Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

All clinical roles need to have the right regulation around them, and we need to ensure that patient safety is to the fore. The hon. Lady gives a very good illustration of how the Labour party talks about reform, but not when it comes to the reform of new roles, having new roles in the NHS and having a ladder of opportunity for people to come into the NHS. Physician associates are people with masters’ degrees: these people are highly skilled. Of course, we need to get the regulation right. However, the Labour party talks about reform, but when it comes to standing up to the trade unions, it is not willing to do so, which is why, when there is an innovation such as physician associates, it wants to block it.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to help prevent suicide.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)]

18. What steps he is taking to help prevent suicide.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Last month, we published a cross-Government five-year suicide prevention strategy. It sets out our pledge to reduce England’s suicide rates within two and a half years, with over 100 measures aimed at saving lives and providing early intervention for those at highest risk of suicide, including new mums and middle-aged men.

[Paul Howell]

Like many others, I dropped into the campaign event for “One Million Lives”, developed by Jacobs and supported by R;pple, and I was impressed by its efforts to interfere with the online risk of suicide-centric websites. The Minister may be aware that my wife is a long-term volunteer with Darlington and district Samaritans, which has raised with me the “Saving Lives Can’t Wait” campaign. It asks the Government to review local funding for suicide-safer communities, which is due to end. Could I ask the Minister to support the “One Million Lives” campaign, and to push for the renewal of local funding to support suicide-safer communities?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for his hard work in this area and for his mental health campaigning overall, and also his wife and all who selflessly give their time to volunteer with the invaluable mental health charities. We fully recognise that, and that is why when we launched the suicide prevention strategy we also launched our £10 million suicide prevention grant fund.

On my hon. Friend’s point about wider funding beyond 2024-25, that is subject to a future spending review, but our commitment and record in delivering record investment of £15.9 billion in mental health services just in this financial year, which is 28% more funding than in 2018, should give him confidence that this Conservative Government deliver on mental health services.

Eye Health and Macular Disease

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do, and I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. That was one of my points; the Minister has heard it said there, and I will not repeat it. The importance of having the staff in place, to which the hon. Lady referred, is one of the asks in this debate. How can we address that? If we have the staff in place, we can address the issue of eyesight loss earlier.

We are all aware of the demand for NHS eye-care services over recent years. Ophthalmology is now the busiest outpatient specialty in the NHS, with some 7.9 million attendances in 2019-20. That gives one an idea of the magnitude of the issue. That is why this debate is important, and why today we need to look to take things forward. Waiting times have been made worse by the covid-19 pandemic—we understand that. The pandemic has meant that some patients faced a waiting time of up to six months to access care. We know that the wait can be a matter of weeks, but if patients have to wait six months for a diagnosis and medical response, their eyesight can deteriorate significantly in that time. Up to 22 people a month may suffer severe or permanent sight loss as a result of delays to follow-up care. Can the Minister tell us what we can do to address those issues, and what has been done to catch up on that in the pandemic?

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we have seen massive innovation in the NHS during the covid pandemic? It has been able to deliver huge treatment gains. Does he agree that it is also important that the science of things like macular deterioration is picked up and taken forward? A company called PolyPhotonix, in my constituency, has developed an amazing solution that needs to be driven through to end state. I encourage the Minister to visit the company, because we are very close to making a major difference to treatment both in and out of hospital.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman has, I think, passed on that information to the Minister. It is important that we see where innovation has moved forward. PolyPhotonix, the firm to which the hon. Gentleman referred, can bring beneficial and positive changes to those with eye issues. I thank him for that intervention, and I look forward to the Minister being able to visit the company.

Care for patients with diabetic macular oedema was deprioritised during the pandemic, and delays have led to a doubling in the number of patient with DMO losing between one and three lines of vision. It is very important that that issue is addressed. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) referred to staff shortages, and again I look to the Minister to see how we can address that issue.

We know that, as with other areas of healthcare, there are inequalities in eye care. Some parts of the population are not accessing regular sight tests, even if they might be eligible for them for free on the NHS. Can the Minister tell us what can be done to ensure that people are accessing that care? I know that the pandemic has changed many lives, but how do we address that? It is about solutions, not about negativity, but we have to say these things in the introduction to the speech so that we can look to the changes that we wish to see.

Automated External Defibrillators: Public Access

Paul Howell Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It has been an absolute pleasure to support the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his endeavours. I thank him for his kind comments, and thank all other colleagues who are supporting the debate.

The importance of access to AEDs in a life-threatening medical emergency cannot be disputed. In addition to the high-profile and extremely upsetting events at Euro 2020 when Christian Erikson suffered his cardiac arrest, there was a similar event in Newcastle’s football ground on TV the other week, when an 80-year-old gentleman collapsed. Fortunately, there was an AED to help that situation too.

Is the Minister aware that in the UK, nearly 300 school children die of sudden cardiac arrest every year? The emotional statements of colleagues on the specifics mentioned only further endorse the need for something to happen on these proposals. An obvious start for this is our public buildings, such as schools, libraries, and local government buildings, to have access to AEDs.

Unfortunately, without on-site and urgent access to defibrillation, the vast majority of cardiac arrests will be fatal. At present, there are just not enough AEDs accessible to people. As has already been said, for each minute that passes following a cardiac arrest without CPR, the survival rate drops by 20%.

Given that the average response time for emergency services to a cardiac arrest is just under seven minutes, we cannot rely purely on our emergency services—however good they are—to fill the gap. If we want to save as many lives as possible, we need as many defibrillators in the community as possible. That is particularly true in rural areas, like most of my Sedgefield constituency, where call-out times are naturally longer, simply because of the distances the emergency services will have to travel. Prompt, community access to defibrillators can dramatically help improve the chances of survival. Indeed, it would help to level up between urban and rural communities.

The AED Bill would make an important legislative change, helping to build a better, safer environment for people in the community and increasing the cardiac arrest survival rate. As a nation, we have the opportunity to be world leaders in ensuring that we all have access to defibrillation. We should we pass this legislation into law and be the first country to mandate that new public buildings provide access to a defibrillator.

I am aware that the Department for Education offers reduced-cost defibrillators through NHS Supply Chain’s Defibs4Schools programme, which in itself shows that it values the provision. Could the Minister encourage it to go further, particularly with new school builds, and also push other Departments to follow suit? It is clear that it would be challenging to ensure that all current public buildings have AEDs, but it is something the Minister should look at trying to mandate. I strongly encourage her to push her Department—and indeed other ministerial colleagues—to look for cross-departmental engagement to introduce that compulsion for new public buildings, whether they are for local government, health, education, or other purposes.

As has been mentioned, mandated AEDs on public buildings will work best if they are comprehensively mapped so members of the public could be directed to their nearest location. On that, I do like the earlier proposal for an app-driven solution. The proposed Bill would take an important step towards ensuring that AEDs can be readily located wherever they are needed. In addition to ensuring that AEDs are mapped, we need to ensure that we have a system in which people are clear about whose responsibility it is to maintain them, particularly if they are in the public domain.

We all know—we have heard many representations today—that excellent work has done up and down the country by volunteers who understand the importance of AED access to their communities. As already mentioned, in Newton Aycliffe, for example, David Sutton-Lloyd has worked tirelessly to ensure that 32 AEDs are now available to residents. However, I believe that we, as the legislature and elected representatives, have a duty to ensure that all new buildings are fitted with AEDs, and that the work of volunteers is to complement that, rather than provide the initial provision.

Again, this was mentioned earlier, but I have been educated on the use of defibrillators. Mr Sutton-Lloyd is incredibly active in running training courses. I am not sure “training” is the right word. It is not training, it is education. Unless we know about these pieces of kit, we could get concerned that the electricity could cause problems. As has been mentioned, it cannot do that; the machines are good. The machine makes the decision and it is not possible to use a defibrillator on somebody if it is not the right thing to do. I encourage the Minister to promote campaigns to educate the public around this, so that when defibrillators are necessary people are confident and not worried about using them.

To summarise, the provision of AEDs, in and around our communities, is a real aid to saving lives at minimal cost. The opportunity to make them compulsory in public buildings, at least initially in new-build public buildings, is surely a no-brainer. How could the Minister consider otherwise?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. Apologies to the Scottish National party spokesman for being so keen to get him in earlier, but his moment has now come.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate, and also for his passion and dedication in championing this cause. He will know of my interest in the subject before I became a Minister. If anyone can get these changes through, it will be him. I thank him for that. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), who is the No. 2 in these proceedings.

This is such an important issue. Twelve young people a week in this country die from sudden cardiac arrest. As we have heard, there are 30,000 cardiac arrests a year. This is not an insignificant issue. Behind every single one of those people is a family and a community. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) when he spoke of the tragic news of Sam Benson, the impact will last forever.

I reassure hon. Members that the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease and access to defibrillators is a priority for the Government. There has been some significant progress in the last two years. We know that about 90% of sudden cardiac arrests are fatal, but if a defibrillator is used in the first three to five minutes, survival can be around 50% to 70%. Again, it makes a significant difference if someone has a sudden cardiac arrest out of hospital.

The Government are supporting a number of measures and working with key stakeholders. I want to highlight some of the work being done to ensure the best possible access to defibrillators and that people feel confident to use them. Hon. Members may be aware that “The NHS Long Term Plan”, published in January 2019, includes a section on cardiovascular disease and defibrillators. The NHS has committed to developing a national network of first responders and access to automated external defibrillators, which will save roughly 4,000 lives a year by 2028. It is high on our agenda, but it is important that we deliver on it now. I think that is the key message from the hon. Member for Strangford, because the chance of survival from a cardiac arrest occurring out of hospital doubles if someone received CPR or defibrillation, so it makes a difference.

I will highlight some of the work that has been done, notably with the British Heart Foundation, which a number of Members have mentioned today. We have worked with the British Heart Foundation to put in place The Circuit, a national network providing evidence of where defibs are in all our communities. If someone calls 999 or contacts the emergency services, ambulance services can identify for them where their nearest defibrillator is.

The Circuit is now live and covers 10 ambulance services, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is working with the two remaining ambulance services, London and South East Coast ambulance services, to get them on to the system. We expect that to happen in the first half of next year. That means all our ambulance services will be able to direct people to the nearest defibrillator ahead of the ambulance attending to the person in need. Currently, 33,237 defibrillators are registered with the eight live ambulance services in England, so we now have a network that we can direct people to.

Although defibrillators do not yet need to be legally registered with the British Heart Foundation, we are working with manufacturers, stakeholders and partners to promote the registration of all defibrillators. My ask of colleagues here this afternoon and anyone who is watching is please to register a defibrillator with the British Heart Foundation. Please do check it is on the register, because it is crucial that the ambulance service can give directions to the nearest defibrillator if someone has a cardiac arrest. We can also ensure that existing defibrillators are managed and looked after and that the register is a live register. We all know that things happen in our communities—defibrillators can be vandalised, or a building can be taken out of use and the defibrillator goes with it. It is important that this is a live piece of work.

The NHS is also working with St John Ambulance. Again, a number of Members have mentioned its excellent work to increase the importance of CPR. It is true that although people do not need training in order to use a defibrillator—my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield put it well—it is about educating them so that they are confident in using them. I want to reinforce the message that no harm can be done with a defibrillator; simply stick the stickers to someone’s chest, turn the machine on, and it will tell us exactly what to do. In some cases, it will not be appropriate, in which case it will say exactly what will happen. It is a valuable piece of kit; almost idiot-proof, in that you cannot get it wrong. We want to give the public the absolute confidence that if they come across a defibrillator, they should feel free to use it, but that overall CPR training is also vital.

[Paul Howell]

Just to clarify the point about a defibrillator telling someone if it will not work, it actually will not work as a machine if it is used in the wrong way.

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That gives people added reassurance that they can do no harm, because the machine is totally in control.

We are also using technology, and there are some exciting apps—the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) talked about having apps. Some mobile technology works with the NHS to help people play a role in becoming first responders. If people know how to do CPR—the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) seems to be trained up in that—I encourage them to use the GoodSAM app, which allows members of the public who can do CPR and feel confident about using a defibrillator to receive alerts. If someone collapses in the local area, they will get an alert on their phone, which will tell them where the nearest defibrillator and the person who needs help are. It integrates with ambulance dispatch systems and has a crowd-sourced map of defibrillators, including those in vehicles. The platform now has more than 19,000 volunteers and partnerships with 80 organisations, including the NHS and ambulance trusts.

We are also reassured that the British Heart Foundation is developing an app. It will link to The Circuit and show people where their nearest defibrillator is. Technology is being used to help communities to help themselves.

Health Incentives Scheme

Paul Howell Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup]

I am not going to give a one-word answer on this occasion, but obviously the location will be chosen carefully and will be announced in due course.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The importance of engagement with the pilot survey has already been mentioned. Sedgefield, like most of our constituencies, has various demographics, but I am thinking of certain neighbourhoods in particular. The all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods, which I chair, found that some areas do not have the capacity even to become engaged in programmes such as this. May I encourage the Minister to include people in “left behind” neighbourhoods in the survey? We have organisations such as Junction 7 in Newton Aycliffe, and if schools are likely to be involved, I have some fantastic ambassadors at Ferryhill.

[Maggie Throup]

Obviously we will be looking at ways in which we can engage people, and ensure that they are fully aware of the pilot and have ready access to it.

Social Care Reform

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

We are working on our proposals for social care reform, and we are working across the sector. As I have said, I am already talking to and meeting those across the sector—care providers, representatives and, in fact, users of the care and carers themselves. This is complex. There are reasons why there have been discussions about this for many years without proposals for reform being brought forward. We are hugely ambitious, and we want to get it right. That is why I make no apologies that we are taking some time, but as we have said, we will be bringing forward our proposals for reform later this year.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Across Sedgefield—from Hurworth to Thornley and Piercebridge to Bishopton—many people are concerned about the cost of social care and how they are going to cope with it. With property prices in my constituency at about 30% of London ones, any use of that property value to pay for care just becomes catastrophic. The average weekly cost of care is substantially more than average earnings, so I understand the concerns they all have. Can I press the Minister again on ensuring that we do not leave them in a situation where they have to sell their house to fund such care?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Care is expensive, and about one in seven people end up spending more than £100,000 on their care. Many people do not realise that care may cost them that sort of amount. It can take them by surprise, so people are not ready for that kind of cost. Yes, people who have worked hard and saved all their lives for their home can be devastated by the value of that home going on the cost of their care. That is why we are determined that this will be one thing that we address in our social care reforms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support the full restoration of GP services as part of the covid-19 recovery.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support the full restoration of GP services as part of the covid-19 recovery.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)]

General practice has remained open throughout the pandemic, offering face-to-face appointments as well as telephone and online consultations, while playing a leading role in our vaccination programme. We are enormously grateful to general practices, the GPs and their broader teams for everything that they have done, but to ensure that general practice can continue to provide all necessary and appropriate care during this very busy time, we have made an additional £270 million available until September.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Churchill]

It is right that local health commissioners pay careful regard to the impact of new housing and growing areas, which is to be welcomed. I understand that both practices in my hon. Friend’s area are still accepting patients and that the Oxfordshire clinical commissioning group has been working closely with the practices in Wantage to make sure that the impact of housing growth is being accommodated, which I expect all CCGs and councils to be doing. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further.

[Paul Howell]

I recently met two cancer groups in Sedgefield, the Solan Connor Fawcett Family Cancer Trust and the Great Aycliffe Cancer Support Group, and heard about the wonderful work that they have been doing over the past year. We also discussed how delayed GP appointments have affected early diagnosis of important medical issues such as cancer. Early diagnosis is necessary to provide patients with the best chance of stopping the cancer spreading and of recovering. Furthermore, the later cancer is caught, the more complicated cases become; they take more time and more resources and, of course, are horribly distressing. Will the Minister please tell me what is being done to ensure that backlogs in appointments are being addressed as urgently as possible?

[Jo Churchill]

I pay tribute to all the cancer charities out there who have done sterling work during the pandemic. As I have said, GP services are open, and they are offering different forms of communication with patients. We are running the Help Us, Help You campaign so that people can come forward when they have symptoms. As my hon. Friend says, identifying cancers early to save lives is part of the long-term plan, but I would like to assure him that my latest data showed that in March 2021 we had the highest ever recorded number of GP referrals for cancer. GPs are working really hard, and if patients are worried about any symptoms, they need to come forward.