NHS Long-Term Plan: Implementation

Debate between Norman Lamb and Matt Hancock

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I wholeheartedly agree with the entirety of what my hon. Friend said. It is true that for the majority of its 71-year history—71 this week—the NHS has been run by Conservative Secretaries of State, and the largest cash injections have come from this party. It is a truly national institution that we should all support, and we have to support not only the doctors, who lead many parts of the NHS, and the nurses, but all the health service staff, because it is a true team effort.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The Secretary of State may remember that I brought a group of mental health reformers to see him, to make the case for culture change in mental health services to address clear human rights abuses such as locking people up when they do not need to be locked up, often for a long period, shunting people around the country in ways that would never happen with physical health and the endemic use of force in mental health services. We argued that ending inappropriate institutional care would free up money for better prevention and early intervention. He said he loved that approach. Is he doing anything to actually implement it?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. First, in terms of the review led by Simon Wessely of the legal powers set by the Mental Health Act 1983, there will be a Government response and then legislation in due course. We want to get that legislation right and bring it forward on an open basis, to ensure that we get a consensus behind it before introducing it formally to the House. On the administrative side, a programme of work is under way to deliver exactly what the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. In my statement, I specifically referenced the expansion in community mental health services that must happen, which will be good value for money and, of course, much better for many patients.

NHS Long-term Plan

Debate between Norman Lamb and Matt Hancock

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

When I referenced Churchill, I did not realise that it would be in front of his family. My right hon. Friend is quite right about the need for a just culture—a need for understanding the lessons that are learned when things go wrong—in what is a high-risk business of providing medicine and medical care. Those lessons should be properly learned and there should be transparency and openness and a culture of constantly improving the way that things are done, whether that is medically, logistically or organisationally in hospitals. That is a critical part of the review that Baroness Dido Harding will take forward. It is something that she cares deeply about, making sure that we get the culture right within the workforce not only to tackle the high levels of bullying and harassment, which are completely unacceptable in the national health service, but to make sure that there is a spirit and a culture of continuous improvement and of learning from errors that everyone makes. All of us make errors, and we should learn from them and that culture should be inculcated right across the NHS.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The Secretary of State was absolutely right to commit in his statement to ending the inappropriate hospitalisation of people with learning disability and autism, but the long-term plan itself postpones for five years the ambition of reducing by 50% the number of people who are in institutions. Mencap has described that as disgraceful. It amounts to abandoning the current plan to reduce the number by 50% by this March and it effectively tells the system to take its foot off the brake and will result in people continuing to be treated as second-class citizens, and continuing to have their human rights abused. I urge him to rethink this outrageous long postponement of an absolute imperative to get people out of institutions and to give them a better life.

[Matt Hancock]

I have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. The target for this March, which I inherited, was for a reduction of a third to a half. We are at a reduction of over 20%. The challenge has been that, while the number of people who are being moved into community settings has proceeded as per the plan, more people have been put into secure settings. This is an area that I care deeply about getting right, and I very much take on board the response of Mencap and the right hon. Gentleman to the proposals.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Norman Lamb and Matt Hancock

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I want to make a little bit of progress.

For many reasons, the current system is broken. Too many people do not have the protections they need because of a bureaucratic backlog. There are currently more than 125,000 people waiting to be processed, and nearly 50,000 people have been waiting for over a year.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

rose—

[Matt Hancock]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who did a huge amount of work on this as a Minister in the Department.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. I share his view on the extent to which the current system is broken. He will be aware that the Bill came under substantial criticism in the House of Lords, and that substantial improvements were made to it there. There is a recognition, however, that there is still a long way to go. Will he commit to working with the Opposition parties and to meeting us and interested parties beyond Parliament to ensure that by the end of this process we have an agreed Bill that will actually improve people’s safety?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely I will. I know that the right hon. Gentleman met the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), yesterday to discuss this question. Of course this ought to be a collaborative process. Improvements were made to the Bill in the other place—I shall talk about those in a moment—but we recognise that further improvements could still be made. Ultimately, there is a careful balance to be struck between the need to protect people who do not have the full mental capacity to take care of themselves and the need to ensure that we do not deprive people of their liberty unnecessarily. That is a careful balance, and we should take this forward on the basis of open discussion and deliberation, rather than of a party political ding-dong.

Gosport Independent Panel

Debate between Norman Lamb and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work. People from across the country, and certainly from across the region, were affected by this. The need for better medical records is underlined in the report. In the case of several hundred people, we do not know whether their lives were shortened or not. Of course technology has a huge part to play in this. From about 15 years ago onwards it is highly unlikely that medical records would have been lost or misplaced in this way, and therefore new technology has a role to play, but it needs to be improved so that access to those records can be made available to the right people at the right time.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I welcome the ambition in the statement for the culture change that is clearly still needed in the NHS. This is the most extraordinary scandal. The Secretary of State is right to highlight the extent to which loved ones were patronised and ignored and staff were often crushed, and how that facilitated the ongoing scandal at Gosport War Memorial Hospital. Clearly, the pursuit of justice is the most pressing priority for the relatives, given how long delayed that is, but may I specifically highlight the Secretary of State’s reference to working with the Business Secretary to establish whether reforms to the legislation are necessary? Does he agree that reformed legislation that allows staff to feel able to speak out—not just in the NHS, but in any occupation—can facilitate the very culture change that he needs so much?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s work, especially as a Minister in the Department, to make sure that people got to the bottom of this and that the truth was published and brought out in the way that it has been. He is right about the question of justice, but it is currently—rightly—a matter for the police, so I will go no further than that.

I strongly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the legislative framework that we set here in Parliament leads to and underpins the culture that is critical. That is, of course, a matter for the whistleblowing legislation. There are also questions of legal liability. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, often what patients who have been wronged—or the families of patients who have been wronged—want most of all is an apology, an explanation and a commitment that others will not be affected because the lessons will be learnt. Too often what has been offered instead is the phone number of a no-win, no-fee lawyer, and that is not the way to solve this problem.

Prevention of Ill Health: Government Vision

Debate between Norman Lamb and Matt Hancock

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. I strongly support the daily mile and I try to do it myself. The key is that this is about activity. It is not necessarily about competitive sport, but about healthy activity that can help to prevent all manner of ills.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on learning disability and autism. He will have seen the report in The Times today, which highlights the outrageous profiteering of a number of people in providing the wrong model of care—long-term institutional care—which frequently breaches people’s human rights. Will he commit to bringing an end to this profiteering and will he also look at including the endemic use of force—restraint—in these facilities along with seclusion in the Care Quality Commission’s investigation?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I will. I pay tribute to the work that the right hon. Gentleman did in the Department and the fact that he continues to champion this issue.