Covid-19 Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I hope that, partly through this measure and the increase in the national living wage that the Chancellor confirmed yesterday, we can improve the pay and conditions of staff across social care. The proportion of people in social care who work in a number of settings and work in agency and less secure work is, in my view, something we should tackle together. I hope we can use what has obviously been put in place, as the hon. Lady rightly says, for public health infection control reasons also to improve employment standards across social care. That is, of course, directly contracted by local authorities, rather than by central Government. Nevertheless, this is an area that I think we all know we need to work to improve as a nation.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend appreciates that many elderly people die with serious illnesses, such as prostate cancer, but not from those illnesses. How certain is he that statistics showing the number of people dying with covid-19 are not being presented or misinterpreted as people dying from covid-19?

[Matt Hancock]

The statistics on the number of people dying with covid-19 are the best estimate that the statistics authorities, both in Public Health England and the Office for National Statistics, come up with. It is one of the widest definitions, which countries use internationally. Therefore, as my right hon. Friend implies in his question, it does include people who may have died of something else, but with covid. Nevertheless, each of these deaths we should work to avoid. The best measure, according to the chief medical officer, is the total number of excess deaths compared with this time of year last year. That is elevated now and we need to get it down.

Covid-19 Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Again, I am going to come to the defence of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who has put in these support packages on a scale that has never been seen before. The right hon. Lady is right to raise the concerns of those in her constituency, but the combination of all the schemes that are available to businesses is something of a scale that this country has never had.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)]

How many separate covid vaccines are undergoing trials at present in the United Kingdom, and what is the planned duration of the trial period for each?

[Matt Hancock]

There are three vaccine trials under way in the UK: the AstraZeneca trial, which is frequently discussed; the Imperial College trial; and a trial of the Novavax vaccine. The period of the trial is dependent on the clinical results and on the data. Of course, of those three, the AstraZeneca trial is the most advanced and is in phase 3 trials. We are closely in contact with all of them to ensure that they get the support they need.

Covid-19 Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Well, of course I am improving the public health responses by bringing together different organisations. I am not sure that the hon. Lady is doing anything other than—[Interruption.] Well, I am not going to query her motives, because we have worked together, at the start of this crisis especially. On her question about the Wirral, absolutely, we are vigilant in looking at the Wirral. That will be reconsidered in the Joint Biosecurity Centre silver meeting tomorrow and in the JBC gold on Thursday. Part of the improved data that we have now, compared with a few months ago, means that we will be able to pinpoint where the problem is and, working with the council, make recommendations on what action needs to be taken.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)]

Can my right hon. Friend explain to the House exactly what are the main reasons behind the fact that although the level of infection often continues to rise, the numbers of deaths is now so absolutely small?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend asks an important question, and the first answer is that there is a lag between people catching the disease and the statistics for new cases and those who sadly die. The second is that this most recent rise has been predominantly, although not entirely, among younger people, who are much less likely to die. However, the danger is that they will pass it on to others and it will spread more broadly into the community. So it is important to act on these cases even though, thankfully, the current number who are dying is small.

I will try to give a better answer. Let me put it this way. If we were to wait until we saw the number of deaths rising before we took action, there would already be many people who had caught the disease and who would end up hospitalised and unfortunately die of coronavirus. We have to act before that happens and before the disease spreads to those who may die from it, because the alternative is that we will inevitably see the number of deaths rise.

Coronavirus

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. Our strategy is to drive the virus right down, and as I said in my opening statement, the latest figures show just 352 new cases recorded in the previous 24 hours. We have been working closely with the Scottish Government, and giving them as much support as we can, for instance to get testing up and running. I am glad that right across the UK, we are succeeding in ensuring that the virus is increasingly under control.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give any encouragement that beauty salons will be allowed to open in the reasonably near future? Does he share my concern and disappointment that even though campsites are allowed to reopen, the company in charge of those in the New Forest is threatening to keep them closed until spring next year?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is working closely with the beauty industry regarding how it can open in a covid-secure way, taking into account clinical advice. We have, however, been able to change some advice to allow for the reopening of camp sites. I am very pleased about that, and it will help lots of families to enjoy summer safely. It is disappointing to hear of the blanket approach taken to not having any camping in the New Forest—I went camping there as a child, and enjoyed it very much. On a campsite people must be particularly careful of shared facilities, and ensure that they are cleaned properly, but there is a way to open campsites safely and securely, and doing that in the New Forest, and elsewhere, will help people to enjoy summer safely.

Covid-19 Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have considered all the different potential apps being used by different countries around the world. I am confident that any such concerns about international travel can easily be addressed, not least by the potential of someone having two different apps on their phone if they need to travel internationally.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend has proved himself to be a brilliant multi-tasker, so will he kindly turn some of his attention to a firm in my constituency that has access to a network of manufacturers in southern China that believes it can supply a million items of gowns, visors, masks and other PPE equipment per week if only someone from Government would get in touch? I am very happy to text him the details directly, but I have been trying for three weeks and still Government have not got in touch with this firm.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course; if I get the details, I am very happy to do that. I would also be very happy to know where my right hon. Friend had his hair cut, because it is extraordinary. No one else has such smart hair. Everyone is looking increasingly bushy.

A& E Departments: Staffing

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

One of the things I have been so angry about over the past few days is the panic buying going on, with people virtually elbowing one another out of the way to get the last remaining courgette or tin of tomatoes. When I see that, I think to myself, what will happen when the poor person coming off their long shift at A&E at 8 or 10 o’clock at night finds that there is literally nothing left in the shop to buy? The person who was so greedy, hoarding and selfish will then turn up at A&E in two weeks’ time and be treated by somebody who was unable to get enough food. My fundamental premise is that we can only get through all this together, because in the end we achieve far more by our common endeavour than we do by going it alone.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In the presence of an appropriate Minister, can we urge the point that food supplies ought to be made available at the place of work for key workers? When they come off their unduly long shifts, they should not be in the position of not being able to get any food to take home.

[Chris Bryant]

That is an extremely good point. I wonder whether Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and all the other supermarkets—once they have managed to recruit more delivery staff—should think about making deliveries specifically to hospitals and other care points, so that there is specific provision for key workers. That could make a significant difference.

What is essential to running a good accident and emergency department is, first, good, strong leadership. That means consultants who are well trained, and not just relying on locums who are on a part-time contract. It requires really strong teamwork. There is just as much value in a calm receptionist or a meticulous cleaner as a well-trained doctor, consultant or a nurse. We need resources and training to make an A&E flourish. We need people with an extraordinary set of skills, including the ability to make swift and yet very important, time-critical decisions. We need a wide range of disciplines that feed into the whole of the rest of the hospital. Those people have to be able to deal with strong emotions, from rage and anger to grief, anguish, upset, fear and love, all mingled in a very difficult situation. Unfortunately, they have to be able to deal with the particularly strange combination of adrenaline and alcohol, which sometimes makes an accident and emergency department—especially on a Friday or Saturday night—a very difficult place to be.

The truth of the matter is that we have a great number of shortages in our A&Es across the country. In terms of consultants, we are somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 consultants short across the whole of the UK. There is a particular shortage at my local hospital, the Royal Glamorgan, which is why it has had to rely substantially on locums for the last year. That is not a sustainable model for the future, which is why I am determined to make sure that the local health board campaigns to recruit more consultants for local hospitals. Other countries have a much higher number of A&E consultants per 1,000 people than we do in the UK. We are aiming to get to one for every 7,000 people, and in most other countries it is one to every 4,000. We still have not reached one to every 7,000, so that is a problem. I would urge any doctor who is thinking of training now, or any young person who is thinking of going into medicine, to please think about being an A&E doctor. You will see over the next few months that we love our A&E doctors almost more than anybody else in the whole of the NHS.

Beds are another real issue. We have one of the lowest numbers of critical care beds in Europe, fewer than Spain and France, half of those in Italy, and only a fifth of what they have per 1,000 head of population in Germany. That puts us, as we will discover over the next few days, in a really difficult position. Some areas of the country will face even bigger challenges than others. The most rural parts of the country, where there is an older population and where there are significant health problems—in particular, in the south-west and in the semi-rural areas of the south Wales valleys—will face a particular difficulty, because they already have 83% to 90% occupancy of all their intensive care unit beds, and that is before anybody else comes in through the door.

Lots of hospitals have done an amazing job over the past fortnight, trying to turn other wards into intensive care units that can be used specifically for coronavirus patients, and recruiting additional staff who have previously retired to come back into the service. Hospitals are doing a phenomenal job in all of that, but the truth is that across the whole of Wales we have only 153 intensive care unit beds, and 90% occupancy. That will pose a phenomenal difficulty for my constituency, where we have a large number of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a large number of people with diabetes and many with the conditions that make them the most vulnerable—and an ageing population at that. The whole nation will have to think very hard about how, in the long term, that situation is sustainable, even if we do manage to struggle through the next few months. In a sense, in our NHS at the moment, intensive care needs intensive care.

On coronavirus specifically, I praise every single doctor, nurse, cleaner, decorator and builder who has been involved in the process of reshaping intensive care units and emergency departments. The turnaround has been remarkable. Sometimes they have had to devote hours to training to use PPE, and then they have discovered that the equipment is not easy to use, and they have used all the equipment that they had on training in how to put it on and take it off. They have been working at pace, and undoubtedly they have been working many, many more hours than they are contracted to do, and I think we would all want to say thank you to them for that.

I also want to praise all the staff who work in accident and emergency departments, because I know from talking to doctors over the past few days that they know they will have to make some very, very difficult and horrible decisions—decisions that none of us in this House would ever want to make. They know already—they have protocols that were put in place in 2009 when we were looking at the H1N1 strand—that they will have to make decisions about who they can provide ventilator beds for and who they cannot provide ventilators beds for. That will obviously be horrible for the families and the individuals concerned, but just think of the emotional stress and strain for each of the doctors and nurses who at some point over the next few months are going to have to say, on occasion, “I’m sorry, there is no bed for you, because you are not a priority.” That will hurt because that is not what anybody was ever trained to do when they became a doctor or a nurse. The trauma—the emotional trauma—of that for many people will be phenomenally difficult.

My heart is just full of praise for all those doctors, all those nurses, all the cleaners and all the other parts of the A&E teams. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know you know that I do not like clapping in the Chamber, and I am sure you do not like it either, but I think there are very exceptional moments when this House would like to thank people who do a phenomenal job on behalf of all of us, so if you could close your ears for a moment, I am going to applaud the A&E staff up and down the land. [Applause.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I have been absolutely assured that the equipment being supplied to the frontline is appropriate and that it has been tested to make sure that it is fit for purpose.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Quite a major distribution and logistics firm in my constituency has offered drivers and vehicles for the cause of fighting the virus. Is there some sort of central one-stop shop to which volunteers and offers of that sort can be directed, so that they can be put to best use? I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to answer me immediately, but if she cannot, perhaps she could inform me afterward.

[Helen Whately]

One of the fantastic things we have seen over the last few days is the number of offers to help from all parts of society and the economy. There are some specific contact details for ways in which people can help, and I will be happy to share them with my right hon. Friend after the debate.

Coronavirus

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

MHCLG is working on and leading on the first of those, which is very important, and the Treasury is leading on the second.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the wearing of gloves on public transport or in other public places make any difference to the dangers of acquiring or transmitting the disease?

[Matt Hancock]

I am tempted to give my right hon. Friend a clinical answer, but instead I will ask one of the chief medical officer’s team to write to him.

Coronavirus

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Public health crises such as this are a UK-wide reserved matter, but we have had excellent working with all the devolveds, particularly the new Administration in Belfast. They join our weekly Cobras. We will have a Cobra this afternoon at which they will be present. Some matters—especially in the mitigate strand of work—are of course devolved, such as schools and healthcare. We work very hard on that, and I am sure that we will ensure that any financial consequentials are appropriately dealt with, too.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If someone starts feeling unwell on their journey home, what should they do when they arrive at the airport? Presumably, they ought to report to someone before travelling on public transport.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes; they should make themselves known to the public health presence at the port, and of course they can call 111 from mobiles, too.

Children’s Mental Health Week

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that my esteemed colleagues, including the Minister, will have already read my article concerning this important debate on the PoliticsHome website today. But I do understand the competition for parliamentarians’ time, so I have brought with me a hard copy that I am happy to share if anyone would like to read it. Those more digitally minded can find it on the website.

The mental health of thousands of children and young people has reached crisis point. This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, intended to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. The Mental Health Foundation has found that childhood determinants are the primary factor in future mental wellbeing, with over three quarters of all mental health problems emerging by the age of 20. The Government set out their ambition in their mental health Green Paper in 2017. However, does the Minister agree with analysis by Barnardo’s stating that the plans let down children and young people in three quarters of England who will see no improvement by the end of 2022-23?

I hope that everyone in the Chamber will agree with me that no child should have to reach crisis point to get help—but far too often, as we all know, that is the case. A crisis can come in many forms. It can be seen in the criminal justice system, where a staggering 95% of 15 to 21-year-olds in custody have been found to suffer from a mental health disorder. It can be seen in the tripling in the number of young people under 18 with a recorded diagnosis attending A&E since 2010. It can be seen in the 74% increase in suicide rates for 10 to 19-year-olds since 2010. It can also be seen in Local Government Association findings that social services were seeing more than 560 cases of children with mental health disorders every single day—an increase of more than 50% in four years.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I hope that I am not pre-empting what the hon. Lady is about to say, but does she feel that the explosion in social media and addiction to it among young people plays any part in the terrible increases that she is describing?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

The right hon. Gentleman makes that point very well. A lot of research has been done on this by the Royal Society for Public Health. It is a contributing factor—one of which there are so many.

Looking after our children and young people requires children’s and young people’s mental health services to be properly resourced. At the moment, this is simply not happening. Almost a quarter of NHS child and adolescent mental health wards were rated as inadequate or requiring improvement by the Care Quality Commission in 2019. We also know that we have a huge shortage of mental health professionals, with a workforce that has hardly grown since 2010. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, we need an additional 4,370 consultant psychiatrists to meet current Government commitments. A recent British Medical Association survey revealed that almost two thirds of nurses said that on their last shift there was a shortage of one or more nursing staff. So can the Minister tell me how these shortages will be addressed?

Paterson Inquiry

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

The national guardians scheme involves 500 healthcare professionals, who are identified by their lanyards alone to show that they are people to whom whistleblowers can speak both independently and in complete confidence. I think that is important because those people are in the NHS—the private sector has rolled out its own similar system—and people can see them, identify them and act immediately. Sometimes things are left for another time or place, but when people see somebody act inappropriately or in a way they should not, we want to know that they speak out about it immediately.

I will say it again: we want people to speak up, we want trusts and the private sector to listen, and then we want to act. It is the case that we can change this culture and let whistleblowers know that we will protect them. We also have a line at the Department for people to ring in on, because we want to hear from them.[Official Report, 12 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 10MC.] There is only one way we can guarantee patient safety, and that is to know where inappropriate practice is taking place so that we can stop it. We absolutely open our door to whistle- blowers, and we want to hear what they have to say.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Can the Minister explain under what circumstances this criminal behaviour was finally exposed? Has anybody from the regulatory side been sacked as a result of their abject failure to discover it earlier?

[Ms Dorries]

There was actually quite a long process. As I say, Paterson practised between 1997 and 2011, and there was quite a long process of reporting and of concerns being raised about his behaviour and his practice. Eventually, somebody listened; I believe that it was a new chief executive at the Spire hospital trust at the time.[Official Report, 12 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 10MC.] Somebody spoke out to him, he looked at the history of what had happened and he decided to take action. That is not good enough, however, because reports had been made on a number of occasions previously. In fact, there were two reports. One, by a consultant, looked at 100 of his cases in 2011, but no action was taken. Another report, by another NHS consultant, downplayed and focused on the wrong elements of Paterson’s care, and it took somebody to speak to a new chief executive for action to be taken. The process was all wrong, but that is how it was then, and it is very different now.

As I have said, the GMC has introduced revalidation and appraisal. We have been speaking to it, and we want it to make that process more robust so that we can assess doctors in a more appropriate and frequent way. The CQC is holding the private sector to account, as well as the NHS. Those of us who have been here for more than a few years know that a few years ago the CQC was not the organisation that it is today, and it is now much more robust and effective. We therefore hope that we can pick up cases such as this as they happen. However, the only way to crack patient safety in this country is if somebody who is practising alongside a surgeon, doctor or nurse speaks out, and for those to whom they speak to listen, so that we can act.