Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

15. What steps she is taking to improve patient access to primary care.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

19. What steps she is taking to improve patient access to primary care.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

21. What steps she is taking to improve patient access to primary care.

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[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. He may be aware that the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB received £36 million for its operational capital budget in 2023-24, with over £118 million for this spending review period. That operational capital is core funding provided to ICBs for delivering primary care, among other things. In addition, he will be aware that ICBs are able to provide input to planning permissions to ensure that primary care is delivered where there are new housing developments. I have worked with other hon. Members across the House to tackle this issue, and I am very happy to meet him to discuss it further.

[Kerry McCarthy]

When I speak to my constituents in Brislington, they tell me they have to wait an inordinate time to get through on the phone to their GPs at the Brooklea health centre, and wait over two weeks for appointments. Constituents in Fishponds have been told that it is over an hour’s wait for prescription medication at the local pharmacy—and we all know the situation with dentists. The other thing my constituents are waiting for is a general election. Does the Minister agree that that is the only way we will sort out these problems in the NHS?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I certainly do not agree. If Labour were in government, we would see significantly worse outcomes. Covid was a once-in-100-years pandemic, and we have pulled out all the stops to recover from that. It is a huge tribute to all those working in primary care that they have done so well. In the hon. Lady’s ICB— Bristol North, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire —38.4% of all appointments were delivered on the same day they were booked in February this year, and 84% were delivered within two weeks of booking, with 66% of them face to face. These are extremely positive numbers for the 482,000 appointments delivered in February 2024. What is really important is that the number of patient care staff has increased by 656 full-time equivalents since 2019.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

We have more than hinted: we have just announced a £16 million pilot study of prostate cancer screening. We have a plan to tackle those 12,000 deaths a year, and it will work, because until now we have not had a diagnostic test. PSA is not a sensitive test in all prostate cancers: there are many men with prostate cancer who do not express PSA. That is why the Transform study, using detection tools such as MRI, will be trialled, and if they are effective, such tools will be rolled out across the country.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking to increase the recruitment and retention of NHS midwifery and maternity staff.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)]

We are investing an additional £165 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care, rising to £186 million a year from April. This will increase the number of midwifery posts and improve the quality of care that mothers and babies receive. As of October last year, there were 23,100 full-time equivalent midwives working in NHS trusts and other core organisations in England, which is more than 1,000 more than a year ago and 3,500 more than in 2010.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response. The Royal College of Midwives estimates that there is a shortage of around 2,500 full-time midwives working in the NHS. I know that at first hand from Cossham Hospital in my constituency, which has a wonderful birth centre, but it has been closed for most of the last few years, because it simply cannot get the midwives to staff it—they have to go elsewhere where more serious cases need to be dealt with. What is she doing specifically about the retention of midwives? I know that student numbers are, thankfully, coming up, but a lot of midwives are choosing to leave the profession because there is not enough flexibility in their work.

[Victoria Atkins]

I think we all agree that a career as a midwife is just one of the most rewarding and fulfilling careers that one can hope for. That is why we have placed such priority on retention in the long-term workforce plan that we launched last year. The national retention programme for midwifery and nursing has prioritised five actions to support staff retention, including menopause guidance, because we know that that can be an issue for midwives, and valuing them and their contribution is also a key objective of NHS England’s three-year plan for maternity services.

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[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for commissioning that vital piece of work. I am giving the matter my closest attention, and I hope very much to be in a position to respond to his points in due course.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T8. This week the Riverside unit in my constituency, which treats young people with severe eating disorders, had to close temporarily because of concerns about its ability to provide safe care. What are the Government doing to ensure that young people who, in many cases, go through mental health crises as a result of their eating disorders receive the care that they need as close to home as possible?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

As the hon. Lady will know, we are investing more in mental health services for young people in particular and, indeed, for those with eating disorders. We are seeing more young people more quickly than ever before, but if the hon. Lady wishes to raise a local issue with me, I shall be happy to meet her and discuss it.

NHS Dentistry

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I totally agree. In fact, Claire Hazelgrove, Labour’s candidate in Filton and Bradley Stoke—next-door to the forthcoming by-election—was telling me about problems in her constituency and that exact challenge of people being left without or having to go private. One patient told her that her dental practice was now only seeing private patients. That same patient cares for her 84-year-old dad with dementia, who needed a tooth removal to allow him to eat. His appointment was also cancelled. That is what is happening before our eyes.

What of those who cannot afford it? Anna Dixon, Labour’s candidate in Shipley, told me of a woman in her town who had been turned away as an NHS patient and could not afford to go private. She was struggling with pain, it was affecting her eating, and she was at her wits’ end. With the Tories, if you have not got the money, you have not got the care.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As a neighbouring MP, I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning Claire Hazelgrove, our candidate in Filton and Bradley Stoke, who is doing tremendous work on this. I have done a survey of my constituency and have found that about 98% of Bristol NHS practices are not taking on new patients. One issue I have also come across is that, even when people do have access to an NHS dentist, they cannot afford even those lower fees, and as a result they are being removed from the active patient list and losing access to that. We can understand how, during the cost of living crisis, people might delay a check-up for a few months because there are so many other pressing demands on their budgets.

[Wes Streeting]

I totally agree, and I do not think we should be complacent about this as a country. The NHS is already becoming a two-tier healthcare system, where those who can afford to go private are paying and the rest are left with an increasingly poor service for poor people. Government Members protest now, but they admit their goals once they leave the Department for Health and Social Care. The Health Secretary’s predecessors may not have said it when they were in her place at the Dispatch Box, but, as soon as they were out the door of the Department, the right hon. Members for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) and for Bromsgrove (Sir Sajid Javid) said what they really believe: patients should be charged for GP appointments. Well, why stop there with this Conservative philosophy? Why not go further? That is the future for the health service if the Conservative party is given another five years. That is the risk facing patients across the country, and that is the choice facing voters at the next general election: further neglect, mismanagement and decline under the Conservatives or change with Labour and a decade of national renewal.

On NHS dentistry, the need for change could not be clearer. By the Conservative party’s own admission, it does not have a plan—just the vague promise of one coming in the future. All it does have is a record of 14 years of failure. If we stick to the current path, full universal access to NHS dentistry may be gone for good. The Conservatives may be happy to wave goodbye to this vital public service, but that is not the Labour way. With Labour, there is a clear plan, with immediate steps to tackle the crisis and long-term reform to rebuild dentistry. There will be more appointments, more dentists, more support for children and long-term reform to put the service on a sustainable footing, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status. That is because Labour believes that people who live and work in Britain should pay their taxes here, too. It does not matter whether they live on Downing Street or any other street: if they make their money here in Britain, they should pay their taxes here, too.

Mental Health In-patient Services: Improving Safety

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes extremely important points, and I absolutely agree with him. Indeed, I will draw the inquiry’s attention to the points he raises. He is right about the trade-off between non-statutory inquiries giving speed and statutory inquiries having a wider range of powers. We have followed the evidence on that, which Dr Strathdee has shared. There is also a balance between the size of a facility and the quality of the care. Data is a key component within that and the rapid review was focused particularly on it. All of us are focused on, “How do we get the best patient outcomes? Where those have fallen short, how do we ensure the lessons of that?” That is what the statutory inquiry is absolutely focused on and it is important that families then engage with it.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Care Quality Commission report at the end of last year said that workforce issues and staffing shortages are the greatest challenge facing the mental health sector. I am sure that that would not have come as a surprise to the Health Secretary. The Glenside campus, part of the University of the West of England, is in my constituency, and it runs mental health training courses for nurses. What conversations is he having with the sector about how we can ensure we get enough mental health nurses trained, so that we get the right people coming through and they are encouraged to stay the course?

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady’s point is important, given that in the wake of the pandemic we have seen significant increases in demand, particularly for children’s and young people’s services. For example, in a year, the demand increased by 41%, so there is significant demand, which places pressure on the workforce. That is why the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have committed to the long-term workforce plan, which we will be bringing forward very shortly. We have been engaging with the sector, including the mental health sector, as part of that plan. NHS England has been doing significant work on that in recent months.

NHS Dentists: South-West England

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliot. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on securing the debate; the turnout shows why he felt compelled to do so.

Let me quickly outline the key problems that I see in my constituency. People who are not registered with an NHS dentist cannot get treatment now because almost all practices in the area are not accepting new patients. There are patients who are registered with a surgery but cannot get an appointment because there is no longer an NHS dentist working there. In my case, I left my NHS dentist because every time I had an appointment it was cancelled, because the practice was moving dentists around other surgeries in the chain where there was higher demand.

Practices are deregistering NHS patients—that is, removing them from the active patients record—if they have not seen the dentist within a set period of time, to make room for patients on the NHS waiting list. They are legally allowed to do that. Some practices are closing down, including the Bupa surgery in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), which is used by a lot of my constituents and is about to close.

There is also an issue for pregnant women, who are entitled to free dentistry on the NHS yet cannot see a dentist at all. I have asked a number of parliamentary questions about that. Pregnant women are more likely to suffer particular dental issues and there is an increased risk of certain health complications if the dental problems worsen. An estimated 1 million pregnant dental care patients in England missed out on dental care between March 2020 and March 2022, and they are still finding it very difficult.

On the underlying issue of the shortage of dentists, they say they are not incentivised to work for the NHS. They intend to leave for better pay and working conditions in the private sector, or are considering going overseas. An estimated 2,000 dentists—10% of the workforce—left the NHS last year. As a consequence, patients in pain are being forced to seek private treatment because they cannot see a dentist. They have to wait for tooth problems to become emergencies before they can get urgent treatment at the University of Bristol Dental Hospital, which can offer only a certain number of emergency appointments per day.

Those who cannot afford a tooth extraction with a private dentist and cannot get an emergency NHS appointment are pulling out their own teeth in agony. Constituents have told me that that is a fact. Dentists are seeing more people with higher levels of dental need, because the wait for an NHS appointment means that a minor problem drastically worsens over time so that, in the end, they find they need to have their teeth removed. Some patients say that because they have not been able to get an appointment since lockdown, they have been kicked off the dentist’s records for not attending.

I would like to quote a few constituents. John says he was due a check-up in January 2023. It was cancelled and he was offered a new appointment for April 2023. That, too, was cancelled, and he has been told to phone again in November to make a new appointment. He has a refugee from Ukraine staying with him who managed to go back to Lviv for Christmas. She says she was almost as pleased about getting a dental appointment in Lviv as she was to see her family. John says:

“Dental care in a war zone is functioning better than”

it is in Bristol.

Another constituent, from St George, has not been able to register since she moved to Bristol a year and a half ago. A colleague of hers tripped and knocked out her front tooth. She had not been able to register with an NHS dentist and had to spend her entire £4,000 of savings on a visit to a private dentist.

Katy, another constituent, is halfway through her pregnancy and entitled to free dental care. She spent hours scrolling through lists of dentists, phoning all the ones that might take on NHS patients. She says:

“I cannot find a single dental practice which is accepting NHS patients.”

The final constituent I want to quote is a dental practice manager who says their practice is a little better able to attract and retain dentists because it holds a contract with a UDA—units of dental activity—rate of £30.92, which is well above the area average, which is £25.98. Even then, the practice has been able to fill only half of it NHS dentist vacancies. She says:

“Without long-term workforce planning and meaningful reform of the NHS General Dental Service contract, the system and those who rely on it most will continue to suffer.”

I have taken this issue up with the Government, NHS England and the local integrated care board. Generally, the Government recommend that people visit the NHS “Find a dentist” website. Local NHS services have been working hard to commission more urgent dental care appointments. They are also offering stabilisation sessions for those who do not have an NHS dentist, cannot afford to go private and need an urgent fix to a problem like a broken tooth or a damaged filling. But clearly this is not good enough.

I reiterate the point the hon. Member for West Dorset made. We need to work on retaining as well as recruiting NHS dentists and we need to reform the dental contract which, as he said, is simply not fit for purpose. Given the time, I will leave it to others to raise some of the other questions. I could talk for a very long time about the problems my constituents are suffering from.

Cystic Fibrosis: Living Costs

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I thank her for her contributions on this subject. She brings much knowledge to these debates. I am pleased to be a member of the all-party parliamentary group for respiratory health with her. We work with others to ensure that we can pursue matters, and today we are pursuing this matter for our constituents.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is good to be in a Westminster Hall debate led by the hon. Gentleman; he is often a fixture here. I thank him for his kind words about my presence in previous debates.

On the energy bill issue, is the hon. Gentleman as concerned as I am about the reports of forced prepayment meters, including for people with extreme vulnerabilities and disabilities? Often those forced prepayment meters lead to self-disconnection because they are more expensive and people cannot afford to keep them topped up. I welcome today’s announcement that there is to be a moratorium on forced prepayment, but we should not have that at all, particularly for people with conditions that require their homes to be heated.

[Jim Shannon]

I do not have that in my notes, so I thank the hon. Lady for her knowledgeable intervention. That issue is hard to comprehend. If we have a decent wage, energy is not a big problem. On the minimum wage, it becomes a problem. When someone is disabled, it becomes an even bigger problem. She is right and I thank her for that reminder. We are all making points that we look to the Minister to respond to. Those with prepayment meters are under especial pressure and we look to the Minister to respond to that.

Removing VAT from energy bills would benefit not only CF families but all of the poor, as they spend a larger percentage of their income on energy bills.

Hospitals should provide free parking. I call on NHS England hospitals to provide access to free hospital parking for people with chronic medical conditions. Most hospital car parking charges are already abolished in Wales and Scotland, and Northern Ireland is set to abolish them in 2024. For once, the mainland needs to catch up with the regions. However, there are worries about potential delays to that coming into effect, given that there is currently no sitting Northern Ireland Assembly.

The guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care for NHS trusts in England makes it mandatory for parking to be free for those with blue badges, those attending as an out-patient three times a month for at least three months, and parents of sick children staying overnight, but it is rare that those with CF meet those criteria. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) referred to the assessment process, and that has to be addressed.

I am on to ask No. 5. Some 80% of people with CF are pancreatic insufficient, meaning they require a higher calorie diet. During hospital appointments and in-patient stays, it is vital that they have access to affordable food. However, NHS England’s national standards for healthcare food and drink do not refer to a need to ensure that affordable food is available in hospital cafés and canteens. That must change because there are people who cannot afford the right sort of food, but who need it.

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[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Harris, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing what is an incredibly important debate, in which I will speak on behalf of my constituent Penny Mitchell and her family. Penny’s daughter, Eva, is 15, and cystic fibrosis affects all her organs. As we know, CF is a degenerative, life-shortening disease. I will not go through the symptoms, as colleagues are already aware of them—the hon. Member for Strangford set many of them out—but I will focus on some of the challenges that Penny has taken the time to tell me about, and I will share just some of her correspondence with me.

For Penny and Eva, the problem with the current system of support is that CF is seen as an illness, not a disability. CF adults are not eligible for free prescriptions, because that list was last reviewed in 1968, and at that point—as the hon. Member for Strangford highlighted—those with CF were not expected to live to adulthood. The need for a review is clear: when we consider that Eva was born with CF and is currently taking around seven different medications a day, we can see what an injustice that is.

However, Penny’s biggest concern is that when Eva turns 16 in June, she will no longer be eligible for disability living allowance for Eva, who will have to claim PIP. As I highlighted in my intervention earlier, that can be a challenging process for those with CF, because PIP is assessed on difficulties doing daily tasks and on mobility and does not necessarily reflect the struggles of people with illnesses such as Eva’s. In many ways, she is quite unlikely to be eligible for PIP, even though the things for which Penny was given DLA still need doing and funding. Penny is scared that, without financial support as an adult, Eva will simply decide she is unable to do those things—things like attending hospital, buying the extra food she needs or keeping herself warm and clean. The risks to her health are obvious.

Eva is currently in school year 11. Because she is constantly fatigued and trying to battle chest infections, and also suffers from anxieties related to living with a medical condition that will shorten her life, she has only been able to physically attend school for 50% of this school year and the previous year. That has an impact on her ability to get good qualifications and secure a good, well-paid job in future.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend mentioned anxiety. As many people will know, I have a niece with CF, who has just turned 18. She is very much at the healthy end of the spectrum, which is good, but there comes a point, particularly with access to social media, when young people start to learn that they have a life-limiting condition. They learn far more about it than they perhaps would have done in the days when they would have relied on their parents to tell them about it and at a time when their parents thought they could handle it. Supporting them from a mental health point of view while they are going through that is really important too.

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We have talked about some of the associated conditions that can come with CF, such as diabetes, but the mental health implications for some sufferers are acute. I hope the Minister will take account of that in her response.

Penny is incredibly concerned—given how difficult it is for Eva to attend school and the support she needs from Penny to do that—about how difficult it will be for Eva to secure work. That is something they worry about a considerable amount; with the current cost of living, it is a huge concern, because without receiving funding to support her living costs, Eva will be left in a vulnerable position. She will be less likely to earn a decent living, as she may be able to work only part time and will not necessarily have the same qualifications as somebody who has been in school full time.

Eva’s illness is not properly recognised by the current criteria, which seem to assume that people need financial help only because they are unable to do certain physical daily tasks and lack mobility. In theory, Eva can do those things, but she does not usually feel well enough to do them and so relies heavily on help, but that does not necessarily come across in the current system. Why does current financial support not consider the impact of an illness on a person’s ability to get an education and gain decent employment, and recognise that providing support would enable them to maximise their potential and earn the best living that they can in the circumstances?

If young people such as Eva were routinely financially supported with PIP, it would take some pressure away from them so that they could focus on doing what they can manage to do, and it would help them to meet their costs of living. Penny faces the prospect that, in order for Eva to attend college, she will have to reduce her hours at work to be able to take her there. That would obviously have a significant impact on the family finances, but getting a bus early in the morning and back again after college may add to Eva’s fatigue, so Penny taking her there is the only way for the situation to be manageable and for Eva to avoid missing college too often.

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[The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for not just securing the debate, but the tone in which he conducted it and his well-established support for the cystic fibrosis community. His continued presence at cystic fibrosis debates over the years has impressed on the Government the vital role that public services play in supporting people with cystic fibrosis, as well as driving home the stark realities of living with the condition. I also thank him for his kind works to me as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care.

I pay tribute to all hon. Members who have taken the time to speak in the debate. The hon. Member spoke powerfully about what it is like for people living with cystic fibrosis and the challenges and costs, including the cost of medication, food and energy and the loss of income, drawing on the good work in the Bristol University report, “The Financial Costs of Cystic Fibrosis”, which I have indeed read. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), who spoke powerfully from his personal experience of his wife living with cystic fibrosis. He talked about the extra heating and food costs and the need for 4,000 calories a day for somebody with the condition, which practically is expensive to do. He spoke about how it is a 24-hour challenge and, indeed, what the nights are like living with someone with cystic fibrosis. I welcome the optimism he brought to this Chamber as he spoke about some of the improvements to quality of life thanks to medical innovations.

My hon. Friend spoke powerfully about the CF warrior in his constituency—little Amelia Rose Ratcliffe—and what her life and, particularly at the moment, the life of her parents looking after her is like. Again, there are a lot of extra costs and all the extra trips for appointments and to the hospital. It was good to hear that there is free parking at his local hospital. He spoke powerfully about the constant worry for parents and how there are lots of little Amelias and their families all around the country. As a parent myself, I can imagine how worrying it would be for the parents of a child with a condition such as cystic fibrosis.

I think this is the first time that I have spoken in a debate with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), so I welcome him to Parliament. He spoke about Eva, who is older than Amelia and in school year 11, and about how she has missed a lot of school and the challenges and worries that brings—for instance, in respect of what her life will be like after school and what employment opportunities she will have. In particular, he brought into the conversation the issue of the anxiety that adults and especially young people with cystic fibrosis experience, as well as the broader mental health impact. Those are really important issues for us to discuss.

It was also good to hear from the hon. Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), and, of course, from my fellow Front Benchers, the hon. Members for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) and for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). It has been good to have this number of people contributing to a debate on this subject in Parliament.

I wish to recognise the fantastic work undertaken by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, which advocates on the behalf of people living with cystic fibrosis and their families and continues—very effectively indeed—to bring their needs to the attention of parliamentarians. The work of the trust to help people with the increased financial burdens associated with cystic fibrosis, be it through direct financial assistance or by providing advice and information to those in need, is substantial and should be commended. The trust’s continued support for people with the condition, along with the support provided by other voluntary sector organisations, is invaluable.

During this debate, we have talked and heard about the pressures that face people with cystic fibrosis because of the increased cost of living; indeed, those pressures are set out clearly in the report from the University of Bristol. Although the increased cost of living affects us all, it has been rightly acknowledged by the Members present that the cost of living situation for people with cystic fibrosis is far more acute than the pressures that face most people.

The majority of people with cystic fibrosis will claim at least one form of benefit, with many claiming two or more benefits, and I know how important that money is to those who rely on it. As a country, we will spend around £66 billion this financial year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions. In fact, specific spending on the main disability benefits—personal independence payment, disability living allowance and attendance allowance—is more than £7 billion higher in real terms than it was in 2010. Significant amounts of money are going to those who claim benefits, including disability benefits, but I have clearly heard the conversation today about how life can still be very hard for those with cystic fibrosis who claim benefits.

The Government are committed to helping those with cystic fibrosis who are able to work to do so. Our goal of reducing the disability employment gap remains, and we continue to support disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work. We do this through a range of mechanisms which, particularly for cystic fibrosis, take into consideration the impact of such a condition on someone’s ability to work. For instance, mechanisms include increasing work coach support in jobcentres for people with health conditions who receive universal credit or employment support allowance, and disability employment advisers in jobcentres who offer advice and expertise on how to help disabled people and people with health conditions into work.

For people who are in work, the Disability Confident scheme encourages employers to think differently about disability and health, and to take positive action to address the issues that employees face in the workplace. Also, the information and advice service provides tailored guidance on supporting and managing health and disability in the workplace. In addition, we support Access to Work grants towards the extra costs of working beyond standard reasonable adjustments, to ensure that people such as those with cystic fibrosis who can work have the support that they need to do so.

Several Members spoke about the cost of energy. To help with the rising cost of energy, our energy bills support scheme is delivering a £400 non-repayable Government discount in instalments over six months to help 29 million households with energy bills over the winter. The energy price guarantee, which saves a typical household around £900 this winter, will be extended to April 2024. Also, over the past year there has been extra support for people on means-tested benefits such as universal credit, to help them with the higher energy costs we have been talking about. Sums of £650 were paid out in two payments last summer and November to households in that situation, with an additional £150 for those on disability benefits.

The household support fund, which is £1.5 billion in total, has gone to local authorities to provide support to the most vulnerable people in their communities. Local authorities judge who most needs that help and how best to give it. Local authorities have provided support to help with energy costs, and sometimes specifically to help people whose health needs contribute to their finding it difficult to afford their extra energy costs. The fund was intentionally distributed in such a way as to give local authorities the flexibility to use it most effectively to help their communities and the people they know most need help.

Let me address some of the concerns expressed about the costs directly linked to cystic fibrosis, such as prescription costs and challenges in attending appointments. It is true to say—it has come up this afternoon—that not everyone with cystic fibrosis will qualify for free prescriptions, but there are prescription charge exemptions in place in England to help patients with the greatest need to afford prescriptions. For instance, people with cystic fibrosis who receive benefits may be exempt through the NHS low-income scheme.

Those who have to pay NHS prescription charges and need many prescription items can save money with a prescription prepayment certificate, which allows people to claim as many prescriptions as they need for a set cost. A three-month prescription prepayment certificate, which costs £30.25, or an annual one, which costs just over £108, will save people money if they need four or more items in three months or 12 or more items in 12 months. A holder of a 12-month certificate can get all the prescriptions they need for just over £2 a week.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I understand what the Minister is saying—it is said every time we raise this issue—but the only reason why people with cystic fibrosis are not covered by the rules that apply, say, to people with diabetes is that cystic fibrosis was seen as a childhood disease, and it was thought that people with cystic fibrosis would not live past the age of 16. That is an anomaly. It is good that they can get the season ticket, but they should not be treated like that. If they had survived beyond the age of 16 when the rules were brought in, they would not be treated like that now. Does the Minister therefore agree that it is still unfair?

[Helen Whately]

I absolutely hear the hon. Member’s argument, and similar points were made during the debate. As the Minister with oversight of major conditions, cystic fibrosis is not the only condition about which I have received letters, parliamentary questions and lobbying in general asking for exemptions to prescription charges. We cannot just look at cystic fibrosis in isolation; a similar argument could be made in relation to a number of other conditions. As I have set out, the way the system works is specifically designed to help people on low incomes with the cost of prescriptions and make it more affordable for people who have to get a lot of prescriptions during the course of a year.

Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

Again, decisions on the estate are principally for the ICBs, but I am happy to look at any individual proposals my hon. Friend has on how we get more flow into the system, and that is about putting more capacity into the community.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I think I welcome what has been said about mental health ambulances and trying to divert people in mental health crisis from A&E, but I am a little concerned about whether those attending the scene in those ambulances will have access to the past records of people in that situation or be able to carry out a proper risk assessment for them. Will the Secretary of State reassure me on that, and also on whether there will be places other than A&E to take them to? It is one thing to say that we want to divert them, but we need to have other resources in place.

[Steve Barclay]

The hon. Lady raises a fair and important point about what is in the wider package, alongside the mental health ambulances, which I think are a positive step. Last week, I met Baroness Buscombe as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed mental health legislation, which will pick up some of the points that the hon. Lady raises. Examples of innovation include empowering people before they have a mental health crisis to use one of the apps that have been developed to set out their statement of wishes and other information, which is very helpful for paramedic crews when they have a mental health crisis. We are looking at how we use innovation to better give voice to the patient, and often to do that before they have the mental health incident, rather than when the ambulance arrives.

NHS Winter Pressures

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises a brilliant point—one that I completely agree with—about how we upskill the existing workforce and get more people operating at what is referred to as the top of their licence. One of the key areas in the discussions we had at No. 10 on Saturday was how we can better utilise the existing workforce and their roles, and what regulatory changes we need to maximise that.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he did over the Christmas period as a community first responder. He is absolutely right: looking at how we better integrate the data available to paramedics, for example, and therefore enabling them to do more, is exactly the direction of travel that we want to take. I look forward to discussing that further with him.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Last month, I asked the Prime Minister about a constituent with dementia who waited three hours for an ambulance and then spent 10 hours in the back of the ambulance in the car park at A&E. We have heard much worse examples today. I have now been contacted by another constituent, who went into cardiac arrest at his GP’s surgery. He waited two hours for an ambulance, and the GP eventually ended up driving him to hospital and probably saved his life. Can the Secretary of State give us some confidence that everything he is talking about today will filter through quickly to ambulance response times? At the moment, my constituents are terrified that if they call for an ambulance, it will not come.

Draft Mental Health Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, I commend my hon. Friend on the work he has done. I remember meeting him to discuss this important issue, and I welcome his support for the Bill. He may know that the extra support of around £150 million announced today includes £7 million of support for mental health ambulances.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Clause 31 states that transfers from prison to hospital should take place within 28 days of a referral notice,

“unless there are exceptional circumstances”,

and makes it very clear that those exceptional circumstances do not include a shortage of staff or beds. That is welcome, but at the moment about 50% of prisoners who are assessed as needing transfer to hospital are not transferred because the beds are not available. What can the Secretary of State do to make sure that that is not an issue by the time the Bill becomes law?

[Sajid Javid]

The NHS is already preparing for this change. Of course, this is not law yet and we can make progress before it becomes law, but I believe that once it does become law, subject to the will of this House, it will galvanise more parts of the NHS to make sure that that commitment is met at all times.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

This Government are not blaming dentists for the pressures they are facing. If anyone is to blame, it is the Labour Government for their 2006 contract. We are amending that contract, and will make an announcement before the summer recess.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Suicide prevention organisations such as the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Papyrus are, sadly, needed more than ever, yet in the current economic climate, because they tend to rely on charitable donations, they are struggling to provide the services to meet demand. What will the Government do to make sure they survive and provide the life-saving services that are so badly needed?

[The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)]

Of course every suicide is a tragedy. We must do all we can to help to prevent suicide. In the last financial year, we provided £5.4 million to 113 voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations; we also provided £510,000 for the Samaritans helpline for people experiencing distress. That is in addition to more than £10 million we provided to voluntary and charitable mental health organisations in 2020-21.