Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (LD)]

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for all the support you have given to Select Committees during your time in the Chair?

After a long period of engagement with patients, staff and partner organisations, the NHS has come up with a clear set of recommendations to the Government and Parliament for the legislative reforms it needs. I hope all political parties are listening to that. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will accept all its recommendations, including the one that recommends scrapping section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and other provisions, which would end wasteful contracting rounds in the NHS?

[Matt Hancock]

I want to pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she, her Health Committee and all its members have done on this legislation. I think that the legislation proposed by the NHS—with the support of the Select Committee, which will of course scrutinise it further—is an important step forward. I am delighted that Her Majesty committed in the Queen’s Speech to legislation on the NHS, of which these proposals will be the basis.

Access to Medical Cannabis

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Ind)]

I warmly welcome the measures announced by the Secretary of State today, but will he go further in discussing the importance of clinical trials and answer some of the many questions about striking the right balance between THC and CBD? We have heard in the Select Committee that some pharmaceutical companies are refusing to make their products available for clinical trials. Will he look specifically at that point? We need to ensure that safe and consistent products are regularly available and that they are of a predictable pharmaceutical grade, as we have heard.

[Matt Hancock]

If I may, Mr Speaker, I would like to add to my previous answer by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Watford, the former Business Minister, on all that he did to support business, enterprise and the case for capitalism while he was in his former job. I regret his departing from the Government, because he was a brilliant Minister.

On the question ahead of me, so to speak, the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), is right to say that it is vital to bring forward these clinical trials, and that the pharmaceutical companies that provide the oils have not pushed forward the trials in the way that would normally happen. We have therefore stepped in to try to make them happen, but we do need the calls to be answered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Of course I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss this matter. In the long-term plan, we made it clear that we are looking at commissioning arrangements for sexual health services. I am delighted that the number of new cases of HIV has been falling and that we have been able to declare that by 2030 we want the UK to have zero AIDS. That is an achievable, but hard, goal, and I will work with anybody to make it happen.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State share the widespread concern about the variation in availability of PrEP treatment, which is surely an unacceptable situation?

[Matt Hancock]

There is a variability in availability. Of course the current model of delivery is a trial—we have doubled the size of that trial but it is still a trial that runs until 2021. I am very happy to work with my hon. Friend as well as with the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) to try to make sure that it is as available as possible.

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[Matt Hancock]

I want to see this being implemented as soon as possible. It has already started, but we need commitment from local authorities as well as the NHS to deliver. I am very happy to work with the hon. Gentleman and all other interested Members to see it happen.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

T3. Key parts of our NHS workforce are registered and regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Does the Minister share their concern about the steep rise in professional fees that they face—in particular, the loss of the 50% discount that applied to graduates within two years of qualifying—and will she look again at whether anything can be done to assist this key group of our workforce?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman’s neighbour in Plymouth has already brought this to my attention and made the case very strongly for it. I am still waiting for the “Thank you” for the new facilities at Derriford Hospital, but I am a massive supporter of the work that is going on in the local area and the NHS in Plymouth will go from strength to strength under this Government.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

The maintenance backlog across the NHS is deeply worrying. It affects equipment as well as buildings. Two of the 10 operating theatres at Torbay Hospital remain out of action. Would the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the impact that that is having on patient care? It is increasing waiting lists and leading to very short-notice cancellations to make way for emergency cases. Torbay Hospital has a £34 million maintenance backlog. It is deeply worrying.

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point. Of course, future allocations of capital are for the spending review. I look forward to working with her to try to sort out the problems in Torbay and across the board.

NHS Long-term Plan

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My response is yes on the cancer screening—it is in paragraph 3.53. I want to return to the point that was made by the hon. Lady and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) about the link to social care. Of course that is critical. The plan has a section on the link to social care and the social care Green Paper will then tie into the plan. Of course, the two come together and the Green Paper on social care will be provided soon.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this ambitious and wide-ranging long-term plan for the NHS. I agree with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) that so much is dependent on social care, on public health and on the workforce through Health Education England budgets, but may I add to that the situation for capital budgets within the forthcoming spending review? So much of the success of transforming services depends on the upfront funding to get things going and sometimes double running so that we can get a new service up and running before an existing service closes down. Will the Secretary of State go further in talking about the role and importance of capital budgets?

I also really welcome the triple integration—not only between health and social care, but between mental and physical health and between primary and hospital services. Could the Secretary of State confirm and support the proposal in the long-term plan that the legislative tweaks that will support that much needed integration will come from the NHS itself? I confirm that the Health and Social Care Committee remains committed to subjecting those proposals to pre-legislative scrutiny. Will he meet me to see how we can take that forward?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the legislative changes. These changes have been proposed by the NHS. The NHS wants the changes set out at a high level in the plan. Of course there is a lot of consequential work to do to turn them into a full legislative proposal. The NHS is working on that. If it does that alongside and working with the Select Committee, I would be very happy to meet with her to discuss how that might happen. This is very much the NHS’s proposed legislation and I look forward to discussing it with her.

Gosport Independent Panel

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I appreciate the tone of the hon. Gentleman, who rightly focuses on the need to ensure that this never happens again, and I join him in thanking Bishop James Jones for his work on this and other inquiries. It was quite brilliant empathetic work. I also thank the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), for whom I have an awful lot of respect.

The core of the questions the hon. Gentleman raised, about the need to ensure that whistleblowers are listened to and that people are heard in the NHS, comes down to culture change. A whole series of policies underpins that culture change, and I will come to them, but ultimately it comes down to this: errors happen in medicine—it is a high-risk business—but what matters is behaviour, that everything is done to minimise errors and, when they are made, to learn from them, rather than try to cover them up. The culture change needs to be driven across the NHS. It has changed and improved in many areas, but there is still much more to do.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether amendments would be tabled to the Health Service Safety Investigations Bill or in separate legislation on whistleblowers. We are looking at both options. Partly it comes down to the technicalities of scope and the exact distinction and definition of the amendments, but I look forward to working with him on that legislation.

The hon. Gentleman asked why gagging clauses are still in use. I may well ask the very same question. They were deemed unacceptable by my predecessor—I join in the tributes to him—who did so much on this agenda. Gagging clauses have been unacceptable in the NHS since 2013. Trusts, which are independent, can legally use them, but I find them unacceptable, and I will do what it takes to stamp them out.

The hon. Gentleman said that too many people in the NHS feel unable to speak up. To ensure a route for this, we now have, in every single NHS trust, an individual separate from line management to whom staff can go to raise concerns. This is part of the culture change, but it is not the whole. Line management itself in every hospital should welcome challenge and concerns, because that is the way to improve practice. Challenges and concerns that are raised with managers should be deemed an opportunity to improve the service offered to patients, rather than a problem to be managed.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned medication errors. Of course, this was not a case of medication error—it would have been far less bad had it been; it was a case of active mis-medication that led to deaths. Medication errors are an important issue, however, and we are bringing in e-prescribing across the board to allow much more accurate measurement, audit and analysis of medication.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman said that pressures often come from staff shortages. Again, that was emphatically not the concern here, and we absolutely must not muddle up the behaviour here with the issue of staff shortages. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the need for more staff in the NHS. Indeed, we are putting £20 billion into it over the next five years to make sure we have the people we need to deliver the NHS that everyone wants.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and commitment to introduce legislation to compel trusts to report on how they handle staff complaints and concerns, but will he assure the House that trusts will not be penalised if they have more staff concerns raised, because it might be an indicator that they have introduced the culture change necessary for staff to feel able to come forward? Will he also clarify how rapidly we will be rolling out the very welcome introduction of medical examiners?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the number of complaints and concerns raised is not the material factor. A complaint that is actively welcomed and then acted on by management is merely part of the improvement process of any organisation. We should be open to them, welcome them and see them as an important part of the continuous improvement of NHS trusts, which is how many successful organisations see them. As I set out in the statement, medical examiners will be introduced from next April, but I am happy to give her more details of that whole policy.

Prevention of Ill Health: Government Vision

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

In the Secretary of State’s vision for prevention he rightly points out that £14 of social benefit accrues from every £1 spent in public health. Therefore it is going to be much more challenging for him to deliver on his objectives if there is a further transfer from the public health budgets into NHS England budgets. However, I recognise that this requires action across all Departments, so will he set out what he is going to do to encourage cross-government action on physical activity, because we all know that that is a vital part of public health and prevention?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee on that. Of course, the public health budgets for local authorities and Public Health England will be settled as part of the spending review, and there was no change to them in the Budget last week. There are also much wider responsibilities on activity—on cycling and walking—on which I am working with the Department for Transport. The document is all about the cross-government action, and the NHS will come forward with its long-term plan for the NHS-specific action. If there are aspects of cross-departmental working that she suggests we have not yet taken up, I will be looking forward to listening to her on that.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People want to see more funding for our NHS, and they are going to get it, but they also want to see all the money being well spent.

The Budget confirms that the NHS is the Government’s No. 1 spending priority, just as it is the British people’s No.1 spending priority. This Budget places the Government four-square in the centre of British politics. It is progressive and optimistic and focused on the future, not just for the many but for the whole country that we serve.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I absolutely welcome the uplift to NHS funding, but will the Secretary of State answer a small technical question, please? In the Red Book, there are separate entries for the increases in the resource departmental expenditure limits for health and for NHS England? Can he confirm that the difference—£6.3 billion versus £7.2 billion—will not result in a transfer from Public Health England, from Health Education England or from capital budgets to fund the discrepancy? That has happened in the past.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I can confirm that. The £20.5 billion real-terms funding for the NHS in the Budget is for the NHS itself and will be channelled through NHS England. Of course there are budgets in the Department that are outside the NHS envelope, and they will be settled in the spending review. This is exactly as has been planned, and it was made clear in June. I can tell the House that the £20.5 billion is both the longest and the largest settlement for any public service in the history of this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Having a flu jab is incredibly important, and I hope that Members on both sides of the House have taken the opportunity to do so, including the right hon. Gentleman, with whom I enjoyed working for many years. We have a phased roll-out of the flu jab, making sure that we get the best flu jab most appropriately to the people who need it most, and of course we keep that under review.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Digital health tools, including decision-support software, have a great potential to increase the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of care for patients, and nowhere is that more important than in reducing antimicrobial resistance. Will my right hon. Friend respond to the points that we on the Health and Social Care Committee make in our report about the variation in roll-out, which is wholly unacceptable, and what measures will he take to make sure that it is clear where the responsibility for this lies?

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the Select Committee for the report on AMR that was published yesterday. Of course, digital tools such as the one that my hon. Friend mentions are important in making sure that we make the best use of antibiotics and counter antimicrobial resistance as much as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course I will. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work to raise funds for the MRI scanner in Bishop Auckland, which benefits from great levels of philanthropy in some areas. The whole purpose of having a national health service is that, wherever people live in the country, they can get high-quality healthcare, free at the point of delivery, according to need. I stand by that principle, and I honour it.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his post. He will know that no regulator is prospectively examining the safety and effectiveness of diagnostic apps in use in the NHS. I wrote to his predecessor recently following concerns that were raised with me about Babylon’s apps, which could be missing symptoms of meningitis and heart attack, for example. What steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that, as these technologies are rolled out, patients have can have absolute confidence that they have been properly evaluated for safety and effectiveness? Will he set out how he will take that forward?

[Matt Hancock]

The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee makes a really important point. There is no greater enthusiast for technology than me—as you well know, Mr Speaker—but the thing about new technology is that the rules sometimes need to be updated to take changes in technology into account. The response when there are challenges such as the one my hon. Friend raises is not to reject the technology, but the opposite: to keep improving the technology so that it gets better and better, and to make sure that the rules keep up to pace. I spoke to Simon Stevens at NHS England about this only this morning—we have had a series of conversations in the past couple of weeks since I have been in post—and he is reviewing this exact question. I am absolutely sure that we will get to the right answer.

EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I do not understand the premise of the question, because we are putting forward the positive case for remaining in a reformed European Union.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Will the Minister set out what the harm would be in allowing full transparency of these data? Surely there would be much greater harm if at the end of the referendum we were left with people feeling that it had been an unfair process.

[Matthew Hancock]

The challenge of taking a position other than the one the Government have taken is that it would require civil servants to do work that was not in support of the Government’s position. The Government have a position, and it is part of the civil service code, and it is put into law in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, that civil servants should support the position of the Government. It would put civil servants in a very difficult position if we were to do anything other than that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Matt Hancock

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

I am grateful for that question. It is clear that we have not only supported the union learning fund, but we will be driven by the evidence of what works to ensure that we increase the skill levels of the British population, both for its own sake and so that we can drive our competitiveness in the years ahead.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

T5. I know the Front-Bench team are totally committed to promoting growth in our economy. Will the Minister set out how he will boost employment and growth in rural areas while balancing the need to protect the environment from unrestricted development?