Covid-19: Aligning UK and Foreign Entry and Return Requirements

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we are working with our partners to try to open up borders. There is a growing consensus that vaccination is an important component in opening up borders, and the Government generally support that. The virus itself chops and changes; we have to adapt in response to the growth of variants. I cannot promise that we will not act promptly and emphatically when the health of the nation is threatened.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

What advice can the Minister give to those who wish to travel to or from South Africa, or any other African countries which are popular with tourists?

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as I mentioned earlier, we take the threat of the vaccine-evading beta variant extremely seriously indeed, therefore we are extremely cautious about travel to areas with a high prevalence of that variant.

Covid-19: Wuhan Institute of Virology

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, who is leading the pandemic preparedness work. He is doing an enormous amount both on the international treaties through our G7 chairmanship, and on the internal domestic re-envisaging of our healthcare system. We need to invest more in public health, and we also need the data, the diagnostics and the patient behaviours that support really rigorous tracking down of diseases when they arrive. The noble Baroness is entirely right: pandemics will come, sooner rather than later.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

Why, within days of becoming Prime Minister in July 2019, did Mr Johnson scrap the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee, which was set up precisely to ensure that the UK was ready to cope with a pandemic?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, with the greatest of respect to the noble Lord, I am not sure whether the pandemic that just hit us could have been solved by a committee, however august and impressive. We need a national response, and the national response to this pandemic came from the Prime Minister and the top of Government, and involved the entire nation. For that we are enormously grateful.

Care Homes: Insurance Indemnity

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I do not need to remind the noble Baroness that there are profound inconsistencies between the NHS and social care. They are organised completely differently, and the insurance arrangements reflect that. The noble Baroness is right that we are looking for parity of outcome between the two. That is very much our commitment and this is one area in which we are striving to achieve that.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

Many care homes felt that they were thrown under a bus early in the pandemic when, without adequate personal protection equipment in place, the Government transferred infected but untested hospital patients into homes and many otherwise healthy residents were lost through no fault of the homes. As future pandemics may happen, is it not a matter of fairness that care homes and hospices should have their indemnity insurance underwritten in the same way as the NHS does?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point to provisions for the future and for future pandemics—or any future waves. I reassure him that arrangements are in place to ensure the safe transition of patients and residents from the NHS to care home and back again, but that is not a reason to turn the insurance arrangements of the care home industry on their head. Care homes simply cannot have the kind of risk-pooling arrangements that suit major NHS institutions.

Social Care: Person-centred Dementia Care

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has made it very clear that he is committed to bringing forward proposals to address this issue before the end of the year. He stands by that commitment. I look forward to the kind of cross-party and cross-society collaboration that will be necessary to address that massive generational challenge.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as someone who knows the demands of caring for a close relative with dementia, I ask the Government to ensure that there are enough high-quality short-term placements for person-centred dementia care to give carers the chance of an occasional break. Given that person-centred care is at the very heart of the care provided by our hospices, do the Government have any plans to review the sector’s long-term financial situation and move it on to a more sustainable footing?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I pay tribute to those who deliver person-centred care. The noble Lord referred to hospices, and I am extraordinarily touched and impressed by the way in which they delivered on an enormously difficult task during the pandemic. We debated earlier the financial arrangements around hospices and the delicate state of their finances. We continue to be in touch with the industry and will take whatever measures necessary to ensure its financial stability.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review: Sodium Valproate

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness’s point on the proportion of those who say they have filled in the form. Phase 1 of the registry is a helpful collection of statistics, but we are putting in place phase 2, which will help us to understand exactly how many patients who are taking sodium valproate have actually filled in the form. That will give us the concrete reassurance that we seek on this matter. I recognise that there are redress payments for thalidomide and contaminated blood, but redress payments are not necessarily suitable for every single misfortune that happens in the medical world. However, we will look very carefully at the case for sodium valproate and I take the noble Baroness’s comments on board.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

Research from Konkuk University in South Korea has suggested that disabilities caused by the compound could cause autism spectrum disorder transgenerationally—in other words, afflict successive generations within families. What is the Government’s view?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising that study. It is not one that I am aware of, and I am keen to go back to the department to find out whether it has done any analysis of it. I will write to the noble Lord with a response.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his championing of nurse practitioners, because we are going to rely on all qualified healthcare workers to administer an injection to support this huge project—one of the largest of its kind in recent national history. I also emphasise the role of pharmacists who will, where appropriate, deliver the vaccine as well. We need a massive, mass-scale effort to deliver this vaccine. We will be empowering all those qualified to deliver the injection to do so and we are extremely grateful to them, including nurse practitioners, for their help in this matter.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, President-elect Biden has shown refreshing leadership by setting up a panel of scientific experts to deal with Covid-19. Why, then, do the Government think that a venture capitalist married to a government Minister is best placed to chair the Vaccine Taskforce rather than an expert in vaccines?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The role of Kate Bingham, the head of the Vaccine Taskforce, has been to acquire vaccines—and that is what she has done. She has served the nation brilliantly by acquiring six of the vaccines on four of the platforms. We should be extremely grateful for the work that she has done. It was not remunerated, and it was extremely effective. To knock those who have contributed voluntarily to our fight against Covid is not appropriate at this stage.

Covid-19: Charitably Funded Hospices

Debate between Lord Jones of Cheltenham and Lord Bethell

Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness will know through her work as a lay member of the NHS Camden Clinical Commissioning Group that hospices are much valued by the healthcare system. I assure her that the agenda for 4 November will include an assessment of the ongoing support that hospices will need through the winter.

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

Today the director of my local Sue Ryder, told me that she faces a budget shortfall of 43%—almost half—in this financial year because fundraising from shops and other means has fallen. She has already had to make redundancies. However, demand is increasing and she is expecting a tsunami of new patients who missed an early diagnosis of their condition because of the Covid crisis. What are the Government going to do about this both now and in the long term?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right to cite the challenge being faced by Sue Ryder and other hospice charities that depend on retail income. They face a most difficult and challenging problem; it is one that we acknowledge and recognise. The question of misdiagnosis leading to a bump in arrivals in hospices is not one that I have been conscious or aware of, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for flagging it up for me. I will take that back to the department and, if it is something that we should be focused on, I will write to him accordingly.