Parkinson’s Disease

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for securing this important debate. Over the last few years, too many patients living with Parkinson’s disease have sadly been left facing unacceptable waits to be diagnosed and treated; they then face further challenges accessing the medication they need. That has ripple effects across our communities—it certainly does in my communities in South Dorset—as the neurological condition impacts not just the person with the diagnosis but their family and loved ones.

Many Members will be very aware from their inboxes that thousands of patients in England—far too many—are on a waiting list for neurological services, and around half are left waiting for more than the NHS target of 18 weeks. That means that the illnesses of many patients may have gone undiagnosed, with their conditions worsening as they wait to be seen by the necessary specialist doctor.

Patients living in coastal communities, including in South Dorset, often encounter specific challenges when accessing healthcare, and they also face higher incidences of long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s. Too often, patients in my community are confronted with a long wait for an appointment with a specialist and a long journey to the nearest major hospital. That problem is compounded by a national shortage of Parkinson’s specialists.

More than 20 constituents have written to me to raise this worrying state of affairs. Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world, and we must do more to support those whose lives have been changed by the disease. I join my constituents in South Dorset and charities such as Parkinson’s UK in their support for the Parky charter. It sets out five principles to improve care for everyone with a Parkinson’s diagnosis. The Home Secretary has rightly pledged to support those principles, which include delivering referrals in under 18 weeks; providing comprehensive information; giving automatic access to free prescriptions; comprehensive care; and increasing funding for research into the condition. On that last point, Parkinson’s is deemed incurable, but it does not have to stay that way. Treatment options are very limited in this country. More funding could certainly enable the development of innovative, life-changing treatments, or even a cure in the longer term.

Progress has already been made on the five points in the Parky charter. This Labour Government have already begun clearing the NHS backlog, with waiting lists down by some 219,000 since July, and I believe that their elective reform plan will mean more neurological appointments every year. By providing extra appointments, scans and operations, in particular at evenings and weekends, the Government can clear the backlog so that everyone is seen within the critical NHS target of 18 weeks.

More broadly, I hope that the Government’s 10-year plan for our NHS will radically reform how people with long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s disease are treated through the NHS. The Health Secretary’s action to clear the backlog, the 10-year plan and the elective reform plan have begun to improve care for those with Parkinson’s disease, but we can and must go so much further. I hope that today’s debate will galvanise support across the House for the vital mission of ensuring timely diagnosis, comprehensive care and dignity for all people living with Parkinson’s. My constituents and their loved ones and families deserve nothing less.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to shift care from major hospitals into community hospitals.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

On behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on reaching his 70th birthday—I think you said 70th, Mr Speaker, but I am sure you meant 60th.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), we promised in opposition to transform the NHS into a neighbourhood health service, and we have hit the ground running. As a first step, we have announced the biggest boost to GP funding in years—an extra £889 million—which will recruit 1,000 more GPs. We are delivering 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments, and we have given adult and children’s hospices a once-in-a-generation £100 million funding boost. At the same time, we are delivering our plan for change and have cut waiting lists for five months in a row. Change has begun, but the best is still to come.

[Lloyd Hatton]

I, too, pass on my best wishes to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

In South Dorset we urgently need to restore clinics and shift services back into our community hospitals in Weymouth, Portland, Swanage and Wareham. Sadly, the previous Conservative Government hollowed out those community hospitals, meaning that services left our towns to go further and further up the road. Combined with poor transport links, this means that many local people in my patch find it difficult to access the care they need. With that in mind, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to restore clinics and services in our community hospitals, and will he support my campaign to restore the chemotherapy clinic at Wareham community hospital?

Community Pharmacies: Devon and the South-west

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord]

It is flawed, particularly for those parts of the country that are rural and coastal, such as those represented by my hon. Friend and myself. In Honiton and Sidmouth, the average age of my constituents is 56. I went to a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on ageing and older people last week, and we hosted Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England. He described how, while in some societies people move away from the coast and rural areas to seek comfort and care in towns and cities, in England we do quite the reverse. That makes it even more crucial that we maintain our pharmacies in those rural and coastal communities.

In short, we are calling for the Government to provide funding to halt the closures and stabilise the sector, ensuring that rural communities such as those in Devon are not left behind. We want to see the role of pharmacists expanded to give them greater prescribing rights and allow them to take on bigger public health responsibilities.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

It is really important that we widen the discussion to talk about not only stemming the loss of pharmacies, but how we can put pharmacies back. In the south-west, community hospitals would act as an excellent venue for them. Does the hon. Member agree that we should be looking at community hospitals as a potential venue for new pharmacies, so that they are a bit of a one-stop shop where people can access healthcare and advice?

[Richard Foord]

I think the hon. Gentleman has come up with an absolutely brilliant idea. Community hospitals are potentially hubs where pharmacies might sit in the future. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this debate; she has done a great thing by doing so.

World AIDS Day

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Beales]

I thank my hon. Friend for that vital point. HIV is a condition that knows no boundaries. It does not affect any one type of person: there is no one community that is alone affected by HIV. It knows no boundaries; it affects everyone.

After 14 difficult years for the health service, we are not on track to reach the 2030 goal. At every single stage of the HIV treatment process, we are missing critical opportunities to get people on PrEP, test for HIV and ensure that everyone living with HIV has the support that they need.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis—we can see why it is called PrEP for short—is an incredible advance in HIV prevention. It is a simple daily pill, now in generic form and therefore incredibly cheap, that prevents HIV completely if taken correctly. I have spoken before about how life-changing a drug it is in removing the fear and stigma of HIV. As a gay man who grew up in the 90s and noughties, the legacy of HIV has always weighed on me and, I am sure, on many others like me. Our sense of self, our sexuality and our relationships were always intertwined with the stigma and presence of HIV. Being able to take PrEP is game-changing, and not just for the individual and their wellbeing: it has a massive public health benefit. It has driven the significant falls in new transmissions, particularly among gay men, who have largely been the people who have accessed the drug to date.

It is unacceptable that the drug is not being accessed by everyone who could benefit. The average wait list for this preventive medicine is 12 weeks. We know from research that people have acquired HIV while waiting to access the drug. That is a significant failure that I hope the new HIV action plan will address, as well as turbocharging access outside sexual health services—the only place where it can currently be accessed. It is entirely wrong that NHS silos are holding back access to PrEP in primary care, including in pharmacy and other settings.

It is also unacceptable that people cannot get a postal test for HIV and sexually transmitted infections in 30% of rural England. It makes no sense that my borough of Hillingdon—not so rural, but on the edge of London—has a completely different postal testing system from the 30 other London boroughs that have their own system. Far too often, the patient is left to navigate complex systems. What test they get will vary depending on where they live. In vast swathes of the country, there is no option to test at home, although sexual health services are often inaccessible and chronically overwhelmed. Far too often, the individual has to fight for an appointment, and only those with the sharpest elbows, or persistence, get access to the sexual health services that they need.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an eloquent speech. The point he makes is really important: in rural and coastal communities, testing services and public health awareness can often feel particularly remote. Looking at how we use primary care, particularly community hospitals and GP surgeries, will be essential to improving testing and public awareness. Does my hon. Friend agree that pushing this out into communities is essential to ensuring that take-up is just as good in a rural or coastal community as it is in a big town or city?

[Danny Beales]

I completely associate myself with my hon. Friend’s comments. Particularly in rural settings, if getting to a sexual health service means travelling for miles and sometimes for hours, a lot of people, especially on the lowest incomes, will put off getting the test until another day. Unfortunately, we are seeing persistent rates of late diagnosis and of undiagnosed HIV outside major cities. I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

What about those who make it through the complex online systems—the 8 am call queues, only on a Thursday—and actively go out and seek a test, or those who are fortunately now being found in our amazing opt-out testing pilot? If they are diagnosed with HIV, they are not always getting the support that they need to access HIV treatment in the long term.

We have some of the best—if not the best—HIV treatment and specialists in the world. HIV is now a treatable long-term health condition. “U = U. Undetectable = untransmittable.” We need to say that over and over again. In simple terms, it means that when someone is on HIV treatment, they cannot pass HIV on. That is a powerful and life-changing message. Despite the advances, 14,000 people living with HIV in England are essentially lost to the health system. They have been diagnosed with HIV but are not being seen by their clinic because of stigma, poverty and other barriers that are holding them back from getting that life-changing treatment.