including through a neurological bowel management programme.
Gill Furniss
There is a clear need for a national policy on bowel care in NHS settings for people with spinal injuries. I have listened to patients who have been left feeling abandoned and trapped in a hospital bed without the basic dignity of being able to use the toilet—all because of a lack of training for nurses in providing the necessary support. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Spinal Injuries Association to discuss how we can make the situation better and ensure that nobody is denied this basic level of care?
Andrew Stephenson
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she and the all-party parliamentary group on spinal cord injury have done on the issue. I would be more than happy to meet them.
NHS Dentistry
Gill Furniss Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The crisis in NHS dentistry is plain to see and it is affecting so many of my constituents. I am therefore grateful for this opportunity to shed light on this emergency and to support Labour's plan to rebuild our broken dentistry. People are finding it impossible to find an NHS dentist for themselves and their children, which is leading to serious consequences for public health. It is also exacerbating health inequalities, and creating a divide between those who can afford private dentistry and those who cannot. The proportion of children with dental decay in the most deprived areas is more than two and a half times greater than it is in the least deprived areas, and the gap is widening. That has led to a public health crisis: 169 children each day are undergoing tooth extraction; rotting teeth is, shockingly, the No. 1 cause of hospital admissions among six to 10-year-olds; and one in 10 people have even attempted their own do-it-yourself dentistry, which just does damage and puts even more pressure on the NHS. That reads like a Charles Dickens novel, but it is the harsh reality of 14 years of Conservative government. Nowhere is that more apparent than in my constituency, where not one of the seven dental surgeries that recently provided an update was accepting new adult patients and only one was accepting new child patients.
Although those figures are appalling, they are not surprising. I am regularly contacted by constituents who cannot find an NHS dentist and cannot afford to go private. They ask me, “What am I supposed to do?”. Without radical reform, there is no answer I can give them. We often talk about crumbling dental services, but in my constituency they have already crumbled; the services simply are not there for the people who need them most. One constituent has contacted more than 25 dentists in Sheffield, with each telling her the same thing: they are not accepting new NHS patients at this time. The best she has been offered is to be put on a waiting list, which could last years. She cannot afford to go private, so she and her young child are stuck without any access to a dentist. We have also seen the provision of community dental services grind to a halt. Those services are a vital safety net, providing specialised treatment when other dentists cannot accommodate the needs of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. That safety net is no longer there for all too many people. Research shows that, nationally, more than 12,000 children were on a waiting list for community dental services at the start of 2023, and they could face waits of up to 80 weeks for tooth extractions. Healthwatch has heard from many people and their carers who cannot access community dentistry, leaving them without treatment.
The basic provision of NHS dentistry has been worn away on this Government’s watch. The warning signs of this crisis have been stark for years, but Ministers have continued to bury their heads in the sand. Funding has been cut in real terms, meaning that dentists are leaving the NHS in droves and areas such as mine have become dental deserts. It is clear that this Government are not willing to provide the radical changes needed to bring NHS dentistry back from the brink. In April last year, Ministers promised a new dental recovery plan; but we are still waiting for it to see the light of day. I urge the Minister to tell us when that will happen and not just say “soon”. Labour has formulated a fully costed plan that will get NHS dentistry back up and running. The best treatment is prevention, which is why Labour will introduce a targeted, supervised toothbrushing scheme for three to five-year-olds, encouraging lifelong good dental hygiene. Labour will also provide an extra 700,000 urgent appointments per year to help the most vulnerable access the services they need and introduce an incentive scheme to bring more dentists to dental deserts. I am proud to say that all of that will be paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status. Those tangible steps will bring NHS dentistry back to constituencies such as mine, where services have disappeared. Where this Government have failed, Labour will step in and help all our constituents to access the NHS dentistry they need. I will be proud to support Labour’s plan in today's vote, and I urge all colleagues, including Conservative Members, to vote with us.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Health and Social Care.
Food Labelling and Allergies
Gill Furniss Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this vital debate. I pay tribute to Owen’s and Natasha’s families and to all the people who have come to the debate. I thank them for coming here, because I know how painful it must be for them. I also thank the many thousands who signed the petition.
Owen should have turned 24 last month. This should have been a time of joy and celebration for him and his family. Instead, because of a tragic and preventable failing, he died less than 300 metres from this building. Diagnosed with severe food allergies at just six months, Owen was always careful to manage his allergies and avoid triggering a reaction. On the day that Owen passed, he took the time to inform the waiting staff of his allergies, but because of a miscommunication the information was not passed to the kitchen. That led to his consumption of a chicken burger that had been marinated in buttermilk. Despite the presence of one of the most common allergens, dairy, the information was given only in the small print on the back of the menu, not alongside the product listing. That is in line with regulation 5 of the Food Information Regulations 2014, which requires restaurants to collate allergen information but allows the information to be delivered “by any means”. The regulations do not go far enough to inform customers about what allergens might be a part of their meal. Instead, the onus is unfairly placed on those with allergies to inform their servers. That cannot be right.
Since Owen’s untimely death, his family have campaigned tirelessly for a common-sense change to the legislation, so that it reads “on the face of a menu” instead of “by any means”. That would be much like the vegan and VE vegetarian symbols displayed alongside vegetarian and vegan products in restaurants. I praise the restaurants that acted unilaterally to display allergen information prominently on their menus. That is a straightforward step that could save lives.
The number of people with allergies in the UK has steadily risen, and an estimated one in three people are affected. Owen’s law would benefit the millions of people in the UK who are allergic to a food product or who care for someone who is. Those who suffer with even a mild allergy know the detrimental impact that it can have on their quality of life, the stress caused by social interactions in unfamiliar places, the diligence it takes to analyse everything that they purchase and consume, and the constant worry that their allergy might progress and get worse with little or no warning. It is no wonder that those who are diagnosed with an allergy are more likely also to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety.
At the inquest into Owen’s death, the coroner found that a lack of data collection regarding anaphylactic reactions contributed to a failure to learn from these tragedies. I am pleased that some progress has been made on this front with the establishment of the UK anaphylaxis registry in 2021, but we need to do more to support people with allergies. The past 20 years have seen minimal investment in NHS allergy services, and I support calls for an allergy tsar to advocate on behalf of those with allergies, alongside an increased number of allergen clinics. We cannot eliminate allergens entirely, but one thing we can do is advocate Owen’s law, which would build on Natasha’s law and ensure that allergen information is displayed alongside food products in restaurants so that the proper information is provided in the most accessible manner.
I beg the Minister to ensure that action is taken. No one here has disagreed today; everyone has been in favour of more resources being deployed in this area and of having a tsar who runs a proper strategy and has the proper financial resources to research why so many people are allergic to various products. Let us change the legislation. The Minister has the opportunity to stop many more parents having to face the unthinkable and lose a child or family member. These deaths can absolutely be avoided with the right services and legislation in place.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
The Government are working to improve access. We have made initial reforms to the contract and created more unit of dental activity bands to better reflect the fair cost of work and to incentivise NHS work. We have introduced a new minimum UDA value to help sustain practices where they are low, and we are allowing dentists to deliver 110% of their UDAs for the first time to deliver more activity. Those are just the first steps; we are planning wider reforms.
Neil O’Brien
It was very useful to meet my hon. Friend the other day, who is a great expert on this issue. As he knows, we are working at pace on our plans for dentistry. As well as improving the incentives to do NHS work, we are working on the workforce to make it easier for dentists to come to the UK. We laid draft secondary legislation in October to help the General Dental Council with that. We are working on our plans for a centre for dental development in Ipswich and elsewhere in the east of England, as he knows. Although we have not yet set a date to set out the next phase of our plans, my hon. Friend knows from our meeting that this is a high priority area for us and that we are working on it at pace.
Gill Furniss
I was contacted recently by my constituent Helen, who said:
“I don’t know what to do. I have phoned 25 dental practices today and been told the same thing each time: all we can do is put you on a 3 year waiting list.”
What does the Minister say to Helen and the thousands who, like her, cannot access an NHS dentist? When will he get a grip on this crisis?
Neil O’Brien
We are the first to say that the current situation is not satisfactory. That is why we invested an extra £50 million in the last quarter of last year, and it is why we are working at pace. Let us be clear: dentistry has not been right since Labour’s 2006 contract, and until we fix the fundamentals of that and the problems set up by the Opposition, we will not tackle the underlying problem.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Maria Caulfield
Of course we apologise for the cases that we have seen; anyone who watched some of those programmes will have seen the distressing and unacceptable care. I am the Minister with responsibility not just for mental health but for patient safety, so I will be looking at the cases in “Panorama” and other programmes, and at cases across the board, because I want to ensure that in-patient mental health services are as safe as possible. We know that these are some of the most vulnerable patients who often cannot speak out when there are problems. We are looking at the staffing, training and reporting mechanisms. On the case that was highlighted in “Panorama”, the Government are working closely with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and the individual trusts.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
Gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis, are a priority in the women’s health strategy, which we published in the summer. We are committed to improving care for women with endometriosis and are particularly looking at the patient experience and journey from first seeing their GP through to diagnosis.
Gill Furniss
Last week, the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis heard from many different women about their shocking experiences of getting diagnosed and treated. Despite the very good women’s health strategy, they are not seeing that on the frontline. Long waiting times, poor care and disbelief from medical professionals are all still too prevalent for women with endometriosis. Commitments in the women’s health strategy are long overdue and women are not fully feeling those benefits. When can we expect to see real progress to back that up and end this national scandal once and for all?
Maria Caulfield
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The Government introduced the first women’s health strategy to make issues such as endometriosis a high priority. Of course it will take time—we published the strategy only in the summer—but work is happening already. The women’s health ambassador is working to better inform young women about the signs and symptoms of endometriosis, so that they cannot be fobbed off with advice such as, “This is just a normal period.” Better and mandatory training for healthcare professionals in women’s health is being introduced and we are working with the royal colleges to streamline the referral process.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
Funding allocations to clinical commissioning groups vary to meet the needs of local populations, including mental health needs. These allocations are determined by a formula managed for the NHS by the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation. For mental health, the formula takes into account patient-level data covering community, out-patient and in-patient mental health services, as well as improving access to psychological therapies activity and hospital episode statistics.
Gill Furniss
One in three early intervention in psychosis services in the north of England does not meet the standard that NHS England expects. What is NHS England doing to end this postcode lottery and ensure that my constituents can access the same high-quality mental health services as people in other areas of the country?
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Lady is right to highlight this. Good care depends not only on money but on performance, and we expect the Care Quality Commission to be very challenging in inspections so that we can guarantee consistency in the quality of services, rather than experiencing the postcode lottery she mentions. I am disappointed that the CQC rated Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust as requiring improvement following the inspection in May and June last year, but we expect that challenge to continue so that there are obvious improvements.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
I do not think I can make it any clearer: this Government are committed to providing community services right where people need them, and we are putting our money where our mouth is. Last week, the Prime Minister announced a major new investment in primary and community healthcare of £3.5 billion.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Gill Furniss
According to a recent poll of doctors by the Royal College of Physicians, almost six in 10 doctors report feeling very worried or worried about the ability of their hospital to deliver safe patient care over the winter period. What is the Secretary of State or the Minister doing to help our hard-working NHS staff provide the best possible care for patients?
Stephen Hammond
The NHS faces a challenging winter, but it has been planning throughout the year for this winter. It has been supported by an extra £420 million to redevelop A&Es, improve emergency care and help patients get home quicker. Those plans, more directly, include reducing the extended hospital stays we saw last year, increasing access to GP appointments and increasing the volume of cases that can be treated by emergency dentists.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gill Furniss Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Jackie Doyle-Price
I could not agree more. We need GPs to understand that they must consider a patient’s needs as a whole, not just the condition that is presented at the time, and that message has been sitting behind the guidance that we have been issuing to GPs on how they manage patients with long-term health conditions.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
Nursing remains a strong career choice, with more than 22,500 students placed during the 2017 UCAS application cycle. Demand for nursing places continues to outstrip the available training places.
Gill Furniss
Figures from the Royal College of Nursing show that applications have fallen by 33% since the withdrawal of bursaries. At the same time, the Government’s Brexit shambles has led to a drastic decline in EU nursing applications. How many years of such decline do we have to see before the Secretary of State and the Minister will intervene?
Stephen Barclay
What matters is not the number of rejected applicants, but the increase in places—the number of people actually training to be a nurse. The reality is that 5,000 more nurses will be training each year up to 2020 as a result of the changes.
Social Care
Gill Furniss Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Nearly every day, my office is introduced to a new case in which a constituent and his or her family are facing the harsh and difficult realities of a social care system in crisis, but this is not a crisis born out of necessity. Unfortunately, it is the cruel consequence of an ideologically driven cost-cutting agenda in action. It is a crisis that has been created at the heart of No 10.
The Tories have presided over an unprecedented attack on social care budgets. Some £4.6 billion has been taken from adult social care budgets since 2010, at a time when demand is growing. Reports by the King’s Fund make it clear that the adult social care system as it stands is
“failing older people, their families and carers”,
and that it will have a funding hole of £2.1 billion by 2019-20 which, if left unresolved, will continue to fuel the crisis. The same pattern is found in my home town, Sheffield, where there is a growing population of over-65s, all with a longer life expectancy than ever before. Sheffield City Council’s budget has been cut to the tune of £352 million since 2010, and further cuts are on their way.
As a result of the cuts, councils have had to make difficult decisions. Across England, 400,000 fewer people are able to access publicly funded social care, and one in eight older people is living with unmet care needs. The impact on people and their families in our communities has been harrowing. What is more, the deep cuts inflicted by No. 10 are not only cruel, but nonsensical and ineffective. For example, councils are having to limit the hourly care fees paid to providers.
A recent case in my constituency has highlighted the doubly negative effect of limited administration and care payment resources. My constituent has significant daily care needs, and she and the council have struggled to keep up with resourcing those complex needs. Care providers have withdrawn at short notice, leaving the council and the patient’s family frantically trying to find a new provider. The under-resourcing of social care creates the dual problem of a higher than acceptable turnover of providers, and councils without the resources to step in effectively. That causes much upset and pain to the most vulnerable in our society.
Another consequence of the deep cuts is the level of the duty of care that is being placed on unpaid carers, and, as we know, women are largely bearing the brunt of that work. In one case, a granddaughter cared for her grandmother for 100 hours per week, and when she applied for a care package in the hope of receiving some financial support, it took six months to come through. The long-winded process often leaves carers with no support at all. That is not an isolated case; in fact, there are 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK.
I am proud that in Labour’s election manifesto we pledged to increase carer’s allowance for unpaid full-time carers to align the benefit with jobseeker’s allowance rates. That is a practical and sensible solution, which also seeks to highlight the valuable work that nurses, social care workers and carers do for our communities. Too often, they are sidelined and their efforts shunned. They need a Government for the many, not just the privileged few, to stand up for them.
Crucially, the knock-on effects of a social care crisis are felt acutely by the NHS. Indeed, this year’s general election was the ultimate litmus test for the social care policies presented by the Tories and the Labour party. Labour not only pledged to invest £8 billion to alleviate some of the immediate problems facing social care, but promised to build a new national care service bringing together health and social care, which we would implement following a cross-party consensus. In a civilised society, it is vital for us to pool the risk, and not allow the most vulnerable to fend for themselves in old age.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister launched a nasty campaign against older people the likes of which we have not seen in decades. Following their U-turn on the dementia tax, the Tories have now turned their attention to blaming and threatening councils with fines and sanctions—
Defending Public Services
Gill Furniss Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to deliver my maiden speech today.
In keeping with the tradition of the House, I would like to take a few moments to pay tribute to my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, Harry Harpham. I am doubly proud to say that not only was he a dedicated and conscientious Labour MP, but, as many colleagues will know, he was also my husband. He served in this House for less than a year before his death, but in that time he made his mark. He spoke powerfully against the Chancellor’s cuts to tax credits, knowing the suffering they would cause the people he represented, and, as a lifelong trade unionist, he made an eloquent speech in defence of workplace rights when they were threatened by the Trade Union Bill.
I would also like to pay tribute to Lord Blunkett, who, as colleagues will know, stood down as the MP for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough at the general election last year. David has been a tireless champion of Sheffield since he was elected to the council at the age of 22. He led the city through the turbulent years of the 1980s before becoming an MP in 1987, and his drive and tenacity soon propelled him to the Front Bench. There simply is not time for me to list all his successes as Education Secretary and later Home Secretary, but fortunately anyone who is familiar with the last 25 years of British politics will know that his achievements speak for themselves.
My constituency sits in the north-east of Sheffield, perched above the city centre on one side and the Don valley on the other, where once upon a time we could find the steelworks that were the foundation of our economy. It was my constituents and their forebears, including my father, who worked in them, forging not just steel but their own fame and reputation and that of the city along the way.
But times have changed, and after the pain and upheavals of the 1980s, we find that these days working lives are not dominated by a single industry. Having said that, nearly 20% of my constituents work in health and social services, so it is with good reason that I say we are a community that cares for one another. We are a diverse constituency, with people and communities from across Europe and beyond, both recently arrived and long-standing. Sheffield has sometimes been called the biggest village in Britain thanks to the friendly, open nature of its people. We were the first city to join the gateway protection programme back in 2004, through which we have provided a place of safety for 1,000 refugees. Plans are well under way to welcome a further 225 fleeing the conflict in Syria over the next three years.
Sheffield became a city of sanctuary in 2007, with more than 70 local organisations working to bring asylum seekers and refugees together with local people to celebrate the strength that we all gain through our diversity. I am proud to represent a constituency and city that are so welcoming and tolerant.
What maiden speech would be complete without singing the praises of the local football team? This Saturday, Sheffield Wednesday will be battling Hull City at Wembley for a place in the premiership. If—or should I say when?—Wednesday win, they will be back in the top flight of English football for the first time in 16 years, which is exactly where they belong. I am a proud Wednesdayite, and while I may not have much in common with the players, I like to think that we are all coming down to London to put Sheffield firmly on the map, and I wish them all the best for the weekend.
Like anywhere, we face our fair share of challenges. The rate of unemployment in Brightside and Hillsborough is more than double the national average, and we are ranked 9th in the country for the number of households with dependent children where no adult is in employment. More than a third of children in my constituency are classed as living in poverty. Seven food banks now serve my constituency, and it goes without saying that I have nothing but praise for those who give up their time to collect, sort and distribute the donations that people in the area willingly give to help those who find themselves backed into a corner. The fact that people have to rely on food parcels at all in 2016 speaks volumes about the Government’s determination to tackle inequality, particularly when a third of those who rely on them are children.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the growth in food-bank use is the way that it is now taken as read that people will have to rely on them. They have become accepted as part of the landscape, and arouse little comment. It is frankly disgraceful that we have reached the point where those in most need can no longer rely on the state to help them through hard times, and that is a damning stain on the Government’s record.
Ironically, Harry chose to make his maiden speech during a debate on productivity and the Government’s skills agenda. He said that the jobs being created in Sheffield were often low-skilled, low-paid, zero-hours contract work. He was right, and I find it sad that a year on, the Government have still not grasped the need to provide proper skills training, so that my constituents can find worthwhile, meaningful work.
One of the most pressing concerns for my constituents is the availability of housing, and I was deeply disappointed by the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which will do nothing to help people in Sheffield to keep a roof over their heads. Nearly 40% of my constituents live in council or housing association homes, and the introduction of fixed-term tenancies, alongside the hated bedroom tax, will cause them more needless worry and upheaval. For the Government, it seems that social housing is now a temporary benefit that people are to be chivvied out of, rather than a home to settle down in and to build a life.
I am glad to make my maiden speech during today’s debate on public services, because after a lifetime of working in them I feel somewhat qualified to speak up in their defence. I started my first job as an assistant at Firth Park library aged 16, and since then I have worked across library services, further education, and the NHS. I know from long personal experience how important each and every one of our public services are, and that they are often a lifeline for ordinary working people. They protect and empower those who would otherwise be unable to fend for themselves, and they are the living expression of the belief that everyone, whatever the circumstances of their wealth or health, should be able to live dignified, fulfilling lives.
Over the last six years, those services have borne the brunt of an ideologically imposed austerity that has left them withering on the vine. Men and women working across the public sector are being asked to do more with less and less. Morale is at rock bottom across the board: teachers, doctors, police officers, nurses, firefighters, social workers, prison and probation officers—the list goes on. They have all dedicated their working lives to public service, and all see on a daily basis their ability to serve being undermined by this Government.
I make no apology for saying that I am Sheffield born and bred. I grew up there, have spent my whole life working there, and raised a family there. We may sometimes be blunt, but it always comes from the heart, and it is in that spirit that I intend to work for the people of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. No one would have chosen the circumstances that led me to this Chamber, but nevertheless here I am. I am deeply humbled by the trust that my constituents have placed in me, and I pledge to repay that trust by fighting for their interests and making sure that their voices are heard loud and clear here in Parliament.