Women’s Health Strategy

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important point. It is the very reason I established the maternal inequalities oversight forum, so that I could learn from experts and organisations such as MBRRACE —Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries—and Maternity Voices about the issues that affect black, Asian and minority ethnic women in particular and why the statistics are as they are. I thank him for raising the individual case of his constituent, and I ask him to ask her to provide us with her evidence of what her experience was. It is really important that BAME women understand that we want to hear their stories and birth experiences. BAME women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. We need to know what those issues are, and it is important to get that message out to those women.[Official Report, 12 March 2021, Vol. 690, c. 6MC.]

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I was pleased to hear the Minister mention endometriosis and acknowledge the shocking fact that it currently takes eight years, on average, for a woman to get a diagnosis, and the underlying assumption that it is just something that women have to put up with if they have pain during their periods. As I am sure the Minister knows, it is National Endometriosis Awareness Month, and campaign groups are asking for a commitment to reduce average diagnosis times to four years or less by 2025, and a year or less by 2030. I am slightly concerned that if we wait for this strategy, it will delay action being taken. What reassurance can she give that the Government are acting to reduce waiting times now?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, which I have spoken to. The report has raised a number of important issues, and we are grateful to the APPG for raising awareness and for contributing to our understanding of this very important issue. The report’s recommendations are to be considered as part of the work to help the women’s health strategy. I urge that APPG and others, and the stakeholders, to participate in the call for evidence. As this is an issue in the women’s health strategy, we cannot go any quicker than putting the call out now for 12 weeks, doing what we can before the summer recess to get the data and working on it over the summer recess, and then have a strategy before the end of the year. Our timetable is tight and quick, but that is what we want, because we do not want to lose momentum. We want to get this report out before the end of the year.

Covid-19 Vaccine Update

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The fantastic NHS staff have stepped up in the most challenging of circumstances, and it is imperative that they are part of this first phase of the vaccination programme.

A significant milestone was achieved last week, as my hon. Friend will have heard me say earlier: we have now gone into every eligible care home of older adults to offer their staff and residents their first dose of the vaccine. This is testament to our remarkable care home staff and NHS workers. I urge all social care and front- line health care workers to take up the vaccine when it is offered to them. The recent large vaccination centre for my hon. Friend’s constituency is the Spectrum Community Health CIC in Wakefield, which staff can also access. We continue to make progress with staff, and our aim is to offer to each and every member of staff that vaccination by the middle of February.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

The news that a mutated form of the new, more infectious Kent variant has been found in Bristol has worried a lot of people. I appreciate what the Minister said earlier about developing new vaccine variants as we go along, but where does that leave people who have already been vaccinated or who will be vaccinated before the new vaccines come on stream? What reassurance can the Minister offer?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. The vaccines that we are currently deploying will work on the variants that are in the United Kingdom. Both the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, and the chief scientific adviser have said that they would be very surprised if the current vaccines have no impact on the variants of the virus, so we continue to vaccinate at speed, at the same time, of course, as being vigilant by sequencing the new variants. Of course, we are able to react, with the manufacturers, to any future need in respect of the vaccination programme. At the moment, the vaccines are exactly the right thing to do, including because of the protection against severe infection and hospitalisation that they offer, which remains incredibly high with both vaccines.

Vaccine Roll-out

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have been in contact with all those who have been invited to come forward so far. For those who have not been yet invited to come forward and are in the top four groups, we will be in contact before 15 February. May I just add that my hon. Friend himself has been volunteering in his local vaccination centre, doing his part on the frontline? I think we should all thank him for that.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I am very pleased that my mother, my aunt and my uncle are all having their vaccinations today, so it seems that the roll-out to the over-70s is going well in Bedfordshire at least. May I ask about young carers? We know that the 10 to 19-year-old group is at particular risk of transmitting covid, if not at risk of suffering badly from it. Many of them will be looking after people who are in the clinically vulnerable group, but at the moment it seems that they will not be prioritised for vaccination, just the people who have more professional caring responsibilities. Will the Secretary of State add young carers to his list of people who, for the sake of the people they care for, will be vaccinated early?

[Matt Hancock]

I will absolutely look into that. I join the hon. Lady in praising the roll-out in Bedfordshire, which is going well. It is wonderful to hear the personal stories of so many people whose vulnerable family members have been vaccinated. The vaccination programme is touching us all; we just have to get it done as quickly as possible to make people as safe as possible as fast as we possibly can.

Ockenden Review

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As questions 14 and 15 have been withdrawn, the final one is from Kerry McCarthy.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In that case, I thank the Minister for what is clearly a very genuine response to the concerns expressed today. What has been said about the culture within the NHS, revealed in this review, has echoes of the Bristol heart babies scandal, and it is tragic that parents must still fight to have their voices heard now. One of the things mentioned by families contributing to the Ockenden review is the desperate need for longer-term support following experience of baby loss. I know from my constituents that the NHS has struggled to provide that during the current pandemic. What more can we do to ensure not just that parents are listened to at the time of losing their baby, but that they are supported from then onwards, too?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, sincerely, and for her important question. Baby loss is something that we discuss in this House—rightly so—and we are discussing what happened at Shrewsbury and Telford, because many parents there lost their babies. The report makes a recommendation that the care and support that parents are given following a bereavement are strengthened, and that measures are put in place to ensure that the right package is there. Many charities work in this area across the UK—I will just mention Baby Lifeline, Sands and others—and have themselves put in place both practical and emotional measures to help parents at such a time. It is the worst time, in anyone’s life, to lose a child. We say that so many times in here, and it is our responsibility, both in the Department and in society as a whole, to hold those parents and to help them through those awful times. I thank the hon. Lady for her question—this is something we take very seriously in the DHSC.

Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, my hon. Friend rightly raises an important point. Vaccination is happening in Cumbria today, which I am really pleased about. Cumbria is, of course, one of the most rural parts of the UK, so when we get to the primary care and the community roll-out, we will make sure that we can get the delivery as close to communities as possible. That is much harder with the Pfizer vaccine because of the minus 70° requirements. The AstraZeneca vaccine is much easier from that point of view, but of course, we do not have that clinically signed off yet.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This morning, at Southmead hospital, 98-year-old Jack Vokes became the first person in Bristol to be vaccinated, which is obviously great news, and I join my colleagues in congratulating NHS staff on all their work at this time. May I press the Secretary of State on the point about transport workers, particularly taxi drivers, who we know are vulnerable not just because of their contact with the public, but because they are overwhelmingly drawn from the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, which puts them more at risk? Under the headings of prioritising occupations and minimising the inequalities in the second tranche, are they likely to be considered for vaccination early?

[Matt Hancock]

We absolutely will consider that factor when we come to the groups after the clinical prioritised groups. I join the hon. Lady in thanking Jack and all those who have put themselves forward today to be vaccinated, including sometimes in the public eye, as part of this programme to help build confidence in vaccination overall and, of course, to help protect themselves and their loved ones.

Covid-19 Update

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I think there is a duty for all of us to send messages to the communities that we serve that people need to take personal responsibility to try to reduce the spread of the virus. There have recently been some cases in care homes, but far fewer, and it seems that the actions that we have taken and the very hard work of the care home sector over the summer—the staff who work in care homes—has reduced transmission. In most care homes there are more staff than residents, and they live in the community, so it is almost impossible to stop any infection getting into all care homes when the level of infection in the community rises. Having said that, the core of this second peak is in the community, where every single one of us can act to take more responsibility to help to slow the spread of the virus.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My constituents, like everyone else’s, have suffered huge anxiety over the past six months, worrying about their health and livelihoods. The chaos that has unfolded today in relation to Greater Manchester will have done nothing to allay their fears. They are also angry about the money that has been squandered on personal protective equipment purchases, on consultants, and on the failing Test and Trace system, which my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State raised with the Secretary of State. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my hon. Friend’s questions then—would he answer them now? Why is Manchester not entitled to the money it needs to get by in this crisis, when so much money has been wasted elsewhere?

[Matt Hancock]

The money that we are proposing, and put on the table for Greater Manchester, is exactly the same as the amount that was agreed with the leadership of Liverpool and of Lancashire. There is support there to help people through what are—the hon. Lady is quite right—very difficult times. I hope that we can resolve this, but we needed to act after 10 days, with infections still going up. It was our duty to act, even though we could not yet get the agreement of the local leaders, but I hope that that will come.

Coronavirus Response

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I agree strongly with my hon. Friend, who makes the point very clearly. No matter the level of new infections in any area, having better and better data helps us give more support to those who have coronavirus. Whether it is an outbreak with large numbers, as we saw for instance in Leicester and some other cities, where there is clear concerted action with support from national Government to go in and root it out, or whether it is an area with very low levels of background infections, like her own, where the local authority having the data will allow it to support the few positive cases, better data will help the co-ordination of the national and local response. We have said all along that tackling the virus is best done by the national level and local level working together, and I am really pleased that we are able to get this increased data out to increase that co-ordination still further.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I want to thank the Health Secretary for two things while I have the chance: the deal on Kaftrio for cystic fibrosis patients, which is so important to so many of them; and for meeting my constituent, Jake Ogborne, recently to talk about access to the drug Spinraza—I hope we have some news on that soon. However, for people with such conditions who have been shielding for the last few months, there is still a great deal of uncertainty, concern and confusion about whether it is safe for them to go outside and about what they can actually do, especially when other people are breaking social distancing, not wearing masks and so on. What reassurance can he give that people will be safe if they tentatively put a foot outside?

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s campaigning on these issues. We have worked closely together to bring really positive news on the treatments for cystic fibrosis on which she has campaigned so strongly. She also made the case very clearly on Spinraza, which I have since discussed with NHS England. It is, of course, NHS England’s statutory responsibility to take a decision, but I discussed it with NHS England, as I committed to do so to her and her constituent, Jake.

I say to all those in the shielding category that we have recommended that shielding restrictions come to an end at the end of this month because it is clinically advised that the levels of new infections are low enough that it is safe to do so. It is safe to do so. I plead with those who are shielding to listen to this clinical advice, because we also know that staying at home and not seeing other people has downsides to health too. If anyone wants proof that we will not take this step unless we are confident that it is safe, we have paused the end of shielding in Leicester exactly because rates of infection are higher—to keep people safe. People can be assured that it is safe, from the end of this month, for those in the shielding category to go out into the community, taking the precautions that everybody should take.

Covid-19: BAME Communities

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Before I move on to the specific topic of the debate, I think it is important to acknowledge, as many others have, that we cannot debate this in isolation; we have to see it in the context of Black Lives Matter and the grievances stretching back not just decades but, in many cases, centuries. Bristol was of course very much in the forefront of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations earlier this month with what our Mayor, Marvin Rees, the first democratically elected black Mayor in Europe, described as an act of “historical poetry”—the hugely symbolic removal by protesters of the statue of Edward Colston.

The Observer headline this Sunday was, “The day Bristol dumped its hated slave trader in the docks and a nation began to search its soul” but in fact the reverberations from the removal of Colston were not just national but global. What is interesting is that the statue of Colston was not erected until 1895, more than 170 years after he died. Professor Madge Dresser says that was part of a bid by the city elite to quell increasingly radical stirrings among the lower classes. They were trying to rally people around a civic identity based, supposedly, on our glory days—our heyday, when the city prospered as a result of slavery—rather than have people rallying around class or an organised labour movement. It is fitting, now that Colston has come down, that we do not just talk about statues and monuments and about place names and road names, although all that discussion is happening, but that we shine a light on structural inequalities, class, poverty, deprivation and health inequalities.

Earlier in the covid crisis, Bristol City Council, under the leadership of Mayor Marvin Rees and our Deputy Mayor Councillor Asher Craig, commissioned a rapid research review from University of Bristol academics. The resulting report on the impact of covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities was published on 20 May. The verdict, as we heard from the Public Health England report and we know from our own experience, was that the risk from covid-19 is generally higher among BAME communities, even after adjusting for risk factors such as age, gender, comorbidities, increased likelihood to live in urban areas, and so on. BAME people are more likely to be admitted to critical care and more likely to die. No one factor alone can explain it, but contributing factors include being poorer, where people live, overcrowded housing, types of jobs, other illnesses and access to the health service.

The recommendations in the Bristol report include ensuring adequate income protection for those in low-paid or precarious employment and reducing occupational risk; what other Members said about the increased vulnerability of BAME healthcare staff and other frontline workers, such as Belly Mujinga, is really important. The report also said that we need to improve public health communications and tailor them to culturally specific challenges, such as preventing transmission in overcrowded households or shielding vulnerable people in multi-generational households. It also called for the removal of all NHS charges so that no migrant or individual from a BAME group delays seeking healthcare or risks death through fear of being charged for their NHS care. It was quite shocking, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, that the Prime Minister did not even seem to know what “no recourse to public funds” meant when he appeared in front of the Liaison Committee. The report also recommended that ethnic groups should be included in health inequalities work, that we should collect more data, and that there should be meaningful engagement and involvement of minority ethnic communities in the services. This is now being taken forward by a BAME working group.

In research published in January 2017 looking at ethnic inequalities in education and employment, the Runnymede Trust judged Bristol to be one of the most unequal cities in the UK and one of the worst places when it came to racial equality. We ranked seventh out of the 348 districts of England and Wales on the index of multiple inequality. We are seemingly prosperous; people think of Bristol as a wealthy, thriving city. We are the only city outside London to make a net contribution to GDP. We are consistently voted as one of the coolest cities and one of the best places to visit. All that gloss masks the underlying inequalities. In the same way that the Colston statue presented a false image of wealth and philanthropy masking the true horrors of how many were enslaved, mistreated and died in the pursuit of that wealth, the gloss is masking the real picture in many of the deprived communities in Bristol. We absolutely know that we have a long way to go in Bristol—that taking down the statue is just one historical marker on a long, sometimes difficult and sometimes daunting journey—but we are absolutely committed to doing this.

Covid-19 Response

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I will. The manufacturing of pottery and chinaware in Stoke-on-Trent has long been one of the finest things in this country. My hon. Friend is an inesteemable representative, along with her two colleagues, for Stoke-on-Trent—[Interruption.] Inestimable. Exactly. I think that is what I said. She rightly makes that case, but there is a broader point, which is that coming out of this, we are going to need many industries that work differently. The economy will not be the same on the way out as it was on the way in, and in many cases we can make changes for the better. She is absolutely sticking up for the pottery industry.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has said about the PHE report and the need to get to the bottom of why these racial disparities seem to be a thing, but it is not enough to work out after the event why there have been so many more deaths among the BAME community. What is he doing to support the public health function in local authorities so that they can work with local community groups to try to identify people who are more likely to be at risk, to prevent the illnesses and deaths from occurring in the first place?

[Matt Hancock]

We have put extra funding into those functions, obviously, because this is a significant crisis that demands massively more of our local public health capabilities in councils and in the devolved Administrations as they deliver local public health services on the ground. It is absolutely critical to look at these risks, but we have to look at them in the round. We have to look at all the different risks. For instance, there is growing evidence of the impact of obesity on the morbidity—that is, the impact of covid—and on people’s chances of dying, and that has to be taken into account as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to help ensure access to Orkambi on the NHS.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

4. What progress has been made in enabling the provision of Orkambi on the NHS.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

18. What progress he has made on increasing access to drugs to treat cystic fibrosis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

Of course I would have liked the deal to happen sooner, but I am glad that the company has now committed itself to engaging properly in the normal processes which mean that we obtain drugs nearly as fast as any country in the world. This result—this deal—shows that the system is working to get cutting-edge drugs into the NHS at good value for the NHS pound.

I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), and to other Members in all parts of the House who have campaigned on this issue. It is great to have made some progress.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am obviously delighted by this news, and the Secretary of State will know how delighted my family were, because when the news broke I showed him the family WhatsApp with lots of exclamation marks and happy smiley-face emojis. As I have told him, my constituent Jake Ogborne, an 18-year-old boy, was in a similar situation earlier this year when he thought that he had been approved for the drug Spinraza—there is a an online video of him having a cake and a celebration—but then he found that according to the small print he was not eligible. I want his family to be as happy as my family are now, and I hope very much that the Secretary of State will be able to look into his case.

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who raised that case with me last night and gave me advance warning that she would raise it in the House today. I shall be happy to ensure that the relevant member of the team meets her with her constituent, if appropriate, so that we can get to the bottom of this.