Health and Social Care

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Written Corrections

[Stephen Kinnock]

Sorry; I misunderstood the question. This Government have never committed to doubling medical school places.

Maternity Care

The following extract is from Health and Social Care questions on 14 April 2026.

[Mike Kane]

The nation should be grateful for this Secretary of State and for what he is doing for maternal services, yet at Wythenshawe hospital in my constituency, the most recent Care Quality Commission report rated maternity services inadequate for safety. What assurances can the Secretary of State give that the improvements that he has outlined will be felt by mums locally?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to present those issues and to be honest about the challenges that have been raised in his local trust. I assure him that following an inspection by the CQC, NHS trusts take action to address the recommendations cited in the report. Already, £40 million in funding has been allocated to Wythenshawe hospital to ensure that safety issues are addressed, with work scheduled for completion by 2028.

[Official Report, 14 April 2026; Vol. 783, c. 674.]

Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting):

Draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dr Zubir Ahmed)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. This statutory instrument makes an important change. It will amend the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 so that the treatment of disease, disorder or injury—TDDI—is brought within the regulatory scope of the Care Quality Commission. The change will be for TDDI provided in sports grounds and gymnasiums or under temporary arrangements at sporting or cultural events where it is delivered for the benefit of those taking part in or attending those activities.

Members will recall the tragic events of 22 May 2017, when the Manchester Arena bombing killed 22 people and injured more than 1,000. The subsequent Manchester Arena inquiry uncovered serious failings, including inadequacies in the provision of healthcare services at the arena. The inquiry noted that those shortcomings may have been present in other venues across the country, in part because of the absence of regulation. A central finding of the inquiry was clear: the Department of Health and Social Care should consider changes to the law to enable the CQC to regulate healthcare delivered at events. The CQC has outlined initial concerns about the quality of care provided at events. It has heard serious allegations where unregulated provision has resulted in harm. The Government are committed to acting on the inquiry’s recommendations and strengthening public safety. I recognise that these changes are overdue, but it was important to consider the impacts carefully, and I am pleased that they have now been laid.

This statutory instrument brings TDDI at events into line with hospitals, clinics, ambulances, GP surgeries, community services and care homes, where it is already regulated. That means that a provider delivering TDDI at an event must register with the CQC and comply with the same robust regulatory standards that apply elsewhere in our healthcare system. Some of these providers will already be registered to provide TDDI in other settings, and the process will be quicker for them.

There has been some confusion about what TDDI actually is. It includes a wide range of treatments from emergency interventions to ongoing care for long-term conditions. I wish to be clear to Members that TDDI does not include first aid. First aid remains outside the scope of CQC regulation.

To support providers to make this transition, they will have significant time to prepare. I can assure everyone involved that there will be a 15-month period in which providers can register and the CQC can process registrations before regulation becomes enforceable. The CQC will consult on guidance and produce supporting materials to help determine whether registration is required. The provision to allow registration will come into force on 7 September 2026. It will not become an offence to provide TDDI as an unregulated provider until 6 December 2027. In developing this policy, the Government have considered a range of options carefully, guided by the Manchester Arena inquiry findings. We concluded that partial removal would risk fragmenting provision, and a threshold based on event size would not reflect risk.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Chair and I represent the great city of Manchester, and one of its darkest moments was Salman Abedi’s arena attack in 2017. These provisions are long overdue, and I thank the Minister and the Government for taking this action.

[Dr Ahmed]

My hon. Friend has worked tirelessly, as all hon. Members in and around the Manchester area have, since the unconscionable events of the Manchester Arena bombing. Regulation such as this could not have come into force without their representations in addition to the inquiry’s findings, so I am grateful to him and other colleagues.

That is why we are taking forward a coherent package, developing non-statutory guidance for providers and organisers alongside the change to secondary legislation to remove the two exemptions and bring TDDI at events within CQC regulatory scope. Stakeholders were concerned that smaller events could be targeted by substandard and unregulated providers. Size does not always correlate with risk, and the Government are determined not to leave those smaller events exposed to inadequate care.

I have heard concerns from stakeholders about the impact on those providing TDDI, such as clinicians who often do so voluntarily, and the potential impact that a requirement to pay to register with the CQC could have on them and the wider event sector. The CQC will therefore commence a consultation in May, which will provide opportunities for further consideration of the appropriate implementation of the regulations for sectors such as individual volunteer clinicians and mountain rescue services.

Some stakeholders have asked whether the CQC is the right body to regulate TDDI. Does it have the capability to do so, given the issues identified by Dr Penny Dash in her review? First, the CQC is the statutory independent regulator for health and social care in England, and it already regulates TDDI in a number of other settings. Extending that regulation to the additional settings outlined will bring more consistency for patient safety and quality of provision.

Moreover, this is an essential amendment to the regulations. The Manchester Arena inquiry recommended action to address gaps in the standard of healthcare provision at events, and it pointed specifically to statutory regulation and enforcement by a regulator. The Government have accepted those recommendations, and this policy reflects our intention to implement them.

Secondly, I will address the CQC’s capability to act as a regulator. It is right to acknowledge the findings of Dr Penny Dash in her 2024 review. Those critiques, I am glad to say, have been catalysts for change. The CQC has accepted the high-level recommendations and is taking forward targeted reforms, including stabilising its regulatory platform and improving the registration experience for providers.

The CQC has set out further steps to improve its inspection framework and strengthen transparency on ratings, characteristics and how judgments are made. This addresses the concerns highlighted by Dr Dash’s review and will help ensure timely, risk-based assessments—exactly what event healthcare providers will need as they register.

Extending CQC regulation to event healthcare is the safest and most straightforward route. It leverages an existing regulatory system, answers the inquiry’s call to action, is being implemented alongside reforms strengthening the regulator’s performance, and closes this long-standing gap in public safety.

By making these changes to the 2014 regulations, the Government will make true their commitments, fulfilling the recommendations of the Manchester Arena inquiry and its drive to improve patient and citizen safety. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I think that was a rare acknowledgment from the Conservative Benches that things are finally moving in the right direction, thanks to the work of this Labour Government. I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. He is absolutely right that we need to provide digital support. That is why we have the biggest capital allocation in the history of the NHS and we continue to press on with the technological improvements and data infrastructure that is needed to provide the improvements that staff are working so hard to deliver.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity care.

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

I remain deeply concerned by the state of the maternity services that we inherited. Although the majority of births go well, I know through the courage of families and concerned staff of the devastating impact that comes from failures in care. That is why I asked Baroness Amos to chair an independent investigation into maternity and neonatal care. However, that has not stopped us from acting now, with an extra 2,000 midwives, over £149 million invested to address critical safety risks on the maternity and neonatal estate, and a £25 million boost for trusts to tackle causes of maternal death, enhance bereavement services and improve triage services. We are already making progress—lots done, but I would be the first to say on this issue: so much more to do.

[Mike Kane]

The nation should be grateful for this Secretary of State and for what he is doing for maternal services, yet at Wythenshawe hospital in my constituency, the most recent Care Quality Commission report rated maternity services inadequate for safety. What assurances can the Secretary of State give that the improvements that he has outlined will be felt by mums locally?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to present those issues and to be honest about the challenges that have been raised in his local trust. I assure him that following an inspection by the CQC, NHS trusts take action to address the recommendations cited in the report. Already, £40 million in funding has been allocated to Wythenshawe hospital to ensure that safety issues are addressed, with work scheduled for completion by 2028. In addition, through the new maternity and neonatal taskforce, the first meeting of which I have already chaired, we will act swiftly to translate the final recommendations of the independent investigation into a new national action plan so that services improve in my hon. Friend’s part of the country and across the whole of England.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

A recent freedom of information request by the Labour party revealed that mental health patients were left waiting more than 5.4 million hours for treatment in A&E last year. Last week, one of my constituents spent five days in A&E waiting for a bed on a psychiatric ward. When will the Government bring an end to this shameful situation?

[Steve Barclay]

We are taking significant action on mental health, which is why we are investing £2.3 billion more, compared with four years ago. We have targeted measures as part of our urgent and emergency care recovery plan, including 100 mental health ambulances. We are putting in additional capacity, such as crisis cafés, to support emergency departments. We are also making mental health support available through 111 for the first time, which will allow us to get to issues early, before people are admitted to hospital.

Edenfield Centre: Treatment of Patients

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We know this issue is not exclusive to mental health practitioners, and it can be a particular challenge in rural, remote and coastal areas. The Secretary of State is currently working on a workforce plan, which we hope to publish in due course. Talking more broadly about those working in mental health in the NHS, as raised by the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), we have 6,900 more mental health professionals in the workforce than in 2021, which is a 5.4% increase since then and a 12.2% increase on June 2010.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

Jemima Burnage, the interim director of mental health at the CQC, described the BBC’s footage of the Edenfield Centre as “appalling, inhumane and degrading”. The people of Greater Manchester deserve better than that. Does the Minister therefore agree with local authority calls for a public inquiry?

[Will Quince]

Having seen some of the footage, it is hard for me to disagree with the words that the hon. Gentleman has used. I know that the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust has already identified and suspended staff involved in the behaviour at Edenfield that was revealed in that documentary, the police have launched an investigation into the allegations, and disciplinary proceedings have now commenced post broadcast. As I said, does that meet the threshold for an independent inquiry? My view is that it does.

Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and a real honour to follow the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), whose speech was exemplary. I thank him for leading this e-petition debate and I thank those who secured it. To get more than 100,000 signatures for something so rare is incredible. I also thank the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who leads admirably on this subject across the House. He has my full support on anything going forward.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I will hold you to that.

[Mike Kane]

The right hon. Member heckles me: he will hold me to that, and so he should. He will not find me wanting.

It is a great honour to talk about FOP today. I am here on behalf of a young constituent, Oliver, who lives in my constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East, with his brothers Leo and Harry and his mum and dad, Chris and Helen. I welcome Chris, who is here today in the Gallery, and thank him for taking the time to tell me about Oliver and how FOP has impacted their family life.

Oliver, who is now 14, was diagnosed with FOP in 2009. It impacts one in 2 million people. There are just 800 diagnosed cases in the world and only 50 in the UK. It is effectively a single letter that changes or mutates in the genome and over time results time in bone growth in muscles, ligaments and tendons. Usually, children are severely impacted by the time they are 10 years old. They are often contorted and immobile by the age of 20 and have an average life expectancy of around 40 years.

I have enjoyed hearing about Oliver and how he loves to read, play badminton and go to scouts, including to camp, where he slept in a hammock in the rain—not something I would do, but a mark of his extraordinary resilience. Oliver and his family really have shown resilience in the face of adversity, as do many families who suffer with the condition.

It is right for me also to pay tribute to the staff and pupils at Oliver’s school, Sale High in my constituency, who have given Oliver the opportunity to become more independent and to make friends on his own terms. They let him leave lessons shortly before the end of class—apart from history, where he insists on staying until the end because it is his favourite subject—so that he is not jostled in the corridor while moving from classroom to classroom. Those small adjustments give Oliver and his friends the opportunity to live as every 14-year-old should, with increasing independence and agency. May I place on record my personal thanks to Jayne O’Grady, who I know well as headteacher at Sale High School? She does a remarkable job, and I look forward to continuing to work with her to improve the fabric of that school, which is so desperately needed.

Oliver’s family and the wider FOP community have been phenomenal in their efforts to secure funding for FOP. The charity that they have set up, FOP Friends, is the only charity in the UK that focuses on research into the condition. It receives no Government funding at all. It is believed that advances in FOP research could have implications for more common bone conditions. If we know why bone forms in the way it does in FOP, researchers think that the same knowledge could be applied to people with limb damage and osteoporosis, and it could be helpful in cases of joint replacement. Developments made in FOP could eventually save the NHS money in care costs.

Although rare diseases are individually rare, within the population they are quite common, affecting one in 17 people at some point in their lifetime. The Government recognise the challenges faced by people affected by rare diseases, including ultra-rare conditions such as FOP, and in January 2020 they published the UK rare diseases framework, whose goal is,

“to help patients receive a final diagnosis faster”.

It also seeks to raise awareness of rare diseases among healthcare professionals. For example, there are only three doctors in the UK who have a specialist interest in FOP.

In summing up, I pay tribute to Oliver and ask if there is more that we can do to enable people like Oliver and others diagnosed with rare diseases in the UK to feel confident that we hear them and will support research into FOP, in line with the Government’s own framework.

Health and Social Care

Mike Kane Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I think it does exactly that, and demonstrates this party’s and this Government’s commitment to the NHS. What my hon. Friend has also demonstrated, as always, is his unwavering commitment to his constituents in Darlington and to championing their cause in this House.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I was born in the then relatively modern maternity unit at Wythenshawe hospital in my constituency. After 53 years, I am afraid one of us is beginning to look a little old and tired. The Minister knows we have a strategic regeneration framework for the whole site, with world-class breast, cystic fibrosis, heart, lungs and burns care facilities. We have the money in the bank to do it, but because of archaic Treasury rules we cannot get on with it. Come on, Minister—let us change those rules.

[Edward Argar]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that it is not him who is looking a little old or worn around the edges. I understand the point he makes, and he and I have met about this particular issue, which goes back to what counts against capital allocations in terms of accounting. He tempts me to change Treasury rules; I fear that could be career-limiting, as I am not a Treasury Minister, but I will continue to talk to him and work with him to see whether we can find a way to allow the project to proceed.

Cervical Screening

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Mr Pritchard. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I add my congratulations to the petitioners on securing a debate in Parliament on such an important topic.

In January 2021, the Minister stated:

“While we do not hold waiting lists for National Health Service screening programmes, NHS England…are confident that no one eligible for cervical screening has missed an invitation for an appointment.”

An invitation is one thing, but being able to book and access a test can be quite a different matter. In the third quarter of 2021, no clinical commissioning groups in England achieved 80% coverage of women invited for a test. I am, of course, aware of the pressures placed on the NHS during the pandemic, and my speech does not denigrate it at all, but 600,000 cervical screening opportunities are estimated to have failed to go ahead in the UK just in April and May of last year.

In October 2019, NHS England commissioned an independent review of adult screening programmes. It highlighted that demographic factors—levels of affluence and deprivation, and ethnic diversity—have a huge impact on whether women take up the tests. For women who live in areas with higher levels of deprivation, such as parts of my constituency of Wythenshawe and Sale East, the coverage of screening programmes is lower than average.

Hologic, a fantastic innovative medical technology company in my constituency, focuses primarily on improving women’s health and wellbeing. It specialises in high-volume population screening. We know that more than 99% of cervical cancer cases are preventable and that, alongside HPV vaccination, cervical cancer screening is one of the most effective ways to prevent that cancer.

There are opportunities to improve screenings, both for clinicians and for patients, by adopting new innovative screening technologies. One such method is using HPV mRNA testing for primary cervical screening. The tests provide significantly higher clarity and would safely reduce the number of women who require a colposcopy, thereby reducing unnecessary fear, anxiety and stress for the women involved. It would also reduce the pressure on an already overburdened system, save the NHS an estimated £15 million a year, and potentially prevent 30,000 unnecessary colposcopy procedures.

Currently, just 54% of all samples in England are processed using that form of testing, meaning that 1.5 million women in England do not have access to the technology. England should move towards a system in which mRNA HPV primary screening is the gold standard used by all labs. With better co-ordination within NHS England, cervical screening would, for example, be commissioned by the same part of the NHS as colposcopies, enabling clinicians to work more effectively together and have a positive impact on patient experience and outcome.

Another innovative technological advance is digital cytology. This advanced imaging technology, used to identify lesions and pre-cancerous cells, which stores cervical images using cloud-based technology, would help maximise screening capacity, enabling any cytologist with capacity in the network to access a particular image. That would provide a much more flexible deployment of the workforce, would speed up time from result to treatment if necessary, and provide physical efficiencies, such as less need for storage and for the transportation of cervical images and slides.

Rolling out such technologies would save not only money and time, but would, in time, reduce the stress on women and girls at a worrying time, as has been pointed out today, as well as reducing the need for unnecessary gynaecological procedures. It would also provide a streamlining of these lifesaving services. I would welcome any comments that the Minister has about those suggestions.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab) [V]]

Wythenshawe Hospital in my constituency is built on the site of Baguley sanatorium, which opened in 1902 to lead the way in tuberculosis treatment, planting the seeds of the excellent heart and lung unit at the hospital now. Those specialisms have been joined by an internationally recognised burns unit, by the fabulous Nightingale Centre breast unit, and recently by a world-class A&E facility after a campaign championed by my late, great predecessor, Paul Goggins.

Last week, the Government announced ambitions that the UK will lead the world in life sciences. I share that ambition and, with co-operation from Government, Wythenshawe and our hospital can be in the vanguard. Wythenshawe Hospital’s strategic regeneration framework sets out a vision for the campus, which will be supported by a world-class research and innovation business park alongside a redeveloped, modern and inviting hospital. Great companies such as Chiesi and Hologic are already based in my constituency. There is now an opportunity, with the SRF, to ensure that the fabric of the site reflects the world-class services at the hospital and the exciting prospect of leveraging the medical park to help Manchester and Britain to continue to be a world-class leader in life sciences.

Inward investments, high-skilled jobs and life-saving research are now more important than ever. The Minister will be pleased, I am sure, that I am not asking today for a pot of public money for this redevelopment. The cherry on top of this masterplan is that it will require no funds from Treasury. In fact, it can be funded on site with the correct commercial partners. I am so proud of this project, and I really wish to discuss it with the Minister at some stage in the near future. We need a mechanism from the Treasury to allow the vision to be realised and Wythenshawe Hospital to become the 21st-century leader in healthcare, research and innovation that we know it can be.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Some of the evidence for the approach that we are taking is not only because we see that approach in other countries in the world, but because even within Greater Manchester, in Bolton, where cases were rising sharply, they were flattened when hospitality was closed except for takeaways; albeit that they have started to go up again since that measure was released. So, although I understand my hon. Friend’s urge for a consultation—I am happy to talk to him about these issues at any moment of the day or night—we are seeking to work with the local area and with all the elected representatives to get a solution that we can commend to the people of Greater Manchester. But a solution we must have. We cannot see cases inexorably rising, because we know the consequences that that brings.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I am slightly confused. On Monday the Secretary of State gave up his valuable time to Greater Manchester MPs and confirmed tier 2 with a four-week review. He had unanimous support, cross-party, from Greater Manchester. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) said, every day it has been briefed in the press that we were moving to tier 3. So I am grateful to the Secretary of State that the Minister for Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), has today announced that the Department will undertake a leak inquiry. Today, again, there was full unanimity about tier 2 in Greater Manchester. Come on, Minister: just confirm it and you will have our wholehearted support across the conurbation.

[Matt Hancock]

Not quite, because even in this statement there have been Members speaking from Greater Manchester who have urged more action. [Interruption.] What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that I have started a leak inquiry into the leaks of some of the information around Greater Manchester. That will, of course, have to cover both national and local government. There is a more important thing, though, which is the need for people to come together to take the action that is necessary to get this virus under control, because unfortunately, in Greater Manchester there continues to be a rise in the number of cases—[Interruption.]