Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, should it be approved, does have easier logistical and distributional qualities—it does not have to be stored at minus 70°—so that helps. Of course, the JCVI will consider the clinical properties of any vaccine that comes forward when deciding who it can be distributed to, so that is taken into account. Finally, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that this has been an international as well as a UK success. I had a text exchange with my German opposite number this morning to thank, through him, the German scientists who have done so much to make this possible.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con) [V]]

I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a practising NHS psychiatrist who has been working on the frontline throughout this pandemic. The Secretary of State will be aware that mental health patients are often an afterthought of policymakers, although I am sure that is not the case for him, and that many of them have multiple medical comorbidities, which make them more vulnerable to covid-19. Will he reassure me that patients in mental health services, particularly in-patients, and NHS staff who work in in-patient mental health services will be prioritised for this vaccine and will not be an afterthought?

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. NHS staff are in the second priority cohort set out by the JCVI, and that includes all patient-facing staff in the NHS and social care. Patients who are clinically vulnerable to covid absolutely have their rightful place in the prioritisation, according to clinical need.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are expanding capacity at the hospital in York. Of course, in York there are two overlapping epidemics, one among students and one among the general population. As the hon. Lady says, though, the spread is increasing among the older population, who are of course the most at risk from covid. The number of cases increased by 60% in York over the last week, so I welcome her support for the measures that we are taking, and I am happy to continue to talk to her about what more might be needed, because this is best done on a cross-party, cross-community basis. My message to everybody in York, a city I know and love, is that it is very important that all of us abide by these rules and reduce social contact. That way we can start to get the increase in the number of cases in York coming down.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con) [V]]

I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Interests as a practising NHS doctor, who has been practising on the frontline during the pandemic.

The Secretary of State is right to introduce these measures today, and he is right to see a full national lockdown as a very last resort. May I bring him back to the issue of testing? Tremendous strides have been made in expanding national testing capacity to many hundreds of thousands a day from a standing start, but a number of hospitals still face challenges in getting NHS staff tested. I am aware of some hospitals that are being offered only 15 tests a day for their staff. Will he please look into this matter urgently? It is vital that the NHS has the staff available to treat patients, particularly given the second wave that we are now facing.

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. We are making significant progress in this area. My hon. Friend will have seen the announcement by the NHS on Monday that we are expanding the asymptomatic testing of members of NHS staff in tier 3 areas, and we are also expanding the capacity for covid tests within the NHS itself. He is absolutely right to raise this issue, and we are making a lot of progress.

Social Care

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes that the Government is committed to fixing the crisis in social care; and supports the Government’s commitment to find a long term solution for the growing need for care and commitment to an ambitious three point plan, including extra funding every year, seeking a cross party consensus and ensuring the prerequisite of any solution is a guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it.”

This is a welcome opportunity to debate social care—a subject of vital importance—and I want to set out how we must rise to the challenges and celebrate all that is good. We must recognise at the start of the debate that there is much to celebrate, including the millions of people who work in social care, to whom we pay tribute. I want to welcome someone who is new to working in social care: my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), who has joined the team as Minister for Care. I pay tribute to her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who led the care system so effectively and delivered a legacy of better training, better recruitment and a real focus on carers; that is a legacy to be proud of.

Let me start with the context for this debate. It is rightly about both adults of working age and older adults. The people of this country are living longer. Over the next decade, the population aged 75 and over is set to increase by 1.5 million, and over the next 20 years, the number of people aged 65 and over is set to increase by almost half. That is emphatically a good thing. More people living for longer is not some problem to be managed; it is an opportunity to be welcomed, and welcome it we do.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the significant challenge that an ageing population with multiple medical co-morbidities presents to the health and care system. In that context, it is not just about extra funding, which is obviously welcome to the care system; it is also about transforming the way we deliver care. Is it not time to consider a single point of commissioning for health and social care? If we were designing the system today, given the demographic challenges he has outlined, it would look very different from the system we have.

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is right that it is about more than just money. The money is, of course, important, but it is also about how the system is structured. There are parts of the country where the co-commissioning he calls for already exists, and we can see the improvement in efficiency that we get out of that. The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) rightly mentioned those with learning disabilities and autism, of whom there are more than 2,000 in in-patient settings. We are reducing that number and supporting more people to move into the community, including in the example that she mentioned. She talked about the challenge of that requiring more money. Actually, community settings are often better for the patient and cost the taxpayer less. As my hon. Friend says, improving the commissioning and the system is a critical part of the solution, so that yet more people can be moved out of in-patient settings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am always very happy to visit hospitals around the country, including St George’s. Of course, the individual management of staff is a matter for the hospital itself. I look forward to discussing with the hon. Lady what more we can do.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has quite rightly outlined the global progress that has been made on the medical and nursing workforces, but he will be aware that the picture is very different in mental health services, with the loss of 4,000 mental health nurses over the last decade. Indeed, the fill-rate for doctors entering higher training in child and adolescent mental health services this August is only 63% and only half the higher trainee posts in general adult mental health have been filled. What is the Secretary of State going to do to turn the very good rhetoric on mental health into a reality on the ground for patients?

[Matt Hancock]

The increase in funding for mental health services, which is the largest increase as part of the overall £33.9 billion increase, goes to mental health services. Of course, the vast majority of that will go towards employing more people. As my hon. Friend says, we need to encourage more people into training in mental health services and psychiatry, as well as mental health nursing, which is also under pressure. The expansion of these services ultimately means that we need to have more people doing the work: supporting people to improve their mental health and supporting people with mental ill health. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue, which is right at the top of the priorities for the NHS people plan.

Social Care Funding

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s work in this area. He is incredibly thoughtful and has been prepared to ask some of the difficult questions and give his answers to them. I agree that this is something that we should take forward on a cross-party basis wherever possible. I will come on to the long-term funding in a moment, but I just want to address directly the question of short-term funding.

I query the Labour party’s motion because 80% of local authority funding was reliant on the central Government grant in 2010, and that is no longer the case. Looking only at the central Government grant is an inaccurate way of assessing the question. For instance, we introduced the social care precept directly to address some of these costs. It would be far better if this debate took place in the context of the available budget for social care, which is increasing by 8% in real terms over the four years from 2015-16 to 2019-20. The debate should be based on facts rather than partial facts, and that is how I will seek to proceed.

Quality is important, too, and 83% of adult social care settings are now rated good or outstanding by the CQC. The figure has risen from 79% in just the last year, and it is the highest since measurement started in 2014, but I want to see it rise further still.

The links between the social care system and the NHS are important, too. No one should stay in hospital longer than necessary.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the link between healthcare and social care. If we are to care properly for people with the long-term conditions he has outlined, we need to have a more joined up and integrated system. It is hard to deliver that when we have a taxpayer-funded NHS and a social care system in which many people now have to pay for their own care. In looking for a cross-party solution, which he is open to, will he consider that we may need to look at a taxpayer-funded solution for funding social care so that we can deliver the transformative integrated care we want for older people?

[Matt Hancock]

Part of the social care system is, of course, tax payer-funded, but I also value the contributions that people make to social care. They are an important part of keeping the system strong. We dismiss those contributions at our peril, but I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to make sure we get more funding and better integration between the healthcare and social care systems. We can do that with different funding sources, as long as we have better organisation on the ground.

We must make sure we have the appropriate amount of care available so that people can leave hospital at the right time; people should not have to stay in hospital longer than necessary, as it reduces their dignity and quality of life and leads to poorer health outcomes, as well as putting unnecessary pressure on the NHS.

Since February 2017, more than 1,900 beds have been freed up in hospitals by reducing NHS and social care delays, yet we know that the winter months bring increasing pressure on adult social care services, which can have a knock-on impact on hospitals. On top of the rising social care budget, we are providing an additional £240 million for adult social care capacity this winter, which will help councils to get patients home quicker and free up hospital beds for more urgent and acute cases.

Today I have published the allocation for every local authority in England, and the Barnett formula will apply to allocations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Individual allocations include, for example, £1.3 million in Salford and £1.5 million in Leicester.

Superfast Broadband: Rural Communities

Debate between Matt Hancock and Dan Poulter

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Matt Hancock]

I do not want to point this out, but I have just commended the Labour Government in Wales for being further forward. I will come on to the universal service obligation, because more heat than light was produced by the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. We went through this at length during the Digital Economy Bill’s passage through the House, and in the end there was cross-party agreement regarding the universal service obligation, which will bring in 100% coverage by 2020—ahead, in fact, of the Scottish Government’s proposed date of 2021.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware of some of the challenges we face in Suffolk in delivering high-speed broadband. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House can welcome the universal service obligation but, once it is in force, it must allow those who are not provided with access to broadband at the set minimum speed a simple means of seeking redress. I know that the Minister has spoken about this before, but might he make that point clear? I am sure that would help others here in their understanding of the USO.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. Thanks to the support of my hon. Friend and near neighbour on the Digital Economy Bill, we are now bringing in automatic redress as part of that legislation. Perhaps more important than redress is the need to get the universal service obligation through and into force within the timeframe we have set out.