Health Visitors (England)
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Tim Loughton
If the hon. Lady is patient, I will come on to the social impacts. I think the MMHA report came out in 2014 or 2015, so obviously things will have moved on, although the birth rate has slightly fallen in that time as well. These are substantial financial figures, but as she says, most important are the social impacts and the impact on the child.
On the physical impacts, our childhood obesity rates are among the worst in Europe, while breastfeeding rates in the United Kingdom are among the lowest in the world. We have rising emergency department attendances by children under the age of five, and infant mortality reductions have recently stalled. Just last week, we had the worrying figures about the dwindling vaccination rates in England in particular, with only 86.4% of children having received a full dose of the MMR vaccine. We have effectively lost our immune status, because the World Health Organisation vaccination target to protect a population from a disease is 95%.
The Children’s Commissioner estimates that, in total, 2.3 million children live with risk because of a vulnerable family background, but that, within that group, more than a third are effectively invisible and not known to services and therefore do not get any support. We are talking about an expensive and widespread problem.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
I pay tribute to the remarkable work of health visitors in my constituency. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that cutting the health visitor service by 30% over the last few years has clearly made it even harder for the profession and for the families and mums that they take care of?
Tim Loughton
Again, I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient, because I will come on to all that. I realise that he wants to put on the record his tribute to health visitors in Eastbourne, as do I—as someone who was born in Eastbourne and had wonderful health visitors, I am sure, albeit 57 years ago now.
The one thing that all these problems, and a lot more problems I have not mentioned, have in common is that they come under the remit of the health visitor, to some extent or other. The health visiting service provides an important safety net for infants and young children—as well as mums and dads—who are at particularly high risk of having their needs missed, as they are not visible in the same way as children who are accessing an early years setting or a school, for example.
Social Care Funding
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on securing this important debate. In the limited time that I have, I will concentrate on a couple of realities. Every colleague in the room knows that social care is on its knees and has been for a long time. I appreciated the intervention from the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), who said that she was a nurse before she became an MP. My partner is a community matron. She works out in the community with patients alongside social care, and she sees for herself how bad it is, as every Member here does. I have had numerous bits of casework dealing with the profound challenges in social care, so we know that it is on its knees.
Politically, because of cuts over a number of years to the money it receives from Government, East Sussex County Council has been cutting meals on wheels, rehabilitation houses and much more. I pay tribute to my colleague Councillor John Unger, who has been lobbying, harrying and fighting the county council to stop the cuts, but it has not made a lot of difference. Why not? Because it is on its knees. Social care is a massive issue, and all of us in the Chamber know that the only way to deal with it properly is to depoliticise it—I have a view on doing that with the NHS, but that is for another day. If we do not depoliticise social care, we will be in exactly the same position in five years’ time.
The real frustration and challenge is that, as MPs, we know how difficult it is out there for people in receipt of social care—or not, as the case may be. The same is true for those such as myself whose partners are nurses and others. Similarly, one of our colleagues is a doctor and would have seen things for himself. The challenge is that normal, ordinary people out there do not realise how bad it is until they need social care, and then—my God, it is a car crash. They come into my office and say, “Stephen, I cannot believe the service, or the lack of it, that my mum”—or dad, or grandad—“is receiving.” They are in bits, and until we can find a way to inform the rest of the public—85% to 90%, say; I do not know—just how awful things are, I believe we will just keep getting stuck.
There have been good ideas—we had good ideas in the Dilnot report and the coalition; Labour has come up with some good ideas, and free personal care in Scotland has real mileage—but the truth is that we will need to depoliticise social care. I therefore urge the House to recognise that, after this bloomin’ Brexit and the election, whatever the hell happens—I hope that I will be here to continue urging—we will have to depoliticise social care, otherwise it will never improve and our people will suffer.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
Absolutely. We are very keen to look at the Select Committees’ recommendations and the contributions of all key stakeholders. We are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the care and support we need. The Green Paper will include ideas to protect people from high and unpredictable care costs.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
Matt Hancock
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this case. The ministerial team has not seen the details in advance, but if he would like to write, the appropriate Minister will of course meet him.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend tempts me to do some big reveals about the contents of the Green Paper. I will say that it will look at a number of different funding options.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
On dementia in the community, many people with low-onset or mid-onset dementia can, with the right social care, stay in their home. The crucial part is to have the funding necessary to allow people to get social care support. Will the Minister, in the Green Paper, commit specific sums for social care to keep people with dementia in their homes?
Caroline Dinenage
The adult social care Green Paper will look at the long-term sustainability of the funding of the adult social care system. In the meantime the Government are investing by giving councils access to up to £10 billion over the current three-year period, to help to address some of the shortfalls in adult social care funding and to ensure that people have the right services in their local areas.
Children with Life-limiting Conditions
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this important debate. Given that we are reduced to four minutes each, I will ensure that I keep to that.
Like other hon. Members, I want to bring attention to two outstanding children’s hospices that serve my constituency: Chestnut Tree House and Demelza. They are not based in Eastbourne, but they do a considerable amount for many of my constituents and their children. Both are hospices and also deliver outreach services to very poorly children at home. I want to put that on record, as they do outstanding work.
I know the Minister is getting a long shopping list, so I will keep my requests fairly simple. I want to focus on two areas, both of which I am confident the Department can respond to fairly swiftly. First, NHS England states that its end-of-life care programme for children and young adults is managed through a cross-system governance board. That makes sense. It includes a lot of the key providers, such as the Department of Health and Social Care, clinical commissioning groups, NHS England and others. However, I discovered that there is no representation on that cross-system governance board of the children’s palliative care sector—the charities and groups that represent families and children and really know their stuff. I urge the Minister to look at that again.
The other serious issue—I am sure the Minister is aware of it, and I would welcome information from her on what is being done to respond—is that, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, there are only 14 children’s palliative care consultants across the UK. I am sure the Minister would agree that that is completely inadequate. Perhaps the Minister can let me know—either at the end of this debate or in a letter—what plans NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have to work with the Royal College to increase that number. Fourteen is clearly inadequate.
Let me end with a constituent’s issue that brings home the issue of long-term conditions and the end of children’s lives. This subject is incredibly important—we are talking about 45,000 youngsters—and I want to bring it down to earth and make it real. I am working with a constituent couple, Mr and Mrs Spence, and their teenage daughter Connie, who I have known for well over 10 years. She is now 16 or 17 and still has—obviously—a progressive, life-threatening condition. She is an amazing girl. Her parents have done fantastic work in looking after Connie and working with Demelza, giving her a good life.
Recently, Mr and Mrs Spence’s CCG told them that they would be allowed only three nappies a day. Without going into too much detail, we all understand that a very disabled 17-year-old girl—or any of us in her situation—would usually use six or seven nappies a day. They have been told that she can have only three. That is completely unacceptable, highly inappropriate and just wrong. The CCG pleads costs, as does the local trust. I will be writing to the Minister with details and hope that she will support me by making representations to the CCG to stop that completely inappropriate cut.
Cancer Workforce and Early Diagnosis
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for securing this important debate.
I will keep my remarks brief because quite a lot of people want to speak, so I will focus on one area of early diagnosis—that of bowel cancer. There are two reasons for that: bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer, and it is the second biggest cancer killer, yet bowel cancer is not only treatable but curable, especially if diagnosed early. The Minister will know that since my re-election I have pressed him and the Department hard to reduce the bowel cancer screening age in England from 60 to 50. I was delighted when, a few months ago, the Minister agreed to that and announced that the reduction would take place.
I pay tribute to my constituent Lauren Backler, who started the campaign to reduce the screening age three years or so ago. Sadly, her mother died in her mid-fifties; it is very likely she would not have died had she lived in Scotland and had an early diagnosis. That prompted Lauren to launch a campaign, and it has been an unbelievable success in numbers alone: more than half a million people across the country have signed her petition. Colleagues in the Chamber and I have campaigned avidly for it for the last couple of years, and the Minister and the Department of Health announced the change a few months ago.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that in Northern Ireland, following the introduction of bowel cancer screening kits, participation is 60%. It is a fantastic result for Northern Ireland and we need to do more of it.
Stephen Lloyd
The hon. Gentleman is right. The introduction of the new faecal immunochemical test kits will make a huge difference.
I am speaking in this debate because, as the Minister will know and one or two people have alluded to, in yesterday’s announcement there was no clear announcement about additional staff and capacity to ensure that the bowel screening age is brought down from 60 to 50. I commend the Government for listening to Lauren, hundreds of thousands of people across the country, my colleagues here and me, and reducing the age—it is quite clear statistically that many thousands of lives will be saved—but I am anxious that there was no announcement yesterday about the additional budget that will be required for new staff, and a plan for it to happen. I am keen to hear from the Minister not just that the Department of Health is behind it, but detail of when the announcement will be made about additional staff capacity. I urge that particularly because, as the Minister knows, the budget decisions will be announced in March. I want some flesh to be put on the bones.
This is an issue where we know we have a solution. We in this Chamber understand that there are capacity and finance issues. We applaud the Government and the Department of Health for publicly stating that they will bring down the screening age limit. What we all need now is flesh on the bone and detail, so that Lauren Backler, following her remarkable campaign in tribute to her mother, can see in the next few months the first roll-out of the age reduction in screening for bowel cancer.
Gosport Independent Panel
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, absolutely I am happy to do that, and I am happy to commend my hon. Friend’s lanyard, too. Ultimately culture change and having a good culture comes down to the leadership within the NHS and individual trusts. It has struck me in the four months that I have been doing this job that the trusts that have the best results in terms of outcomes for patients, waiting times and waiting lists and finances are also those that are hot on this subject; they listen to complaints and act on them, because they know that that is the way to improve their organisation. I want to see that sort of best practice right across the board.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
Like colleagues, I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. It was my constituent Gillian Mackenzie 21 years ago who was the first relative to raise concerns, and she has been battling ever since. She came to me 11 years ago and it was with pleasure that I introduced her and the other families to my colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). I am grateful for the changes in the health service that will hopefully prevent any such dreadful and shocking episode from happening again.
I must bring the Secretary of State back to the justice issue, however, as it is very important. I appreciate that it concerns a different Department, but the Secretary of State said in his statement that the police
“must be allowed to complete that process and follow the evidence, so that justice is done.”
A few weeks ago I had a constructive meeting with Assistant Chief Constable Downing, who is in charge of that. I would like a commitment from the Government that there will be sufficient funding for the full assessment, and, if it goes to investigation, sufficient funding in the budget for a proper investigation to be done so that relatives can get the justice they have been denied for so long.
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course that is the Government’s position, and I am very happy to reiterate it today. The police need to be able to follow the evidence without fear or favour.
Gosport Independent Panel: Publication of Report
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
Absolutely. I commend my hon. Friend for his work and for being one of the colleagues in this place who have thought and talked about the importance of getting the right safety culture in the NHS. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch matters because in situations such as this, it could have been called in, done a totally independent investigation, got to the truth of what was happening quickly and prevented a recurrence of the problem. That is one of a number of things that we need to think about.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
Ten years ago, a constituent came to see me called Mrs Gillian McKenzie. She told me a story that sounded so far-fetched that I struggled to believe it. In her opinion, her mother and many other elderly people had effectively been killed before their time at a hospital in Gosport. I found it staggering. I then read the hundreds of pages of documents that this amazing woman, Mrs McKenzie, had put together over the weekend, and I came to the harrowing conclusion that there could be a chance of a significant number of early deaths at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital.
I was a candidate then, not the MP. I contacted my good friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), and I took Mrs McKenzie and relatives up to London to meet him. He agreed that this could be something wicked beyond compare. Over the next few years, there was continual campaigning and lobbying, and continual pushback. Finally—I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend—we got this commission off the ground. By the way, Mr Speaker, Mrs McKenzie is now 84. I saw her on Saturday evening, wished her luck and gave her a hug. Twenty years later, we are talking about the deaths of more than 450 and possibly 600 elderly people. The relatives today got the truth.
Mr Speaker
Order. I have the very highest respect for the hon. Gentleman and for his keen interest in and experience of this issue, and I am exercising some latitude for Back Benchers and for the Secretary of State on this extremely sober matter, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman is at least approaching something that has a question mark at the end of it.
Stephen Lloyd
I am, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the latitude.
This has been a 10-year battle. Today, the relatives got the truth. The relatives and I demand justice. I urge the House, the Government and the police to do everything necessary to ensure that the individuals named in the report are brought to justice.
Mr Hunt
There can be no justice unless the truth is put on the table. That is the crucial first step, and now justice must proceed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his campaign for Mrs McKenzie. Perhaps the best words I can use are these of the panel in the report:
“Yes, we have listened and yes, you, the families, were right. Your concerns are shown to be valid.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Stephen Barclay
I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the nurses at Cheltenham, and elsewhere, for the work they do. As he says, that is exactly why this Government, with the support of the Treasury, have backed nurses with a big pay rise in the “Agenda for Change” programme.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
With every reputable independent body showing very clearly that we have a staffing crisis in the NHS nursing profession, can the Minister explain how cutting bursaries actually improves the situation?
Learning Disabilities Mortality Review
Stephen Lloyd Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
This is an important aspect, and I will get in touch with the hon. Lady with a more detailed answer to her question.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
This is a shocking report, and its conclusions demean us all. A lot of people on both sides of the Chamber have asked the Minister and her Department to come up with some actions. Rather than just talking about it, will she commit today to coming back to the House with a specific action plan to prevent and change what has been an absolutely shocking situation for many decades?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this has been a shocking situation for many decades, which is exactly why this report was commissioned so that we can learn from past errors and identify how to stop them ever happening again. There are nine recommendations in this report, and we will work with NHS England on how to adopt every single one of them.