Mental Health In-patient Services: Improving Safety

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

It will be covered by the HSIB review. On how long that will take, investigations under the predecessor body typically took around a year, which is one of the advantages of the speed at which these things can be done. I hope my hon. Friend can see from the statement today that we will follow the evidence, given the decision we have taken to put the Essex inquiry on a statutory footing, but the HSIB approach has the benefit of speed. I hope that will benefit his constituents, as we learn the lessons.

It is worth clarifying that the new body will have much greater teeth, as a result of the reforms that were passed by the House in 2022. While it is not on a statutory footing, it actually has more power than was the case in the past. That is why we think it is the right approach for learning the lessons in his constituency and more widely.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Secretary of State has rightly pointed to the £2.3 billion in extra funding and has reiterated from the Dispatch Box his belief that early support for children’s mental health is vital. Does he agree that this is sadly still patchy across the country? Early access to children’s mental health services needs to be a priority for all new care systems. I commend to him the approach being taken in north Lincolnshire, where that is absolutely the case and where it has been championed by the wellbeing boards and in all our health partnerships. That should be replicated across the country.

[Steve Barclay]

I commend my hon. Friend for the service he gives as a community first responder. Through that, I know he takes a huge interest in these matters. As with the point about data, I am extremely keen that where there is good practice, we are socialising that across the country as a whole, rather than having it in pockets. I would be extremely keen to work with him on the lessons coming out of north Lincolnshire and on how we scale that across the country, so that good practice can be adopted more widely. Indeed, the statement today is about how we will ensure that the lessons from Essex can be applied more widely, so that best practice is socialised across the country.

NHS Winter Pressures

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

It is worth pointing out to the House that 92% of new patients are starting their cancer treatment within four weeks. On the substance of the hon. Gentleman’s point, however, we are rolling out the programme of community diagnostic centres and the surgical hubs programme precisely in order to prioritise cancer treatments. Also, given that it was a central part of the statement, it is rather surprising that the major investment in bringing out the potential of world-leading cancer vaccines from our life sciences strategy, which could be absolutely transformational for cancer patients, was not even referred to by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he supports it, because it has the potential to be game-changing.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is absolutely right: nothing about this situation is unique to the UK. There have been record delays at Canadian hospitals, Canadian emergency rooms have been closed because of staff shortages, and some Canadian citizens have had no ambulance cover at certain times, so the role of paramedics has been expanded there to enable them to do more diagnostics and to prescribe.

As somebody who works in this service, I say that it is not just about the delays in getting into hospitals; the demand on the ambulance service is equally driven by the fact that we have more people living for longer with more conditions that sometimes require care at 1 or 2 in the morning, and the only NHS service that will turn up is the ambulance service. What is my right hon. Friend’s vision for the future of community paramedicine? How can we expand paramedic roles, employ more advanced paramedics and, of course, put the proper resources into that service?

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises a brilliant point—one that I completely agree with—about how we upskill the existing workforce and get more people operating at what is referred to as the top of their licence. One of the key areas in the discussions we had at No. 10 on Saturday was how we can better utilise the existing workforce and their roles, and what regulatory changes we need to maximise that.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he did over the Christmas period as a community first responder. He is absolutely right: looking at how we better integrate the data available to paramedics, for example, and therefore enabling them to do more, is exactly the direction of travel that we want to take. I look forward to discussing that further with him.

Ambulance Pressures

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I broadly agree with the hon. Lady on providing targeted support, particularly to those in domiciliary care; we are working with those in primary care on that. In coming days, that will happen specifically through local resilience forums, but in the medium term it will be more through the integrated care boards. That is part of a wider package of support measures that need to be put in place. It will include working with primary care, looking at mental health support, and looking at what can be done to raise productivity through better use of innovation and technology. We will look at all the interventions available across the board to assist us in dealing with the pressures that she highlights.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I spent this weekend on duty, in my role with the Yorkshire ambulance service. I remind my right hon. Friend of the important work and extra resilience that community first responders will provide in the next few days, as they are stepped up and attend the most serious 999 calls. The reality is that even before this situation, when attending very serious cases, we were often waiting much longer than we did in the past for back-up from the crew. Will he look at a model that I have pushed before: the advanced paramedic model, which gives paramedics more clinical confidence to discharge patients to their home, and so reduces demand on hospitals?

[Steve Barclay]

I am happy to look at that, and I thank my hon. Friend for his service locally. I am keen to follow up on his point, because it is absolutely right. From the feedback from ambulance trusts so far, it seems that category 2 average response times were broadly stable at the weekend, but how we triage, how we categorise calls, and what additional support can be given by considering the skills mix are all factors in improving performance.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill and Extension Letter

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

The reality is that this is Parliament’s letter, and the Prime Minister has sent Parliament’s letter. However, he has been clear that he will comply with the law, and he has complied with the law, which is reflected in the comments of figures such as Lord Pannick, but the Prime Minister is also entitled to express his views, which is exactly what he has done.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Lots of my constituents in east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire think that what happened on Saturday was a Westminster bubble smarty-pants stitch-up to stop us leaving the European Union on 31 October, and—do you know what?—that is exactly what it was. The reason why 31 October is so important is that many people in this country, particularly across the north of England, have figured out what is going on in here. There has been an attempt to play for time—to delay, delay, delay—with one simple aim, which is to overturn the referendum result that people in here never accepted and never had any intention of accepting.

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The House said that it did not believe that the Prime Minister would get a deal, but he did get a deal. The House said that it wanted a meaningful vote, but when the opportunity was presented it was made a meaningless vote. It is time for those games to stop and for us to get a deal through. The opportunity to do that is to support the withdrawal agreement Bill, which legislates for the deal that the Prime Minister has reached.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are concerns about issues such as security. That is the very essence of why we need the deal. It will provide confidence on issues such as security and it will secure the implementation period so that things such as security measures will remain in place.

It was clear in the debate before Christmas that there were many views in the House about what trade deal we should enter into with the EU. The possible trade deals included no deal, no deal plus, Norway, Norway plus, Canada, Canada plus, Norway for now and Norway forever. There is a whole spectrum of deals that different Members cling to, but the reality is that whatever deal is to be put in place, it requires the winding down of our 45-year relationship with the European Union. Therefore, whatever deal is put in place requires a withdrawal agreement, and that withdrawal agreement requires a backstop.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Secretary of State made a comment about working more closely with Parliament. I ask him to reflect on the fact that this place is grossly out of touch with the public on the fundamental issue of whether we are a member of the European Union. This House is not representative of the people. The Executive are a legitimate branch of government, so can we be assured that in whatever way they increasingly work with Parliament, the Executive will not give up their responsibility to implement the will of the people, which is a much greater body of sovereignty than this place?

Post Office Closures

Debate between Steve Barclay and Andrew Percy

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing the debate and the way in which he has championed this issue most effectively since his election to Parliament. He raised a number of points that it may be helpful to address at the outset, on whether this is a new model in the Post Office, to what extent it is commercially attractive and how the Post Office is being held accountable.

Like my hon. Friend, I represent a rural constituency and I have a similar change programme in my area. I am also aware of the challenges in areas such as mine on public transport, to which he alluded. As for whether the franchise model is new, it is not; it has been around since the 1990s and it is long-held practice to collocate a post office and a shop. What is changing to a certain extent is the number and scale of post offices being collocated, and while in the past we had post offices with shops that sold sweets, birthday cards and various other things—many of us will remember that from our childhood—now we more often have shops with a post office attached to them.

On whether running a post office is commercially attractive, the footfall generated is very attractive to many shop owners. Indeed, having one counter as opposed to two can mean that customers do not have to queue twice and can make managing staff in the shop more efficient. There are therefore commercial attractions to collocating a post office in another business nearby, which is part of the appeal for many taking that approach forward.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly spoke of the social hub that the post office offers. That is why I hope he will support the Government’s manifesto commitment to secure 3,000 rural post offices and, as part of the arrangements with the Post Office, to maintain 11,500 branches as part of the network. The Government recognise, through the funding that has been allocated, the important social hub that post offices provide. Indeed, that is in stark contrast to the previous Labour Government, under which at least 5,000 branches closed as part of their closure programme. The Government have made a commitment to the Post Office in recognition of the exact point the hon. Gentleman raised—that post offices make an important social contribution to communities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) injected a welcome note of optimism to the debate, recognising that, in securing the network as the Government have done, we have increased significantly the hours that branches are open, often on Sundays, compared with the past.

Alongside the allocated funding, there is a specific £20 million community branch fund, which I urge Members to take advantage of. The fund encourages branches that may be the last shop in their community to bid for things they may need to make their businesses more viable, so measures are available within the funding mechanism to help preserve post offices where they are aligned with the last shop in a village or community. That is part of the wider £2 billion allocated since 2010 as part of this programme.

Before I come to the specific case in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle and the chain of events behind the post office’s temporary closure there, I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who raised the issue of the hoops that have to be jumped through, causing frustration and adding to the time taken to open a new post office or appoint a new postmaster. I think we all share that frustration, but there are good reasons for it, given the significant position of trust that postmasters and postmistresses hold within their communities and the large sums of money they often handle. It is therefore right that a thorough consultation process is part of those appointments, but that can have an impact.

[Andrew Percy]

I think any reasonable person would accept that. We could perhaps do better by ensuring that interim measures are in place while something else is being worked on. That is the problem. Everyone understands the importance of a postmaster’s job and the compliance regime that must go behind it, but the length of time between the closure of a post office and the opening of a new one is unacceptable, and we need to smarten up on that.

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises a valid point. These things are looked at on a case-by-case basis, and each case tends to be different. That is highlighted in the case of the post office in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, where a number of interim measures were tried. He alluded to a portakabin being used and the attempt made to look at whether that could be located close to the store or needed to be further away. The issue of temporary staff was considered. A mobile van was also considered, which is sometimes suitable, but the volume of customers at the Heathfield store was too high. There were specific issues with the portakabin, but that solution was tried.

Attempts are made to mitigate the time taken, but sometimes local factors work against that. Unfortunately, in my hon. Friend’s case, a chain of events has made it more difficult to put the interim solution in place. I hope that better news is imminent. I know he supports the proposal for a new permanent host for the post office in Heathfield: Unique Wine Ltd, which is on the high street. The consultation is ongoing, so I hope there is light at the end of the tunnel for him.

In terms of locating a post office in an existing business—in that case, an off-licence—there are plenty of examples around the country of such collocation working well, not least due to the longer hours in which it enables the public to access the post office. I take slight issue with the suggestion from the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) that the Post Office is imposing unfair terms by asking for longer hours. She also suggested that the public are not getting access to post offices. I think most customers will welcome the fact that a post office, through collocation, is open for longer hours. That is part of the public benefit.