Coronavirus Update
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
On the contrary, NHS labs have done an incredibly important job. We have expanded the NHS labs enormously and we have brought in the drive-through centres. This is a massive team effort, and trust among the team is an incredibly important part of getting this right. The hon. Member is absolutely right about concatenating the time taken from the suspicion of someone having covid through not only to getting the test and the result—those times are all coming down—but to the action being taken based on the result, whether that is isolating the contacts of the individual or taking wider action if it is part of a cluster or there are indications that there might have been an outbreak. I entirely agree with the premise of that part of her question. That is a huge and important piece of the work of NHS Test and Trace at the moment. As for the second part of her question, all I would say is that we are doing everything we can to bring the system together, with the support of all those involved.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Most covid deaths in hospitals are now understood to be due to sepsis as a complication. In the light of the former CMO’s concerns about increased antibiotic use during the pandemic, can my right hon. Friend reassure me, first, that the data on covid-90 are granular enough to identify the mode of death of patients in hospitals and, secondly, that the Government will support the NHS if it is challenged when making prescribing decisions in these unimaginably difficult times?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend asks an important medical question, and we know that he has a deep personal interest in sepsis. All I can say is that we are constantly learning all the time. I will not try to answer the clinical part of his question—I will leave that to more qualified clinical and medical colleagues—but it is an incredibly important question, and my view is that as much data as possible should be available for research. I have put in place the regulations—and, indeed, a direction —necessary to allow for the research to be done in a much more effective way than was available in the past.
Coronavirus
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
This is an important consideration. I discuss it regularly with the Education Secretary and the Minister for School Standards. We are keeping the matter under review. Obviously, in the best possible world, we would want all exams to go ahead as always, but we also must keep people safe.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I pay tribute to the amazing work of NHS staff, who are working to support patients who have contracted covid-19, and to prevent others from catching it. What can be done to minimise the risk to those amazing NHS workers?
Matt Hancock
This is a really important part of our work. We are rolling out personal protective equipment to all primary care settings and GPs by the end of this week—we are on track to do that—and making sure that everybody in community settings in the NHS gets support. This will be a tough time for people who work in the NHS. The demands on them will be significant. Nurses, doctors and all the staff in the NHS do an extraordinary job all the time, but they will be called to be the frontline of our response in a way that many have not seen before. I thank them in advance—I think the whole House would want to do so—for the service that they will give.
Paterson Inquiry
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Ms Dorries
This day is about the victims of Paterson and the women he treated, and I do not want to detract from that by going down another road and talking about another inquiry. My hon. Friend is right: often women are those most affected by these issues, which is why I spoke about the importance of consent. We as a Department must consider how such consent is gained, and I think the Cumberlege report, which we are expecting to come to Parliament soon, will help with that.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
No amount of money can repair the suffering of Paterson’s patients and their families, but an inability to pay for treatment or support that might mitigate that suffering can make an already horrific situation even more difficult. Will the Minister look at the adequacy of medical indemnity cover for healthcare professionals, whether they work in the NHS or in the private sector?
Ms Dorries
The Government are currently undertaking a review of the clinical negligence indemnity cover market, to determine whether wider regulation is an appropriate means of addressing concerns in the market. As part of that they are consulting on the viability of introducing professional or financial regulation, or a combination of both.
Health and Social Care
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I can tell the hon. Lady that since the election I have been working on precisely that. I am very happy to meet her to see whether we can make a breakthrough.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Increasing microbial resistance could have a devastating effect on the survival of people with sepsis. How will the medicines and medical devices Bill help to support new treatments to reduce antimicrobial resistance and support alternative ways of tackling infection?
Matt Hancock
The medicines and medical devices Bill is designed to make it easier for hospitals to take part in trials of cutting edge medicines, including personalised medicines, and allow us to be a part of an internationally competitive licensing and regulatory regime. This is all to improve patient safety right across the board. It is not condition-specific; it is right across the board.
Fourth is patient safety reform. Here, I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), for his work on patient safety. The Health Service Safety Investigations Bill was introduced in the House of Lords in the previous Parliament to improve patient safety and create a learning culture across the NHS. We will bring forward those proposals.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
I suppose I should probably have declared an interest in this issue, because I am severely asthmatic and I do not get free prescriptions, but then again I do not think I should. There is a prescription exemption system designed specifically to assist people who are most likely to need support in paying for prescriptions: people on low incomes or in full-time education; the over-60s; people living with many long-term conditions; and people with an increased risk of illness, such as pregnant women. That is why 89% of prescriptions are dispensed without charge.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
Cancer survival rates are, thankfully, at a record high. Last year, the NHS carried out 53 million diagnostic tests, which is 53% higher than the number carried out in 2010, but we need to do more. Our aim is to diagnose three quarters of all cancers early, so that 55,000 more people each year survive cancer for another five years. To achieve that, we are radically overhauling screening programmes to improve access and uptake, investing £200 million in diagnostic equipment and accelerating the adoption of the most innovative cancer treatments.
The National Health Service
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Like Members on both sides of the House, my family and I rely on our national health service, and it has always been there when we needed it most. It was there when my two children were born in local hospitals, caring for them when they were at their most vulnerable and looking after my wife through complications and immediately after their births. Then, at the start of 2017, the NHS was there for me when I unexpectedly became ill very quickly and developed severe septic shock.
Sepsis is a nasty condition. It is fast, devastating and indiscriminate. It affects people irrespective of wealth, gender, or age. In my case, I came back to Parliament after the Christmas recess with a cold, an experience with which most Members will be familiar, and the cold developed into a sore throat. Within days, I was at Russells Hall Hospital A&E and then in intensive care. Within a few hours, I was in an induced coma, where I would remain for the next 11 days.
I received incredible treatment and care from our national health service, from doctors, from nurses, from ancillary staff, from every single member of team, and I will always owe them everything. I was also incredibly lucky. At one point when I was unconscious, the doctors had called in my parents to explain that I probably had about a 10% chance of waking up. Even with the incredible skills and dedication of the hospital staff, there was also a huge amount of luck involved in my pulling through.
Of course, not everyone is as lucky. Of the 250,000 cases of sepsis in the United Kingdom each year, at least 52,000 people lose their lives—a little more than are killed by breast cancer, bowel cancer and prostate cancer combined. It amounts to about 80 deaths in each of our constituencies. Indeed, 13 people somewhere in the United Kingdom have probably lost their lives to sepsis since the start of this debate. Each year tens of thousands more people suffer permanent and life-changing after effects that may leave them with permanent disabilities or health conditions.
A report presented to the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine last year found that sepsis mortality rates in Britain had not fallen as quickly as those in some other countries between 1985 and 2015, and there are many possible contributory factors. Some of it may be down to genuine differences in how sepsis is diagnosed and how causes of death recorded in the United Kingdom. On top of the roll-out of the second generation of the national early warning score system, I urge the Minister to consider a national registry to measure the extent of sepsis so that we can properly rate how effective we are in tackling the causes. Some of the differences may also be down to some clinicians being slow to follow the new systems and procedures. We have seen that in my local hospital, where I was treated so well, because CQC reports have made it clear that cultural resistance to change has been a problem, so we need better commissioning levers to incentivise best practice.
I am delighted to see measures in this Queen’s Speech that will we hope address one of the big causes of avoidable deaths: human error. The Health Service Safety Investigations Bill will help to discover the truth rather than to apportion blame. It will provide for the world’s first independent body that will investigate patient safety concerns to ensure that we do not have repeated mistakes that can cause further unnecessary deaths.
Batten Disease
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Seema Kennedy
We are determined to improve treatments for people living with rare diseases. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, they have to be treated differently because fewer people are affected by them. We have the rare diseases strategy, and we are trying to use genomics better to diagnose and treat diseases. We are trying to be the first health service to put genomics into day-to-day health delivery, which will enable us to diagnose and treat diseases such as Batten more quickly. We have care co-ordinators for patients with rare diseases and we are trying to ensure that those who live to adulthood are cared for better, but what the hon. Gentleman said about having an international approach is valid.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The Minister rightly speaks about NICE’s important role in eliminating postcode lotteries. Does she agree that NICE’s independence is vital to ensuring availability to patients once an agreement is reached with BioMarin, wherever those patients are from, whether Penwortham in her constituency or Pensnett in mine?
Social Media and Health
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I will certainly consider it and I look forward to talking to the hon. Gentleman about the idea more next week. Dialogue in this area is critical, but we should not only have dialogue; we also need concrete legislative action, but I am grateful for what he has said about the work that has been done. I am glad that he is also working in this area, and I look forward to discussing it with him more.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Three million of the four million videos taken down by YouTube in the last six months were identified and removed by artificial intelligence. What greater role does the Secretary of State see for technological development in helping to reduce online harm and keep people safe online?
Matt Hancock
Artificial intelligence clearly has a role in identifying material that needs to be removed in the same way that it is now being used to remove terrorist content. We are talking to companies that may be able to do this, but we also need to identify what material should be taken down and what should be left up. Defining that boundary is critical to training artificial intelligence to do its job, hence the importance of the decision to ask the Samaritans to do the work of identifying the boundary so that we can train artificial intelligence to identify what needs to be taken down.
Services for People with Autism
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I am proud to be a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on autism and to have served as a governor at a special school in Dudley that had a particular focus on autism and Asperger’s. Ten years have passed since my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) steered the Autism Act 2009 through this House as a private member’s Bill, so it is a good time to reflect on not only all that has been achieved, but all that still needs to be done truly to deliver on the promises of that legislation to improve support and services for people with autism and their families.
In the time available to me, however, I will focus on issues that relate to children with autism. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) said, nearly five years after the Children and Families Act 2014 became law, progress on implementing the new SEND system is still patchy at best. According to the National Autism Society, 42% of families are being refused education health and care assessments when they are first requested and more than 70% are waiting longer than six months for support at school.
As of January 2018, there were 825 pupils in Dudley’s special schools. That compares with, according to the Department for Education, 119,910 pupils with autistic spectrum disorder in state-funded schools in England. Of those, more than 70% were being educated in mainstream schools, and that has huge implications for teachers and teacher training. That is why it is so important that, since 2016, the new teacher training framework has made supporting children with special educational needs, but particularly autistic children, a core part of the initial teacher training. That training and support needs to be stepped up, so that everybody can be confident that every teacher in every school up and down the country is competent and confident working with children with autism. If teachers do not currently have a child with autism in their class, they will at some point, probably very soon in their career.
The issues of working with, supporting and educating autistic children are very real. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) suggested, the behaviour of children with autism can be perceived incorrectly. Children on the autistic spectrum can often find themselves being chastised for not behaving in exactly the same way as other pupils. By not behaving in the way that teachers would expect, they can be punished in a way that may be appropriate for the class as a whole, but completely inappropriate given the special educational needs and medical condition of such children.
Government figures show that autistic pupils are four times more likely to be excluded from school compared with pupils who have no special educational needs. Clearly, there is an ongoing debate about the impact of exclusions, but there can be no doubt that the fact that autistic pupils are far more likely to be excluded has a severe impact on the life chances of children whose life chances are already impacted by their medical condition. That effect is most obvious in opportunities for future work and for training.
In many cases, the Government are making good progress on the target of getting a million more disabled people into work. However, the employment gap for people with autism is far wider. Just 16% of autistic adults are in full-time work, so it is essential that Jobcentre Plus staff and work coaches properly understand autism and that employers have the full range of support and advice they need to employ autistic people confidently.
I will conclude as I have done in similar debates by reflecting on the words of Natalie, who was one of the parent-governors at the school where I was a governor. Natalie said of her son Will, who attended that school:
“Autism is only a small fraction of our son. It is not everything he is. Will is so much more than the label society has given him. We want him to be accepted, and for him to be accepted equally as a citizen of this country as his peers are.”
That is what all parents want for their children. In this 10th anniversary year of the Autism Act, we have a responsibility to do all that we can to make that wish a reality.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Steve Brine
The hon. Gentleman will know that the draft withdrawal agreement hopefully sets us on a relationship with the EMA, but the UK’s strategy for rare diseases, which was published in 2013, sets out our commitment to improve the diagnosis and treatment of patients with rare diseases and to end the diagnostic odyssey that has been referred to throughout the past few years.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Autism and learning disabilities are clinical priorities in the NHS long-term plan. We are committed to improving the quality of care provided to people with a learning disability or autism and to addressing the persistent health inequalities they face.
Caroline Dinenage
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his active involvement in the all-party parliamentary groups on learning disability and on autism. Over the next three years, we will be testing and implementing the most effective ways to reduce waiting times for specialist services. We are developing guidance to support commissioners to develop the necessary services to support all autistic people, and we have launched a review of our autism strategy.