Breast Cancer Drugs

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate. She made an extraordinarily powerful and emotive speech. I join her in wishing everybody who is here today in the Public Gallery and everybody who is watching this debate at home all the very best for the future. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who made a very powerful speech citing the personal testimony of his constituent, whose case he argued eloquently. My hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) spoke eloquently about his grandmother being his inspiration for going into politics, and her dying of the disease. We come into politics for many different reasons, the profession of public pain being one. Nye Bevan did not create the NHS in 1948; he created it much earlier when his father died of pneumoconiosis in his arms before the time of the NHS. I hope that I can pronounce the drugs that I am going to mention just as well as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) did.

We have heard lots of statistics today. Stats, in themselves, are shocking, and it is also important to remind ourselves that behind every statistic there is a human story. The lives of women, all too often young women and mothers, are being cut cruelly short. We have heard many important interventions about access to breast cancer drugs for treatment of secondary breast cancer. At the heart of the motion is also the issue of how we can improve access to innovative new breast cancer drugs and off-patent drugs used for breast cancer. The use of such drugs relates not only to the treatment of breast cancer but to its prevention. I am immensely proud of the fact that my constituency is home to the Nightingale centre— Europe’s first breast cancer prevention centre—and the charity Prevent Breast Cancer. I am a Mancunian MP, so my constituency also benefits from close proximity to the Christie hospital, the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe, treating more than 44,000 patients a year.

The Nightingale centre opened at University Hospital of South Manchester—Wythenshawe hospital—in July 2007. It offers state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment services to women and men with breast cancer and co-ordinates the NHS breast screening programme for the entire Greater Manchester area. It also provides training facilities aimed at addressing the shortage of breast cancer specialists, and it houses many of the Prevent Breast Cancer researchers who are looking at ways to predict and prevent breast cancer.

In the Prevent Breast Cancer research unit, several drugs that are now out of patent are being repurposed for preventing cancer from coming back. Women with a family history or other factors that make them high risk are known to benefit from these drugs, which prevent the disease. But women in that position find it difficult to obtain these inexpensive, tried-and-tested drugs because they are currently not listed in the “British National Formulary” as specifically licensed for the new purpose of prevention, despite successful clinical trials. There are currently three drugs in that situation: Tamoxifen, Raloxifene and Anastrozole.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Kane]

I would be happy to give way, having got the names of those drugs right.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I understand that a new policy is being put together by those in charge of the “British National Formulary”, which will set out how they will get more off-label drugs into the formulary. Does my hon. Friend agree that the sooner that policy is available for us to see the better?

[Mike Kane]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on doing so much work in this area since he came to Parliament. We can only hope that what he says is true; perhaps the Minister can give us more information on that point in her summing up.

The Prevent Breast Cancer research unit has more out-of-patent drugs under investigation for breast cancer prevention which may be even better for the future. As well as doing everything we can to extend the life of women with secondary breast cancer, we must do all we can to prevent breast cancer from occurring in the first place. As we all know, the adage is that prevention is better than cure. For those with secondary cancer, for whom cure is currently out of reach, many people will be striving to achieve that for the next generation.

At the moment, the system is standing in the way. A solution to make those drugs more widely available that would cost very little money indeed would be to ask NICE to list such drugs as approved for the new indication of prevention in the “British National Formulary”—following the evaluation of relevant clinical trials, of course—so that doctors can have confidence in prescribing them. The requirement to obtain a new Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency licence for the new indication is expensive and impractical for repurposed medications, because they usually lack a sponsoring pharmaceutical company to champion the new use of the generic drug. I am sure the Minister would agree that such a small change would be transformative in the prevention of breast cancer. I hope that she will ask NICE to consider that change to the way in which drugs are listed in the “British National Formulary” to allow drugs that have been evaluated for a new purpose, such as prevention, to be listed as approved for that purpose.

When we lose someone prematurely to cancer, grief obviously follows. It has been my experience that when we lose someone to breast cancer, the grief is particularly poignant. Tonight, my thoughts and prayers will be with all my constituents who have either succumbed to the disease or are battling it, and with their families who carry the consequences. I lost my cousin Maura Kane to the disease, and my two friends Tom and Claire both lost their mothers to it. I stand in solidarity with my constituent and friend Sheila Higgins, who is battling this disease. She has been like a mother to me for the last two decades. Finally, my parliamentary assistant Suzanne Richards came back to work after Christmas with a clean bill of health. She was diagnosed with a virulent strain last year, but she had world-class treatment at the Wythenshawe and Christie hospitals. Today is her birthday, but it is a birthday that many of us feared she would never see—happy birthday, Suzanne.

Defending Public Services

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend is correct: we need to invest in our children and in our productive potential, giving life chances through opportunities, which are badly missing from this Government’s approach.

Imran Hussain, the director of policy for the Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“There is a disconnect between what the government is doing and saying. You can’t spread life chances when child poverty is expected to rise steeply.”

He said that there was

“very little evidence about poverty being caused by addictions or family breakdown”.

Recent Office for National Statistics figures show the true scale of poverty in the UK, with almost a third of the population experiencing poverty at least once between 2011 and 2014. The Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis of February 2016 found that absolute child poverty is expected to increase from 15.1% in 2015-16 to 18.3% in 2020-21. We do not want lectures from the Conservatives on improving life chances; all the evidence shows that exactly the opposite is happening.

What would it take for the Conservatives to wake up to the reality that increased child poverty is a direct consequence of their austerity agenda? Their attempt to disguise cuts with this life chances agenda is transparent. If the Government want to lift children out of poverty and give them an equal start in life, they must reverse their punitive cuts and be more ambitious about tackling in-work poverty.

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

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case against austerity, with which I agree, but the SNP Holyrood Administration in Edinburgh is forcing £130 million of cuts on Glasgow City Council, which covers one of the poorest areas in the country. How does that measure up with what he has been saying?

[Ian Blackford]

One of the things we have done since being in government in Edinburgh since 2007 is to protect local government. What we face is the consequence of the cuts that have come from Westminster. I am delighted that an SNP Government have, through the council tax freeze, saved individuals in a typical band D house £1,500—protecting the individuals, while at the same time protecting the budgets of councils. That is what the SNP Government have done in Edinburgh.

In Scotland, the SNP Government have protected public services, despite the cuts to the Scottish budget. With cuts to Scottish public services handed down from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, lacking in compassion and empathy, the poorest and the weakest in our society are paying the price for Tory austerity.

The SNP has put forward a credible, progressive alternative to the Queen’s Speech, proving once again that it is the only real opposition to the Government in the House of Commons. [Interruption.] In our dreams? Well, let us see what the Labour party is offering. We got nothing from the Leader of the Opposition last week, and we certainly got nothing from the Labour Front Bench. It is little wonder that Labour has fallen in the polls, and fallen to become the third party in Scotland. That is the reality: no hope, no vision, and no agenda from today’s Labour party.

Although the debate could be characterised as focusing specifically on defending public services, to my mind, and those of my colleagues, it should be seen in a much wider context. The SNP has published its own Queen’s Speech, which offers hope to the people of Scotland. It says that we should aspire to do better, and that we need to create the circumstances that will allow us to deliver sustainable economic growth, thus enhancing life chances for all, while at the same time recognising the necessity of investing in and enhancing our vital public services.

Our manifesto, like our Queen’s Speech, recognised the necessity of driving down debt and the deficit, but we would not do that on the backs of the poor and at the cost of our public services. We recognise not only that austerity is a political choice, but that its implementation is, in itself, holding back not just growth in the economy, but the potential of so many people throughout the United Kingdom. Cuts in public services withdraw spending from the economy, and that undermines our moral responsibility to deliver public services that support people and give them opportunities to return to work, as well as the vital support network that allows communities to function effectively.

The attacks on services for the disabled, women and young people are a result of the Government’s programme, which holds people back from making a full contribution to society. What we in the SNP have, by contrast, is a strategy that will enhance life chances for people in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom. It is a progressive agenda, which recognises the responsibility of Governments to show leadership in creating the architecture that will deliver sustainable economic growth. That means investing for growth, delivering stronger public services, driving up tax receipts, and cutting the deficit. Our strategy is an appropriate response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but it also acknowledges the circumstances in which many Governments in the western world find themselves.

We in the SNP are ambitious for Scotland. That can, perhaps, best be evidenced by the programme of Nicola Sturgeon’s Government. That programme will tackle the attainment gap, while also focusing clearly on using what powers we have to influence innovation, recognising that there is a twin track: tackling attainment must go hand in hand with improving skills, enhancing capability, and creating competitive opportunities in the global marketplace.

We have focused specifically on export capabilities in key sectors. The manufacture of food and drink continues to be our top export sector, accounting for £4.8 billion in revenues. The value of our food and beverage exports, excluding whisky, rose from £755 million in 2013 to £815 million in 2014, an increase of 8%. In 2014, Scotch whisky exports reached £3.95 billion, accounting for 21% of the food and drink exports of the whole United Kingdom. Scotland has shown the way in increasing its export capability, and driving investment and jobs into our economy. That plays to our key strengths, and our reputation as a provider of high-quality food and drink. It is also based on segments of the market that offer long-term growth opportunities.

We need to tackle the relative decline of manufacturing in our overall economy that hampers our ability to meet the challenge of delivering prosperity. Growth sectors in the economy, such as biotechnology, can deliver opportunities for jobs and growth. We need a strategy which focuses on manufacturing growth that outstrips the service sector in terms of value added to our economy. That is not to downplay the desire to achieve growth in services, but to recognise that we have an imbalance in our economy that hampers our ability to maximise opportunities for all our people.

We cannot decouple a debate about defending public services from the wider economic agenda, because they are so completely intertwined. We need a well educated, healthy population who can rely not only on our education and health services but on our ability to deliver effective childcare, for example. When Conservative Members talk about small government, they reject the vital role of the state in providing much of the support that allows all of us to achieve our potential.

This Queen’s Speech is a missed opportunity to deliver a programme that could offer so much more to those who aspire to a healthier, wealthier and fairer society. We need to tackle inequality, to improve living standards for ordinary workers, to create a fairer society and to strike an effective balance between prosperity and investment in the public services that underpin a successful society. Today, we are moving away from that.

There is an increasing disparity between executive pay and rates of pay in the mainstream, leading to increased calls for action by shareholders and ultimately to stronger action if moderation cannot be achieved. With wage growth outpacing productivity growth, there are legitimate concerns about the sustainability of real wage growth and, as a consequence, taxation receipts and the ability of the Government to meet their targets, with all that that would entail for the public finances and, no doubt, for investment in our public services.

In short, to secure our public services, we need to tackle the shortcomings of the Government’s economic strategy. Of course we would invest for growth and create opportunities for investment by the private and public sectors, resulting in greater confidence and growth outcomes. Confidence and growth, on the back of modest investment in our public sector, would see the debt and deficit come down, by contrast with policies driven by this Government’s ideological desire to achieve a budget surplus at any cost. The logic behind that desire to achieve a budget surplus almost irrespective of economic circumstances beggars belief. If the Chancellor misses his growth forecasts, as has been the case on numerous occasions, his office can make the strategy work only through tax rises or, more predictably, cuts to public spending.

The trouble with this strategy is that we are now six years into it and it is not working. The squeeze on public spending is hurting and damaging services. Those of us who are old enough to remember the Thatcher Government elected in 1979 will recall the line from the Government that “if it’s not hurting, it’s not working”. Patently, it is hurting and it is not working—[Interruption.] It might have been John Major, but it is the same old Tories. The strategy is harming the life chances of people in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Let me return to the Queen’s Speech and the future of the NHS. We strongly disagree with the UK Government’s moves to charge visitors to this country to use the NHS. NHS Scotland will not charge overseas visitors if they need to visit A&E or a casualty department if it involves a sexually transmitted disease or HIV or if they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act. That is the right thing for anyone to do in a civilised society.

Contaminated Blood

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I absolutely agree that we must look beyond those whose are immediately affected personally by the health effects of contaminated blood, and take account of the effects on their wider families and loved ones. I shall say more about that later.

Truth and justice are what this is all about, and I believe that we have reached a stage at which we really could deliver both. The Government’s consultation is under way; the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), Friend made her announcement in January; and there is now a groundswell of public opinion. Those three factors mean that we are at a crossroads, and we may never have this opportunity again. Campaigners acknowledge that since 2010, the Government have listened. We have made progress—more progress than we have made in the past.

This, however, is the position: the Government’s consultation is due to close in just three days’ time, and it is clear that there is still a great deal of unhappiness with the options on the table. The status quo—the existing scheme, with its confusing and inadequate provision—is not acceptable, but neither is the alternative, which would seem to fail to tackle the fundamental problem of fair financial provision both for those who received the contaminated blood and are living with the health consequences and, importantly, the families and loved ones who care for them or grieve for them.

We must be realistic. Like nearly every decision that we make in this place, this does in the end come down to money, and we know that money is tight. It would be unrealistic, indeed irresponsible, to stand here today and ask for a blank cheque to be written, or for funds to be taken from equally worthwhile projects elsewhere in the health budget. What I appeal for today from the Government—on behalf of my constituent, and other constituents who are with us—are two commodities that are perhaps even more precious: time and understanding. I ask for time for these people, including my constituent, to have their cases adequately heard by the Government, and not to be bounced into accepting one of two options, neither of which they believe to be fair or adequate.

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

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech on behalf of his constituent. Does he agree that it would be a tragedy if, at the end of the consultation, some of the victims were worse off as a result of it?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

None of us, of course, would want that. We must wait to hear what the Minister says at the end of the debate, but I am sure that we are all aiming for the same result. The least that the people who have fought so hard for truth and justice deserve is a fair hearing, but for many, time is running out. They find themselves in the heartbreaking position of facing the inevitable health consequences of what was, after all, an historical failure of the national health service.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a huge amount of support for doing the right thing for patients, which is why it is so extraordinary that the BMA has chosen to defend the indefensible, not to sit round and talk about how we can do this, as any reasonable doctor would have done and—to go back to the earlier question—to put out deeply misleading comments to its own members that have inflamed the situation and made it far worse than it needed to be.

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

The Royal College of General Practitioners has reacted to the decision to impose the contract by saying that it is shocked and dismayed. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that the decision will exacerbate the recruitment and retention issues that the NHS currently faces. Why does the Health Secretary ignore the concerns of those two royal colleges?

[Mr Hunt]

When those colleges have had a chance to look carefully at our proposal, they will find much that they can commend. For both psychiatrists and GPs, we are putting in a premium to attract more people into those specialties, which will be immensely important both for them and for the NHS.

Victims of Contaminated Blood: Support

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I covered the issue of funding in my response. The hon. Gentleman attended the meeting, at which a number of matters were discussed. I do not think I can add much to what I have already said. This is a priority for the Department of Health, and we are seeking to identify the amount of money, on top of the transitional £25 million and the baseline spend on the current scheme, that we can use to support the reformed scheme.

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

Six thousand infected, 2,000 dead, a 30-year struggle—this delay is just one part of the continuing nightmare that victims face. Can the Minister tell my constituents Fred Bates and Peter Mossman when the nightmare will come to an end?

[Jane Ellison]

I cannot right the wrongs of 30 years; I can only try to do what I can in the circumstances, and with the money that we will allocate. We will present plans for a reformed scheme, and I invite the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to respond to them. In developing those plans, I must look to the future, and ask what we can do to support people with a reformed scheme. In particular, I must ask how we can respond to some of the ways in which the circumstances in which we address this terrible, difficult tragedy have changed, and ensure that our response reflects those new circumstances.

Cities and Local Government Devolution [Lords] Bill

Mike Kane Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

As well as amendment 29, I will speak to Government amendments 4, 18 to 22, 27 and 28, and to the stand parts for clause 1, clause 2, clause 3, schedule 1, and clause 4. I will also comment, if time and the mood of the Committee permits, on new clauses 1, 13, 18, 22, 23 and 25, amendments 51, 43, 46, 39, 44, 53 and 57, and new clauses 21, 56, 42 and 59, which have been placed in the same group.

The range of interest that has been shown in this Bill speaks for itself. On Second Reading 76 colleagues made contributions, and there was a great deal of consensus. This Bill is of a consensual nature, and while there are issues that we will be discussing in Committee, it is important to put that on record. My intention and that of the Government today is to reflect on the debate that is now to take place and take that into account going forward. We hope this debate can continue in this consensual tone and that it will characterise the passage of this Bill.

Clauses 1 and 2 were inserted into the Bill in the other place. We have considered carefully the arguments in support of the clauses. We share the views of those who supported the clauses about the importance of the Government’s accountability to Parliament for the devolutionary measures and deals they pursue.

Clause 1 places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to provide annual reports to Parliament setting out information about devolution deals. We recognise that the effect of this clause will be to bring together in an annual report to Parliament details about the whole range of devolutionary activity. While some, if not most, of this information will have been made available to Parliament in the ordinary course of business, we accept that there can be value in such a comprehensive annual report, enhancing transparency and accountability. The Government therefore accept that clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.

Amendments that hon. Members have now tabled seek in various ways to extend the reporting requirements. We are not persuaded that these are needed to ensure the transparency and accountability that we all wish to see, but I will listen carefully to the debate and we will consider further expanding the reporting requirements on devolution in due course subject to the arguments hon. Members put forward.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen)—whom I may refer to occasionally throughout today’s discussion—has tabled new clause 18, which would require the Secretary of State annually to lay before Parliament a devolution report and enable the Secretary of State to establish an independent body to provide advice on devolution of powers. I think the reporting requirement he has in mind is already covered by clause 1, and while we accept the importance of reports, I do not believe a case can be made to establish some new independent body to provide advice. I fear that any such step would simply lead to additional costly bureaucracy.

The hon. Gentleman has also tabled new clause 13, which would require the publication of a report about how powers devolved to combined authorities are being further devolved. I know he takes great interest in that issue, in line with the devolution agenda more broadly, and wants that taken forward. The Government attach importance to such further devolution. In the Localism Act 2011 we have recognised the importance of neighbourhoods and of neighbourhood planning, and of communities being able to take ownership and management of community assets or take on the provision of local services. This is an important element of devolution and I can see the case for any comprehensive report about devolution covering these matters.

Amendment 42 was tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). It would require the Government to publish an annual report about powers that have been devolved to a combined authority mayor. This again is an important matter and there is a case for information about this to be included in any comprehensive annual report on devolution. The Government recognise that and want to find the right solution for the concerns hon. Members have.

The shadow Secretary of State and the hon. Members for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Croydon North (Mr Reed), for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) have tabled new clause 22 which would make it a requirement for the Secretary of State to report on further devolution options for London, including fiscal devolution which has been called for by the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London. As we made clear in the other place, we are open to discussing with London plans for the devolution of wider powers. Indeed, the Mayor and London Councils have already sent in formal devolution proposals and the Government are engaged in discussions regarding these. We are committed to taking forward these discussions and I doubt whether there is a need for some further reporting requirement therefore to be included in this Bill.

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

Will the Minister confirm that these devolution powers from central Government apply to Manchester and to the interim authority and mayor after 2017, and that it is not the reverse—from local authorities up to a combined authority or mayor system—and that with spatial planning it will take the full agreement of the 10 leaders who make up the cabinet and a two-thirds majority for all other decisions? Will he confirm that to the Committee today?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Wharton]

That would be entirely a matter for the proposal put forward by the local area in question. We would certainly be open to whatever geography an area wished to present as the most logical for its economy and the most able to allow it to drive forward the changes and improvements we envisage being enabled by the Bill. So yes, that would be possible, but only by agreement and in line with the Government’s approach to devolution.

[Mike Kane]

Can the Minister explain what first attracted the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the idea of extending the business rate relief zone to his constituency of Tatton, enabling it to be considered part of Greater Manchester?

[James Wharton]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to divert my attention from the amendments. The steps this Government are taking on business rates are generally welcomed by local government—that is my experience of the discussions I have had. They are another step towards giving local government the certainty, control and freedom it wants, and delivering on our agenda. They are broadly in line with the devolutionary approach that we are taking and is envisaged by the Bill.

Hospital Services (South Manchester)

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered hospital services in south Manchester.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I secured this debate to highlight to Parliament some serious and genuine concerns about the Healthier Together process, which is under way in Greater Manchester. Healthier Together Greater Manchester has been a three-year consultation that, according to its own website,

“was created to help make an NHS for the 21st Century, helping to save more lives.”

The Healthier Together proposals relating to hospitals seek to drive up quality and safety by forming a single service with networks of linked hospitals working in partnership. That means that care will be provided by a team of medical staff who will work together across a number of hospital sites within the single service.

The Healthier Together committees in common, made up of GPs from each clinical commissioning group in Greater Manchester, were responsible for making decisions about the proposals based on a wide range of evidence gathered during the past three years. That included evidence from a public consultation and data on travel and access, quality and safety, transition, affordability and value for money.

Before the public consultation, commissioners decided that there should be at least three single services in Greater Manchester, based in Salford Royal hospital, the central Manchester university hospitals and the Royal Oldham hospital, which will each specialise in emergency abdominal general surgery. That decision was made because of the clinical services already provided by those hospitals and to ensure that all areas in Greater Manchester had equitable access to specialist services. Each hospital will work in a single service model with other, neighbouring hospitals in Greater Manchester.

On Wednesday 17 June, commissioners took the decision to implement four rather than five single services to deliver hospital services in Greater Manchester. Commissioners believed that the evidence showed that four single services would offer exactly the same quality and benefits as five, and that it would be quicker and easier to recruit the additional doctors needed to run four single services. The commissioners also pointed out that, in the long term, four single services would cost less to run. At a meeting on 15 July, commissioners unanimously decided that Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport would be the fourth hospital in Greater Manchester to provide emergency abdominal surgery, as part of one of the four single services.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I apologise, but I cannot stay; I have a Select Committee to go to. I am concerned, as he is, about the initial consultation, which we debated in this Chamber in the previous Parliament. For the record, however, I should say that I am delighted that Stepping Hill was chosen; in High Peak, we are outside Greater Manchester and I was concerned that we had been forgotten. Choosing Stepping Hill means an awful lot to my constituents.

[Mike Kane]

The Healthier Together commissioners left us in a binary situation, so it became a competition between two hospitals. That should never have been the case.

The aim of Healthier Together—to give patients throughout the region the same standard of excellent service wherever they live—is the right one. The challenge is huge: Manchester has the highest premature death rate of any local authority in the country. There can be no doubt that healthcare services in Greater Manchester need to change.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating a hospital in my constituency on its news? Today, Tameside general hospital has come out of special measures. Although we are concerned about Healthier Together and some of its proposals, that is fantastic news for the overall package for my constituents.

[Mike Kane]

May I say a couple of things? On a personal level, I am delighted that my hon. Friend won her seat of Ashton-under-Lyne. She worked at the coalface of integrated care services in east Manchester and she brings all that experience to the House. I, too, was involved in public life in Tameside, for six years, so I am delighted that the hospital has been taken out of special measures today. I pay tribute to everyone who has helped that to happen, from those in the Ministry to local leaders and the consultants at Wythenshawe hospital who over the past few years have advised on bringing Tameside general hospital out of special measures.

Almost £2 billion has been taken out of the budget for adult social care, with more cuts to come. We need to do things differently to meet the challenges of the time. Better integration of local authority services and the NHS will be a key part of that change and will be realised under the new powers being devolved to Greater Manchester. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) and I have serious concerns about the outcome of Healthier Together and believe that the decision-making process is flawed.

Reorganising our tertiary services before resolving the huge challenges that we face to integrate our health and social care in the region feels like putting the cart before the horse. The benefits to be gained from our devolved powers in this area are yet to be realised, so we are redesigning our tertiary services in the dark. My constituency is home to the University Hospital of South Manchester Trust, which delivers services costing £450 million, employs 6,500 people and has 530 volunteers who give up their free time to help patients and visitors. The UHSM hospital has several fields of specialist expertise, including cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, heart and lung transplantation, respiratory conditions, burns and plastics, and cancer and breast care services. Indeed, the trust is home to Europe’s first purpose-built breast cancer prevention centre. Its hospital not only serves the people of south Manchester and Trafford, but helps patients from across the north-west and beyond.

Healthier Together has decided that UHSM will partner the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, or CMFT, in a single service for Trafford and Manchester. UHSM and CMFT have agreed to work together to improve collaboration between the trusts. There is clearly a great opportunity for two of Greater Manchester’s leading university teaching hospitals to work together to improve services, to increase integration at all levels, including with social care, and to improve research and education.

The Wythenshawe hospital, however, provides an extensive portfolio of secondary and tertiary services that rely on support from general surgery to maintain their quality and safety. In fact, UHSM provides all 18 of the services identified by Healthier Together as needing support from general surgery, including secondary services such as maternity, gynaecology, gastroenterology, urology and acute medicine, as well as tertiary services such as heart and lung transplant, burns care, cystic fibrosis and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which are provided only by UHSM for patients from across Greater Manchester and the north-west.

UHSM regularly accepts elective and emergency surgical patients from Greater Manchester and beyond who require the specialist support of its tertiary services —for example, patients requiring emergency or complex elective general surgery with complex cardiac disease. There is genuine concern that those secondary and tertiary services, which are outside the scope of Healthier Together, could be destabilised or downgraded through the implementation of the proposals.

UHSM also provides all the services, as identified by Healthier Together, on which emergency, high-risk general surgery is absolutely dependent, such as interventional gastrointestinal radiology and interventional vascular radiology. The latter is only provided at three hospitals in Greater Manchester that also provide vascular surgery, one of which is UHSM’s Wythenshawe hospital. Wythenshawe hospital must continue to deliver high-risk, emergency general surgery procedures for in-patients and for surgical emergencies in its secondary and tertiary services. UHSM will need to retain its existing level of general surgery support at Wythenshawe hospital in order to undertake surgical assessment, perform emergency surgery and manage the elective workload from a highly complex group of patients.

We were pleased that, in order to support UHSM’s tertiary services, Healthier Together recognised at a public meeting on 15 July that Wythenshawe hospital would need a higher level of general surgery service than that described in the Healthier Together service model for a local hospital. Much greater clarity, however, is required on how secondary care services, such as maternity, gynaecology, gastroenterology, urology and acute medicine, will continue to be supported, as the service model for general surgery could have significant implications for many services outside the scope of Healthier Together.

UHSM believes that the key features of a service that would maintain the quality and safety of its secondary and tertiary services are that Wythenshawe hospital should meet the Healthier Together quality and safety standards; should remain a receiving site for emergency general patients, including those with co-morbidities in its tertiary specialties and those who self-present; should have 24/7 senior general surgical assessment and opinion rapidly available to A&E; should remain able to admit and manage general surgery patients of all types; and should continue to deliver all emergency general surgery procedures, both major and minor, for in-house emergencies—for example, in-patients in urology—as well as for emergency general surgery patients with co-morbidities in its tertiary specialties. I am thinking, for example, of a patient with a bowel obstruction who is also being treated by the hospital for cystic fibrosis. As a minimum, the existing level of general surgery capacity must be retained in order to deliver and maintain that level of service in support of UHSM’s secondary and tertiary services.

Wythenshawe currently has a high-capability team of 10 consultant general surgeons with experience in all specialities of managing high-risk surgical emergencies in-patients, supported by a team of trainee surgeons. Although Healthier Together analysed implications for the consultant workforce, it is not clear what analysis there has been of the implications for other staff, including the effects on medical training posts and the support those posts provide to consultants.

Healthier Together has recognised that the service model required at UHSM must be more than that described by the programme for a local general hospital, and UHSM’s surgeons have been invited to discuss potential service models with the Healthier Together team. However, serious questions have been raised with both me and Members whose constituencies border mine about patient safety and quality in what can only be described as a fudged model for UHSM, which would be neither a specialist hospital nor a local one.

Throughout the Healthier Together process, we have been told that the dominant driving force of the proposed changes is to save more lives, yet in the end the final part of the decision to allocate the fourth specialist site was taken based on one factor only: travel and access. It is clear that for the Greater Manchester-wide—indeed, north-west-wide—specialist services provided at UHSM to continue safely, a robust and high-quality general surgery service must be maintained at Wythenshawe hospital. That is essential to ensure the quality and safety of the secondary and tertiary services that our constituents and patients from across Greater Manchester, and beyond, rely on.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making an excellent and detailed technical case on behalf of Wythenshawe hospital. Does he agree that the downgrading of the status of Wythenshawe—that is what this is—will make it much more difficult to recruit the necessary specialist staff and is another example of how flawed the whole process has been?

[Mike Kane]

My hon. Friend knows more than anyone in this place about the principle of subsidiarity. He was fighting for devolved services for Manchester in the ’80s. We are beginning to catch up with his vision for devolved services across Greater Manchester that he argued for when he was ably leading Manchester through the depression of the ’80s and its economic regeneration in the ’90s. I agree that this fudged proposal could lead to a death by 1,000 cuts. It will undermine confidence, and we are passionate about avoiding that.

I hope the Minister will work with us to ensure that patient safety across Greater Manchester is the primary factor in the decision-making process. Very few Members of Parliament are fortunate enough to represent the hospital that they were born in. There is nothing I would not do for patients—not just in my constituency, but throughout Greater Manchester. We were told that Healthier Together was a clinician-led consultation; unfortunately, our clinicians are now telling us that they have serious concerns. Local MPs must listen and act. We have reached an unfortunate situation in which those clinicians have applied for judicial review, and we are at the stage of the letter before action in that process.

I urge all sides to negotiate to see whether an equitable solution can be found. If it cannot, the proposals are so flawed that any judicial review would probably be successful. That would not please me in any way whatever; I am the last person who wants to see a long and protracted legal process. I believe that, fundamentally, we should move towards a devolved set-up in Greater Manchester and that that process will be put back by this situation. However, I cannot stand by and be told that patient safety may be at risk without raising the issue in Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane]

Thank you for your excellent chairing of these proceedings, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the Minister for his reflective comments on the process and for bringing us up to date on the latest developments. I stress to him that the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and I are not behind the curve, as he can probably tell from the excellent contributions made by them.

I also thank the Minister for what he said about Paul Goggins, who worked with local elected members long before I did on the reconfiguration of Trafford services. In some ways, the assurances that he had about those reconfigurations and about working with NHS England are not being met through the process. It was also Paul Goggins, along with colleagues, who campaigned for the improvements in accident and emergency at Wythenshawe hospital. A £12 million scheme will begin there in November to create a new A and E village, a world-class facility. The Minister is right that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to integrate health and social care. It is also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to show that large conurbations such as Manchester, which is moving towards 3 million people, can take control of their powers to deliver their own health and social care.

I thank the Members who have turned up. What my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) did not say about himself is that he was at the forefront of the campaign to build the new hospital in Withington all those years ago, when we reconfigured the services. We can make more of that hospital; we are already discussing 24/7 GP access there. If we can realise that vision to ease the pressures on A and E departments across the conurbation, it will be a major achievement, thanks in no small part to his campaigning activity long before he came to this place.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) is in her place. The hospital in her constituency has undoubtedly had a torrid time over the past six or seven years, but today NHS England lifted it out of special measures, which is cause for everyone to celebrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has been a constant defender of his local hospital, North Manchester General, and has been a visionary leader, in the sense that we are now getting to the point of being able to devolve powers on skills, housing, transport, business, investment and, eventually, healthcare to Greater Manchester. He has been at the forefront of that.

I thank the shadow Minister for his erudite contribution and for linking the issue to Manchester airport. We cannot consider health on its own. The decision on “The Northern Way”, or the northern powerhouse, can be pivotal in getting world-class inward investment in healthcare in Manchester. It will link to the airport next to the hospital, which had 23 million passengers this year, increasing to 40 million over the next couple of years. We have plans in our area to expand the Metrolink at some stage to connect Wythenshawe directly. Currently it connects to Manchester airport, but we want to send the loop around to connect with the High Speed 2 station and back to Wythenshawe hospital.

We in the north-west have had problems in the past, as hon. Members will know. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), who has been considering life sciences across the region, including AstraZeneca and regenerating Alderley Park, and linking the issue to our vision of a life sciences institute medi-park on the Roundthorn industrial estate next to our hospital. That could be further linked to the Corridor project involving graphene and the life sciences, associated with Central Manchester hospital. We need more links with that in the future. That site also ties into Airport City, which is in development both south and north of the airport. We are expecting massive change in south Manchester and Trafford over the next 10 to 15 years. It will be generational change that will drive the northern powerhouse, with the addition of HS2 and possibly, given the discussions that the Department for Transport is having, of HS3.

We have a wider vision for the site, and we do not want it to be set back by process issues. Let us all—people watching today and everybody in this Chamber—commit to the vision of making south Manchester and Greater Manchester a world-class place for economic investment and healthcare.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Would all those who are not staying for the next debate please be courteous enough to leave quickly and quietly?

NHS Reform

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady). Despite a public consultation wanting five major trauma receiving sites in Greater Manchester and Wythenshawe hospital being the public choice, it did not receive specialist status at the end of the Healthier Together process yesterday. What assurances can the Secretary of State give the people of Trafford and south Manchester, particularly in relation to the 18 specialisms that are underpinned by Wythenshawe being a major trauma receiving site?

[Mr Hunt]

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), I will look into the decision made by Healthier Together. The assurance that I can give to the constituents of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), and indeed to all people in the Greater Manchester area, is that with some of the most exciting changes, such as the integration of health and social care and the transformation of out-of-hospital care—it has just been announced that there will be seven-day GP services across Greater Manchester—they are blazing a trail. It will be exciting for his constituents; none the less, I understand their concerns about their local hospital and I am happy to look into that.

Contaminated Blood

Mike Kane Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I stand in this House in the footsteps of giants. My predecessor Paul Goggins was a tireless campaigner on this issue, and his predecessor, Lord Morris of Manchester and former Member for Wythenshawe, was also a tireless campaigner on it, so I am humbled to stand before the House as their successor.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for securing the debate and congratulate him on his work. There are days in this Chamber, particularly as we approach a general election with the cut and thrust of politics, when I do not know what we do here. Today is not one of those days. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) summed it up correctly: this debate shows the House of Commons at its best.

I want to relate the tale of a few constituents of mine: Fred and Eleanor Bates and Peter Mossman. I have been working with them over the few months that I have been a Member of Parliament and we have had the full support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), for which we are grateful. Eleanor is now 60 years old. She has been married to Fred for 38 years. Fred is a haemophiliac who used to have a 5% clotting factor but now has a 0.0001% clotting factor. It is believed that this reduction is a result of the contamination. Before 1982-83, he received plasma and cryoprecipitate on demand when he had a bleed. After that, he was switched to factor VIII. In 1991, he was visited by another constituent of mine, Peter Mossman of the north-west group of the Haemophilia Society, who brought Fred a leaflet about hepatitis C. Fred visited the hospital to check this out and discovered that he did indeed have the condition. In fact, the hospital had known about his condition for almost a decade. Frightened and worried, Fred and Eleanor researched the main symptoms of hepatitis C: fatigue, sclerosis of the liver, liver cancer and ultimately death. They believe that the disease is now having an impact on Fred’s short-term memory function.

Fred worked as a weigher at C. H. Johnson on Bradnor road on the Sharston industrial estate in my constituency. In 1980, he was given a choice by his consultant: he could carry on working and face possible death within a year or retire and live longer. Fred was 31 years of age when he faced that choice. The choice was made more complicated by the fact that he and Eleanor were raising two small children. His income went from a respectable £145 a week to £45 in state benefit.

With hardly any clotting agent left, Fred now receives prophylactic treatment every other day, in the form of 1,500 units of factor VIII. It is not just the victims of this injustice that suffer; it is often their carers as well. Eleanor was unable to return to work after the kids fled the nest, because hepatitis C is an unpredictable disease. Fred can be fine at 8 am but have a bleed half an hour later and have to go back to bed. Eleanor has to dress his wounds, as well as doing the cooking and cleaning. She has felt unemployable for a numbers of years because of her home care duties.

Fred and Eleanor now have to deal with the Caxton Foundation. May I make this promise to the House? If I am ever fortunate enough to stand at either of those Dispatch Boxes, I will never hide behind the fact that we have set up a third-party organisation to pass the buck to. We should accept responsibility here in this House; this is where the buck should stop. Eleanor has described the Caxton Foundation to me as a sheer and utter waste of time; she feels as though she is begging when claiming. The system does not allow a retrospective claim. She put in for a respite holiday, but it did not come through, so she missed her holiday slot. Other issues have been identified. There are no separate forms for carers to apply for their own grants, and winter fuel payments are counted as income. The stress has ruined the lives of many carers of those who suffer from this condition.

I want to talk about some of the organisers. I mentioned Peter Mossman earlier. He is 71 years old, and he has a 5% clotting factor. He was a woodcutter, a machinist and a professional driver with Goodwin’s coaches in Manchester. Like Fred, he too faced the choice between giving up work and carrying on. He gave up work when he was 42. He has searched high and low for answers on the disease. His kids have only ever known him fighting. Working with Alf Morris, he set up the Manor House support group, and I pay tribute to him and Alf for that. He lost his sister, Margaret, recently. She was an affected carrier, and she died at the age of 63, her liver ravaged.

These campaigners believe that there should be no differentiation between stages 1 and 2 when it comes to payments. As has been mentioned, we are one of the few countries not to have adequately compensated the victims. There should be a decent one-off payment with subsequent annual payments.

[Richard Fuller]

A constituent of mine has also raised this point. Does the hon. Gentleman not find it odd that, as a result of this failure by the Government, the victims have to apply for a discretionary payment and that there is no substantial up-front payment? There seems to be a complete imbalance between right and wrong.

[Mike Kane]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Many of the victims have lost the will to fight. There should be greater anger there, but they cannot deal with that anger and fight at the same time. Fred, Eleanor and Peter tell me that they will fight until they die. They have seen their stock of affected friends die horribly, and they feel that that is all they have to look forward to. They believe that it is time to admit that we made a mistake, and to allow those people to get on with their lives. Hope is real. There is no such thing as false hope. There might be false science, and there might have been false starts, but hope is real for those people. We in this Chamber today should help them to reignite that hope.

NHS (Five Year Forward View)

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Given that delayed discharges have reached a record high, what guarantee can the Secretary of State give that this money will not be paid for by further cuts to local government social care budgets?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait to see what the Chancellor says on Wednesday about the Department for Communities and Local Government settlement. This Government have recognised that the fate of the social care system and the fate of the NHS are closely entwined, and that we cannot support the NHS at the expense of the social care system because the two go together. That is why we see close working with the Better Care fund.