Epilepsy Services

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for securing the debate, as it is important that the matter is brought to the fore. I am lucky and privileged to be the chairman of the all-party group on epilepsy, and I am pleased that we are joined today by many young epileptic people who are taking their education forward and have a bright future ahead of them. We must ensure that we give them the same future in employment that we give other young people, and that future is about controlling a chronic condition.

Like my hon. Friend, I am epileptic, though I am lucky to have had very few seizures—I have had five in my life and no incident in the past seven years. There is a wide range of conditions—40, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Some people, like me, sometimes forget that they are epileptic, while others have seizures regularly, sometimes daily. The issue we all share is stigma. As soon as one mentions the word “epilepsy”, all sorts of extraordinary ideas come into people’s minds, and there can be an assumption that we might need constant attention.

Children with epilepsy have a particularly difficult time in school, because even if they do not have any seizures they can be wrapped in cotton wool and stopped from participating in outdoor sports. A child with epilepsy of course needs attention, and my hon. Friend is right that nurses and teachers need to understand that seizures might occur, but we must start to relax about this. We must focus on epilepsy from a medical point of view, but we must not stop young people participating and being part of a life when, with proper diagnosis and the right medication, they can make an important contribution in school and in employment.

I do not know whether other hon. Members know this, but my hon. Friend and I, as epileptics, are not allowed to walk up the stairs to the top of Big Ben. There are many things that we cannot do, such as recreational diving; epileptics cannot go diving unless they have been seizure free for five years and have not been taking medication for that time. I would have thought that it was probably quite useful to take medication, and I have done quite a bit of scuba diving without knowing about those regulations. We are creating barriers because we do not understand the variations in epilepsy. There is extreme epilepsy, mild epilepsy and seizure-free epilepsy, and we have an opportunity to ensure that more people are seizure free and making a contribution to society. I would like the Minister to join us, with the Joint Epilepsy Council, to ensure that we start to make the authorities, teachers and the medical profession understand more about the variations and the opportunities available to people with epilepsy who have been properly diagnosed and are properly medicated.

My chairmanship of the all-party group on epilepsy is concerned with stigma and with those who have severe epilepsy, but also with liberation for those who have controlled epilepsy. When I became chairman, I was contacted immediately by a local GP, who happens to be one of the best in the country specialising in epilepsy. Over the past five years, with seven GPs specialising in epilepsy, we have reduced related A and E admissions in South Thanet by 60%. That is most certainly a cost saving, but also a life liberator. We are reducing seizures for patients across the area, and I would like the Minister to look at what we have done. Patients are getting that primary attention and are not having to wait for months for appointments with consultants. They have ongoing care with specialist nurses.

What we have achieved in South Thanet is a model that could be rolled out over many other specialisms, where GPs who are passionate about a subject can make the difference and ensure that we have a more effective and responsive service. Hopefully we will reach the target for epilepsy, which is for 72% of sufferers to be seizure free. I would welcome the opportunity to meet the Minister and to discuss our services in South Thanet further.