Hospital Services (Worcestershire)

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Karen Lumley]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I totally agree with him. Many of my constituents in Redditch also use the Princess of Wales hospital. I have been there on many occasions and know what a fantastic job the staff do.

Effective hospitals rely on good facilities. Kidderminster hospital has recently acquired a state-of-the-art MRI scanner. It offers patients the best diagnostic procedures available. New services can now be offered, including breast scans and whole-body imaging. Some 9,400 scans a year can be performed with the machine. One-stop-shop access to out-patient clinics cuts waiting times and means that patients are in the clinics for as little time as possible. Developments such as those are lessening the postcode lottery effect in the NHS.

Worcestershire is awaiting a decision about whether a radiotherapy unit will be built at the Alexandra hospital in Redditch or the Worcestershire Royal hospital. I, of course, hope very much that it will be built at the Alexandra hospital in Redditch.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this extremely important debate, because it allows me to place on the record the thanks of the Malvern community for the opening of the new Malvern hospital by the Princess Royal last week. Does my hon. Friend agree that a key thing with radiotherapy services is the distance that people have to travel every day and that Worcester might be considered a very central location in the county of Worcestershire?

[Karen Lumley]

As you can see, Mr Hood, we have a debate among ourselves about where the cancer centre should be sited. Obviously, we in Redditch and Bromsgrove have the advantage of lots of space to build the cancer unit, and we have already started a local campaign to bring the unit to the Alexandra hospital.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

Yes. If one does the division, one realises that one figure must be wrong—off the top of my head, the figure is 853 as opposed to 353. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at that point.

If the figure is £1 billion, we spend £1 billion on the NHS every three and a half days. We can find that money. I do not know how one prices a liver, and I do not know how one prices a liver transplant that does not happen. I cannot put a price on that, and I challenge anyone else to do so. We are talking about 4,670 people, so we can behave appropriately at last and provide the appropriate compensation.

On the financial implications, HIV widows are forced through the Benefits Agency to seek work within weeks of their partner’s death, and hepatitis C widows whose partners died before 2004 receive no financial help at all. The implications for the haemophilia community are stark. I cannot say that we should trim this and that because of the comprehensive spending review; I would rather we borrowed the £500 million and did the right thing.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Given my hon. Friend’s medical background, will he explain whether it is appropriate for someone with hepatitis C to receive incapacity benefit?

[Dr Lee]

I believe that it is, but, with respect, that is missing the point. As far as I am concerned, the Department of Health is culpable. This is not a party political matter; it is a departmental matter. It had a series of opportunities over a number of years to deal with the issue, but it missed them, and surprisingly it lost a few documents in the process. That is shocking. If the Department is worried about precedent, that makes me concerned about other conditions and treatments. Is there something else that we should know about? If this is about precedent, I should like to set one: this was wrong and we should pay out appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to speak in this historic debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. Like so many of my colleagues, this issue has been brought to my attention by the impact it has had on the life of a constituent—in my case, the constituent is Colette Wintle.

Colette was born in 1959 and was diagnosed with haemophilia in 1962. When she went to have her tonsils out in 1976, she was given American blood products which first caused her infection with hepatitis. In 1982, at a hospital in Kent, she was given factor VIII concentrate, which infected her with hepatitis C. In 1985, at a hospital in London, she was once again given treatment with blood products, which made her very ill with hepatitis C, although mercifully she did not contract HIV. Subsequently, she has been so weak with illness that she had to stop work at the age of 38. She has contracted cirrhosis of the liver and lives in fear of developing liver cancer in her damaged liver.

As we all know, it is not possible for doctors to undo the damage to Colette’s health and it is not possible for her ever to be adequately compensated for the harm that was done to her by the infected blood products. The question is what we should do now, as a society, to compensate people such as Colette and her family. We have heard about the Skipton Fund, and I think that everyone in this debate acknowledges that the payments of a maximum of £45,000 are not adequate to compensate someone for that treatment.

We have also talked a lot about different numbers, and I wish to help the House. As 4,672 people have been infected over the years, a payment of £1 million to each of them would involve £4.672 billion. A payment of £100,000 to every sufferer would involve £467.2 million—I believe I have those figures right. That puts the £3 billion cost into context; it would work out to be £642,000 per individual. Colette has not been able to work since she was 38 and has had to pay for her NHS prescriptions. She looks ahead to the future, but her general practitioner is unable to assure her that she will have access to specialist nursing at home if her condition worsens.

I welcome what the Minister said in her statement and the fact that she will look urgently at a number of issues. However, will she clarify whether the compensation that will be recommended by the review will reflect the length of time that individuals have had to suffer and been unable to work because of the illness? Will the review also examine something that is being debated a lot with the Department for Work and Pensions: what happens when an individual is being assessed for their ability to work? Can we agree in this House today that it would be good if we exempted all these individuals—the 2,700 surviving patients—from any further assessment of their capacity to work?

No money could ever compensate these victims for what has happened. Their health can never be repaired, but let us ensure that as a result of this debate and of this inquiry we ensure, once and for all, that the patients do not experience further financial disadvantage from this terrible situation.

NHS White Paper

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The answer is that I said no such thing as what the hon. Gentleman suggested, and the record will show that.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend has said that an extra £20 billion will be going into patient care by 2014. Can he clarify how much more that is under our Budget, compared with Labour’s Budget, which would have cut the NHS budget?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right. It appears that the Labour party’s policy is to cut the NHS. Our policy is to do something that Labour never achieved: deliver greater efficiency and greater productivity in the NHS, not least through the reforms that I have announced. Every penny saved will be a penny reinvested to the benefit of patient care.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We will take not only the clear evidence from the first Francis report, but evidence from many other places, including that from many of the leading clinical professions that the way in which the four-hour target has been administered has undermined the quality of patient care. We will focus on quality and help the NHS to deliver what it knows is the right quality.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his post and thank him for his two visits to Malvern over the past few years to support the new community hospital that will open in October.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the West Midlands strategic health authority. In the past six months, the authority has required our local Worcestershire NHS to divest itself of its community hospitals. At the moment, the authority is proposing to abolish the mental health trust and put it and the community hospitals into a new trust. Secondly, it has asked NHS Worcestershire to cluster with neighbouring NHS organisations. What are my right hon. Friend’s proposals to stop all those reorganisations and focus on patient outcomes?

[Mr Lansley]

The inquiry will look at both the West Midlands SHA and its predecessor bodies. My hon. Friend will know from what I said a couple of weeks ago that proposals for such reconfigurations in the national health service must now answer to the clinical evidence—the clinical base. They must answer to patients—current and prospective patient choice—and to the referral intentions and commissioning intentions of general practitioners exercising responsibility for commissioning. That will change the nature of such decisions from a top-down, unaccountable process to one that is much more locally accountable and effective.