Health

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I offer you my congratulations on the honorary degree that you received yesterday from Swansea university?

I recognise that I may repeat many of the things that have been said, but this is such an important issue for constituents in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire that I make no apology for doing so. I am going to talk about the Safe and Sustainable review as well. We have received a number of e-mails from charities yesterday, one of which said:

“As some MPs look to reignite”

the debate about changes to children’s heart units

“we urge MPs to think about the children.”

Frankly, I found that rather offensive, because throughout the whole campaign I have only ever thought about the children.

When I worked at Martin House children’s hospice, I saw the effect on families when they were driven apart because the poorly child had to be a long distance away. On my visit a week or so ago to the unit in Leeds, I met a family who live in Sheffield. They brought their baby who was a few days old into the unit when the baby suddenly went very blue. Thankfully, because of the excellent work at the unit, that baby’s life was saved. That child was described as “marginal” in the review meeting on 4 July. That is not my description, but that of the decision makers. That is a shocking statement in my opinion. I also met another family who live in Sheffield. The father is making three trips a day between Leeds and Sheffield because there are other siblings at home. How on earth are such people expected to travel three times a day up to Newcastle?

I recognise that the review has been independent of Government, but I have grave concerns over the way in which it has been run. I support a review, because I want the best services for our children. I was grateful for the Minister’s comments earlier, when he said that the call-in process means that the matter will go to an independent panel. I would be grateful for clarification of whether that panel is independent of the JCPCT.

[Mr Simon Burns]

May I reassure my hon. Friend that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel is nothing to do with the JCPCT, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or me? It is an independent organisation that is there to look at reconfigurations across the country that are referred to it by my right hon. Friend following an oversight and scrutiny committee writing to him.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for that clarification. I hope that the independent review body will look at the issues that I raise.

Logical health planning clearly dictates that services should be based on where the population live. Doctors should travel to where the patients are, rather than the other way around. Even the British Congenital Cardiac Association has said that:

“Where possible, the location of units providing paediatric cardiac surgery should reflect the distribution of the population to minimise disruption and strain on families.”

After all, it is not buildings that perform operations, but the doctors and surgeons within them. That definition seemed okay in the case of Birmingham. The review stated:

“The Birmingham centre should remain in all options due to the high level of referrals from the large population in its immediate catchment area.”

Why on earth does the argument about the large immediate population not apply equally to Leeds?

The independent analysis of patient flows states that many of the people in west and south Yorkshire and in Lincolnshire will probably go to Birmingham, Liverpool or even London instead. The JCPCT reaches the figure of 403 surgical procedures for Newcastle on the basis of only 25% of the patients going there. Even that is doubtful. How was the figure of 25% arrived at?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

It is difficult to give a time scale for this reason: as soon as my right hon. Friend receives representations from the overview and scrutiny committee, he will consider as quickly as he can whether to make a referral. As I have said, in the life of the IRP, every request for a referral has been granted—that is certainly true of my right hon. Friend’s time in office, but I believe it is also true of previous Secretaries of State under the previous Government. It is up to the IRP. I know of one example of my right hon. Friend requesting that the IRP respond within a certain time frame, but that was on a single issue. It is possible, with regard to the Safe and Sustainable review, that a number of referrals could be made by different OSCs in relation to the recommendations—I do not know but it is a possibility.

[Stuart Andrew]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

I will give way once more, but then I will have to make progress, because I only have 10 minutes to respond to the whole debate.

[Stuart Andrew]

Will the independent panel have the power to request all the documentation that the Safe and Sustainable review and the JCPCT have been looking at? Will everything be released so that it can look at the evidence in detail?

[Mr Burns]

The IRP?

[Stuart Andrew]

Yes.

[Mr Burns]

I think I can assure my hon. Friend that the IRP will have available to it all the evidence, in all shapes and forms, to help it to form its final opinion of the complaint referred to it. I hope that that reassures him. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Leicester South that the same can apply with regard to the decision about ECMO. I have no doubt that Leicester city council will give consideration to that.

I shall briefly respond to the remaining issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) made several extremely interesting suggestions. Some of them might not be in line with current Government thinking, but I shall certainly refer her ideas and views to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who deals with our alcohol strategy. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised an important issue, and again I will refer it to the Under-Secretary of State.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned the potential reconfiguration at St Helier hospital. As she will know, the proposals are still being worked on. There has not yet been a consultation process, but the decisions have been taken locally by the local NHS. I trust that, if and when there is a consultation process, she will get involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

The assurance I can give the hon. Gentleman is that we certainly believe so, but these are matters for the joint committee of primary care trusts, which carried out this review. As he will appreciate, it is totally independent from the Department of Health, and rightly so.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the concerns in Yorkshire about the review. Can he confirm to us, for the sake of absolute clarity, with whom this decision will lie finally?

[Mr Burns]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend; this is the hors d’oeuvre before the main meal later today. Ultimately, if any overview and scrutiny committees of relevant local authorities do not agree with the final decisions, they have a right to write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asking him to refer the matter, with their concerns, to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. If it is asked to look into the matter, it will then come to a conclusion, of which it will inform my right hon. Friend and he will then take a decision.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

Currently, there is a review into paediatric cardiac services going on. I recognise that that is independent of Government, but we now have the independent analysis of patient flows, which says exactly what we have been saying—that patients in south and west Yorkshire will not go to Newcastle. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is an important development and that the options should reflect that because this is a serious problem for heart services in the north of England?

[Mr Simon Burns]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his persistent championing of his constituents, but sadly I cannot be drawn into a discussion about evidence, facts and figures that might come up around this issue, because as he will appreciate it is an independent review which is divorced from Ministers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

T8. An independent study of the patient assumptions of the Safe and Sustainable review has confirmed what many of us already knew: that, contrary to the review’s claims, most families in Yorkshire and the Humber will travel not to Newcastle but to Leicester or Liverpool. Will my right hon. Friend seek confirmation from the Safe and Sustainable review body that it will revise its options in the light of that new evidence?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I have heard the important point that he has made. No doubt the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts will also hear the point that he has made to me. I am sure that he understands that it would be totally inappropriate for me to give any view that might compromise the independence of Ministers on this independent review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am afraid that I do not accept the premise of the question. May I tell the hon. Gentleman that this Government are not seeking and will not ever seek to privatise either the whole of the NHS or an individual trust? St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is, like all other health trusts, currently agreeing plans to achieve foundation trust status by April 2014. That involves ongoing discussions with the North West strategic health authority and the Department of Health to determine the issues the trust faces and the actions needed to address them.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

May I join my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) in supporting the children’s heart unit in Leeds? If the review fails to take full account of, and reflect on, the issues raised, what steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that that is done so that we can fully understand the problems that would face families in Yorkshire?

Children's Heart Surgery (Leeds)

Debate between Simon Burns and Stuart Andrew

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. He puts me in a slightly difficult position, because I genuinely do not want to be unhelpful. A consultation is ongoing through the joint committee of primary care trusts, however, and it would be totally inappropriate to start debating the rights and wrongs, the pluses and the minuses, of any one individual hospital or centre. It would be inappropriate—it might be construed as trying to influence, pre-judge or prejudice the consultation process—and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees wholeheartedly that it would be totally unacceptable for Ministers to start getting involved in that way. I hope he will accept that, for the best of intentions, it would be inappropriate for me to start debating that issue with him, however right or wrong he might be. I can tell him, none the less, that he has ample opportunity during the consultation process to make those very points to the JCPCT.

[Stuart Andrew]

I understand that, before the consultation document came out, one member of the steering committee gave her personal view of which unit should stay open. Does the Minister not agree that that might give some cause for concern?

[Mr Burns]

My hon. Friend is pushing me and tempting me, but I shall be up front and straightforward: I am unaware of that situation, and it would be unwise of me to start commenting on something that I do not know the background to or—if the conversation was had or the statement made—the circumstances of it. I hope he will forgive me if I do not go down that path.