Health

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to speak on behalf of the Scottish National party and to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As we know, public health campaigns can be extremely successful. They make health improvements in a widespread manner; individual interventions do not have the same effect. However, the work of public health campaigns and departments is not always visible. It tends to take place behind the scenes. Constituents do not often speak to their MPs about these issues. Very infrequently has anyone come to my door to ask about a cervical screening appointment, or about our campaigns and work on obesity. Public health is not the most visible area of our NHS, unlike the frontline issues of access to treatments, accident and emergency waiting lists and access to GP appointments. It does not have the profile that it ought to have, and it certainly does not feature the sensationalism on which the media often want to report. However, it is important to say that public health is fundamental to the health of the nation. Therefore, public health should not be underestimated and should certainly never be underfunded.

Since 2006-07, the annual health resource budget has increased in Scotland by £4.8 billion, and the Scottish Government have passed all consequentials on to health and care. Funding for NHS boards will increase again by £430 million—an increase of 4.2%—and the package of investments in health and social care in Scotland for integration programmes will be £700 million to the better. Health spending per head in Scotland is almost 9% higher than in England, according to Treasury analysis in 2018.

Investment in primary care is essential; our GPs are at the frontline and it is important that we increase funding for that. The Scottish Government have invested over £930 million in primary care, and £30 million will be invested to extend the free personal care individuals have in Scotland to the under-65s. Some £11.1 million will be provided to increase nursing and midwifery bursaries from £8,100 to £10,000 the following year. Again, midwives and nursing staff are on the frontline of our public health achievements.

Young families across Scotland receive the opportunity to have a baby box as soon as their baby is delivered, which is fundamentally to the good; it is about saying, “We know your baby is born; it is the most valuable thing in your life and we want every baby in Scotland to have the same start and to reduce the inequality we know impacts on people’s lives and families.”

We also need to increase our sportscotland funding, and there has been a pledge of 3%. We have discussed obesity today. I was a member of the Health and Social Care Committee when it was looking at the issue, and again this underlines the importance we must place on public health investment. Advertising and marketing campaigns overshadow the work we are able to do because of the huge investment the industry puts into encouraging people to eat and to feed their children the wrong types of food and to give ourselves treats many more times than we should. I have fallen foul of that, particularly since arriving in the House of Commons; our Tea Room has far too many little treats at the counter. These are all things we grapple with as families and individuals, and that is why it is so important that public health and public health campaigns are supported.

I am pleased to learn more about the Government’s nudge unit. The UK Government has put some investment into psychological approaches to public health and to health, and I was pleased to meet a member of the nudge unit a few months ago at the all-party group on psychology, which I chair, because we must try to help people shape their behaviours and make it as easy as possible to make the right decisions moving forward. Making the right decisions is difficult anyway, but things such as having the opportunity to have a piece of chocolate at the till when we are making purchases makes it that little bit more difficult for people to make the choices we know they need to make. Public health and taking responsibility for our health is all about shaping behaviour: making those choices ourselves through our motivation, but also the Government helping to shape the society we live in and make sure that the easy choices are the healthy choices.

It is important that we raise as much awareness as possible of mental health, particularly in this week, Mental Health Awareness Week. This has often been about communities plugging gaps, however. Progress has been made across the UK, but community mental health service waiting times are still far too long, particularly for young people and adolescents awaiting access to child and adolescent mental health services. That is why there has to be a partnership between public health, health services, voluntary agencies and others in the community.

An example is the Trust Jack Foundation in my constituency, which was formed following the tragic suicide of a young person in my constituency, Jack. His mother came through that terrible trauma and created the foundation, which enables young people in Stonehouse and elsewhere in Lanarkshire to have access to mental health services while they are on the waiting list for CAMHS, and it is really making a difference by giving them the support they need and the earliest possible intervention.

On disability, we must pay cognisance to the fact that those who are disabled are much more likely to be living in poverty than those who do not have disabilities. It is important to take account of that, because people who have disability have less access to the workplace, to transport, to adapted housing and even to shops, because in some cases, Changing Places toilets are not available in our shops. They also have less access to getting about, because Changing Places toilets and facilities and accessible transport are often not available. All those factors contribute to the impact of poverty on people with disability, and we need a joined-up approach across Departments if we are to make a difference.

I want to speak briefly about homelessness. I cannot help but notice that every time I arrive here in Westminster each day, there are people sleeping at the underground station just outside the entrance to Westminster. I have also noticed that, a number of times, there have been flowers left for those who have died there. It is incumbent on us all, as MPs and as a Government, to notice what is right in front of our eyes and to act to ensure that those homeless people have opportunities and that their health and wellbeing are cared for.

I want to touch briefly on the subject of older adults. Public health campaigns will have to focus on and target older adults in the years to come. We are living longer by virtue of the good health we enjoy as a result of the interventions, treatments and technologies that are now available, but chronic illnesses will be with people for longer and affect many more people.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree with a point made to me by a number of my older constituents at an event last week, which is that we need to ensure that sports facilities are providing the right encouragement and opportunities to keep older people active for longer, given that that is crucial for public health goals?

[Dr Cameron]

Yes, that is an absolutely fantastic point. I was going to mention the fact that our local sports and leisure facility has an agreement with the NHS that GPs can prescribe sports facilities to people so that they can have an exercise regime designed specifically for them. If they can benefit from such a regime, that can maximise their health. All these things actually save money in the long term, and that is why public health is so crucial. We really are investing for the good of the nation.

From my own experience of working in addiction services many years ago, I know that we have to take on board the fact that there are huge levels of comorbidity with mental health. Often, people in addiction services have a history of trauma. They are self-medicating with alcohol or drugs, and they are not coping with life due to their underlying mental health issues. However, those very same people are often refused access to mental health services treatment until they have dealt with their addiction. That is a circular argument, and those who are struggling with mental health and addiction problems never really get the support that they need or deserve. That is why integrated services in relation to addiction are so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Supporting the NHS and its values, and securing the best healthcare for my constituents, has always been one of my highest priorities as a Member of this place, so I warmly welcomed the news that the NHS would get the biggest increase in funding in its history, with a £20 billion cash boost. As we have heard today, the demands on our health service are increasing as we grow older as a society, and I would like to pay a warm tribute to all NHS staff, especially those working in and around my constituency at the Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals and in primary care. They do incredible work and we all owe them a great debt of gratitude. We need only to consider some of the statistics that the Secretary of State shared with us, such as the fact that the NHS currently sees 3.3 million more people attending at A&E than in 2010. The number of operations carried out is up dramatically, as are the number of diagnostic tests and out-patient appointments. The NHS is delivering more care than at any time in its 71-year history.

There is much that we should praise about the service but, as we have heard today, we should also acknowledge the challenges and the concern felt about waiting times, about access to new and innovative treatments, about caring for our frail elderly, about dealing with health inequalities and about action to improve outcomes for the most serious conditions, such as cancer. That is why the new funding and the new NHS plan are both so crucial. The goals set out in the NHS long-term plan will greatly improve patient care, and they should also boost productivity in the NHS to ensure that taxpayers’ money is used as effectively as possible and gets to the frontline care about which we all care so much. The key challenge now is to ensure that those goals are delivered in practice.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that we also need to tackle the preventive measures covered by public health programmes? It is really important that we maintain public health spending and run smoking cessation programmes and others that prevent ill health from developing in future.

[Theresa Villiers]

I think there is cross-party support in the Chamber for effectively funding our NHS and public health. Both those spending areas will continue to be a priority for the Government.

I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment that primary care and GP services are at the heart of the NHS long-term plan. GPs are very much in the frontline of increasing healthcare needs, and they are feeling the pressure. I want to see the Government’s £4.5 billion commitment to primary care deliver expanded GP capacity in my Chipping Barnet constituency. The proposals for GPs to be able to call on support from teams of other professionals, such as district nurses and pharmacists, may play a helpful role in relieving the pressure on GP services.

If we are to ensure that patients can get appointments when they need them, we need to train and recruit more GPs. This need is even more intense in areas such as Whetstone in my constituency, where new homes are being built and patient rolls are getting longer. I would like to have the Minister’s assurance that the Government’s target to increase medical school places from 6,000 to 7,500 per year will be met. It is also vital to ensure that whatever reforms are introduced to our immigration system when we leave the EU, we ensure that the new system meets the needs of the NHS and ensures it can continue to bring in skilled professionals from the EU and beyond. It is also important to enable doctors to expand their buildings to improve facilities for patients, and I commend the plans to do so that GPs in High Barnet, Whetstone and elsewhere in my constituency are taking forward.

A third aspect of the NHS plan that I would warmly welcome is the improvement of digital capability, in which respect I wish to highlight an important success in my local area. In autumn last year, Chase Farm Hospital reopened in a brand new £200 million state-of-the-art building. It uses the most up-to-date digital facilities, and the new building is significantly improving patient care. It is situated just outside my constituency but used by many of my constituents and is part of the same trust as Barnet Hospital. I campaigned for many years to secure Chase Farm Hospital’s future, and I welcome the great new facilities for my constituents.

I will always be the strongest supporter of the NHS and its values. This debate is an opportunity to celebrate the incredible achievements of our national health service and its staff, but also to recognise that there is a huge amount of work to be done to ensure that the NHS can continue to meet the needs of future populations. We should never ever forget that delivering a strong economy and strong public finances is imperative if we are to continue to have a strong NHS. It is the only way to deliver the funding that the NHS needs to provide the care on which we all depend. A strong economy is vital to ensure that our constituents get the best possible healthcare in the years ahead, and I urge the Government to ensure that they continue to deliver the economic stability and prosperity on which we all depend and on which the NHS depends for a successful future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his all-party group on social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It is an incredibly important topic. We must make sure that social media is safe and that we protect children’s mental health, which the evidence increasingly shows can be negatively impacted by the wrong use of social media. Social media can be a great, powerful force for good, but it also has its downsides and we need to mitigate those, and there is a lot more coming from the Government soon.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

May I ask the Secretary of State to meet the Sport and Recreation Alliance to hear its ideas on how we ensure children and young people lead healthier and more active lives?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I would love to. I think this is an incredibly important agenda. It ties in directly with the question from my former ministerial colleague when I was at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). There is lots to do on this agenda.

Cancer Workforce and Early Diagnosis

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

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

That was very decisive of you, Mr Howarth. It is quite cold in here, but the ministerial radiator next to me is doing very nicely. Note to the Box: must get radiator for shadow Minister.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I wish everybody a happy new year. I congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing the debate. It is good to see him again. He has impeccable timing; I am not sure if he knew that the plan would be published when he applied for the debate. If he could let me know how he managed that, I would be very grateful.

The hon. Gentleman and everybody else talked about cancer survival rates. The truth is that they have never been higher and have increased year on year over the last decade or so. The reason for that is not only the investment and policy decisions by the last Government and this Government but, as the shadow Minister said, the hard work of NHS staff up and down our country. They work tirelessly, going over and above to give cancer patients the care and compassion that they need. I place on the record my thanks to them, which was perhaps not said enough in the Chamber yesterday. We are not in the slightest bit complacent, though. At the end of the day, one death from cancer still devastates somebody’s life and their family’s life. We know that we need to do so much more to ensure that we deliver the world-class cancer outcomes in England that all of us want and expect for our constituents.

In introducing the debate, the hon. Gentleman set the tone when he talked about the workforce. He said that the workforce are, in a way, the rock on which to build the church. I will start with that. Where we cannot prevent cancer, which I will come on to, we must ensure that we have the right staff with the appropriate skills and expertise to ensure that patients receive the best care. The NHS is nothing without its 1.3 million staff. It is the biggest employer of trained staff in the world. In 2017, Health Education England published the first ever cancer workforce plan, in which we set out ambitious plans to expand the capacity and skills of the NHS cancer workforce, committing to invest in 200 clinical endoscopists in addition to the 200 already committed to, as well as an extra 300 reporting radiographers, by 2021. However, we know that we need to go much further and do more than that. The Prime Minister set out our new ambitions on cancer in her party conference speech, and we also set out our early diagnosis targets in the long-term plan and our survival targets. As the Secretary of State set out yesterday, the long-term plan is the next step in our mission to make the NHS the world-class employer that delivers the cancer survival rates that we want.

To deliver on those commitments, we have asked Baroness Dido Harding, chair of NHS Improvement, to chair a rapid programme of work for the Secretary of State. She will engage with staff, employers, professional organisations, trade unions, charities in this space, think-tanks, Members and all-party parliamentary groups to build a workforce implementation plan that matches the ambition set out in the long-term plan. She will provide interim recommendations to the Secretary of State by the end of March on how supply, reform, culture and leadership challenges can be met, and then final recommendations later in the year, around the time of the spending review, as part of the broader implementation plan that will be developed at all levels to make the long-term plan a reality.

The hon. Gentleman and others asked about the work of HEE and Baroness Harding. The announcement of the long-term plan superseded HEE’s plans to publish a longer-term cancer workforce plan. HEE will now work with NHS England and Baroness Harding’s NHS Improvement under the plan, led by the baroness, to understand the longer workforce implications for the development of the plan. As I said, recommendations will be made in March, with a full implementation plan published later in the year. I did not say, “Soon.” I cannot give the House an exclusive this morning.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about Sir Mike Richards’s screening review. That will make initial recommendations by Easter this year and be finalised in the summer to, as it says in the plan,

“further improve the delivery of the screening programmes, increase uptake—

I know that the shadow Minister is concerned about that; I am too—

“and learn the lessons from the recent issues around breast and cervical screening, and modernise and expand diagnostic capacity.”

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Brine]

I will, but it will mean that other Members will not get a response.

[Theresa Villiers]

Does the Minister agree that a crucial part of success in early diagnosis is for both the NHS and local authorities, with their public health budgets, to have specific strategies to engage with minority ethnic communities to raise awareness of cancer symptoms, and to encourage them to take part in screening programmes? That is an essential part of an effective strategy to improve cancer treatment in this country.

[Steve Brine]

Yes. That is why the House gave all upper-tier local authorities the power to be effective public health authorities with ring-fenced public health budgets—£16 billion during this spending review period. Decisions will obviously be made about that going forward. One reason why we did that was our belief that, for example, my right hon. Friend’s borough will have different priorities and demographics from mine in Hampshire.

It is a statement of fact that I will clearly not be able to respond to every Member’s points in the short time that we have left. I will respond to everybody in writing, as I always assiduously do. I will try to take a few themes in the minutes that I have.

The hon. Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) touched on radiotherapy. I very much enjoyed our meeting, and I thank them again for their work. I will send the hon. Member for Easington a note with more detail on his point on tariffs, because I know that he and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale are concerned about it.

The hon. Gentlemen also talked about the manifesto response. We await the publication of the new radiotherapy specification before we respond. It is an excellent piece of work that will address many of the recommendations made, and we expect it to be published very shortly. I am afraid to say that the long-term plan makes no commitment to a one-off investment. However, it commits to improving access to safer and more precise medicines, including advanced radiotherapy. That document is not the final word. It is a living document that I will work on while listening to all-party parliamentary groups such as their own.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale also talked about the radiotherapy review. There was a phenomenal response to NHS England’s consultation, not surprisingly—a lot of those were from the west country of England. The NHS will plough through that. I am putting great pressure on it to publish its report in response to that, which I am hoping, and am told, will be in early 2019.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), otherwise known as the Member for the Irish sea a body of water, talked about prevention and smoking and child obesity and humour. I loved her reference to “poo in the post”. There is a great charity that talks about men’s bits called It’s in the Bag, which is good at promoting awareness of testicular cancer. She is right to talk about prevention. I am the Minister for Public Health and Primary Care, looking at prevention. The Secretary of State has made prevention one of his top three priorities, and she knows that it is key for me.

Smoking is still the biggest preventable killer in our country today, as I said in the House last night in the statutory instrument debate. We have published a world-leading plan on child obesity. We will consult very shortly. I try to be honest with the House at all times, and I hoped to get it out before Christmas, but there is an awful lot else going on and there is only so much I can get out the door at one time. However, I will get the 9 pm watershed consultation out the door. It is damned important that we do that. We said that we will, so we will.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that prevention is better than cure, which is why the child obesity plan and Cancer Research UK’s work in that space has been very helpful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Every EU worker across our health and social care system—whether in the NHS, or working in public health, in local authorities or in social care—is welcome here, and is supported to be welcome here, and we look forward to the settled status scheme rolling out. We are grateful for their service.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

GP appointments are vital for many to lead healthy lives, so will the Secretary of State give his strong personal support to the work of our fantastic GPs, and encourage the NHS to put general practice at the heart of the £20 billion future plan?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. General practice will be at the heart of the long-term plan. GPs are the bedrock of the NHS. We will put an extra £3.5 billion, at least, into primary and community services to help keep people healthy and prevent them from going to hospital.

Ovarian Cancer: Diagnosis and Treatment

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Treatment around the country needs to be made more consistent and clearer, to put a stop to the issues that many of us have heard in stories from constituents.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I apologise that I shall not be able to stay for the whole of this important debate. Does my hon. Friend agree that the additional resources that the Government are devoting to the NHS are welcome, and that it is important for it to use them wisely, which includes improving early diagnosis and treatment of cancer? Early diagnosis is crucial to successful outcomes and the raising of survival rates for ovarian and other cancers.

[Lee Rowley]

My right hon. Friend is right and I hope that the Minister will recognise that. It is a matter of getting a diagnosis, and encouraging people who feel that something may not be quite right to go to the doctor, so that the pathway starts. Then, if there is an issue—most of the time there is not—there can be progress, and people can get the treatment they need earlier.

The first step in improving outcomes on ovarian cancer is improving awareness among the general public, and among GPs and in doctors’ surgeries in general. As has been mentioned, the symptoms of ovarian cancer are often easy to mistake for something else. Too often it is easy to dismiss them as inconsequential or not worth further attention. Symptoms include bloating, a need to go to the toilet more frequently, pain in the tummy or always feeling full. Recognising that those symptoms are potentially problematic is a key to survival. Those diagnosed at the earliest stage, stage 1, are almost certain to be alive a year after the diagnosis; 98% of them will be. Only half of those diagnosed at stage 4 are alive a year later.

Awareness of the symptoms among the general public remains low. For example, only 20% of women can name bloating as a symptom, and only 3% can name feeling full and loss of appetite as an issue. A regional Be Clear on Cancer pilot on ovarian cancer symptoms in 2014 was promising. There was an increase in both spontaneous and prompted awareness of the issues. There were also promising findings from a further regional pilot last year, which focused on abdominal symptoms, including bloating. Initial findings showed that the campaign led to an increase in the number of GP referrals for suspected cancer. We ask that if the Government propose to run any future public health campaigns, they should include work to make people aware of those symptoms.

The second area where there is work to be done is diagnosis, not least because 45% of women reported that it took three months or longer from first presenting to their GP with concerns to recognition that they might have an issue. Diagnosis relies on two forms of assessment—an ultrasound and a blood test called CA125. In too many areas the assessments are done sequentially rather than simultaneously, which often means vital weeks are lost. We have urged the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the NHS to review that process and extend the coverage of multidisciplinary diagnostic centres. Those centres prove very useful for the sort of cancers that hide behind vague, less common symptoms, which it is important to get to the bottom of as quickly as possible.

The third area is data. There are many calls on the Government from many sources to ensure that the cancer dashboard demonstrates the progress already being made on a variety of cancers. I understand the challenge, but we also hope that in time the Government may look favourably on the idea of including ovarian cancer data in the dashboard. We hope that that would be relatively simple, as much of the data is already collected and published elsewhere. Good data is vital in driving forward and improving early diagnosis. Huge strides have been made in its collection, and making it available would help with the continuing work to drive up standards.

Finally, treatment also requires further attention. As with many health issues, ovarian cancer treatment is invasive and often difficult. It centres primarily on surgery and chemotherapy. There has been much progress in recent years on drugs to treat the cancer, with the development of a number of PARP inhibitors, providing new tools and opportunities to improve the outcome. However, spending and research on ovarian cancer remain lower than for other cancers, and there is much work to focus on. Where surgery is required there is a strong case for specialist centres around the country, supported by a detailed service specification from NHS England.

To further drive up the quality of treatment, charities such as Target Ovarian Cancer and Ovarian Cancer Action, together with the British Gynaecological Cancer Society, are funding an ovarian cancer feasibility audit. Over the next two years, it will map and analyse existing data on ovarian cancer, and look at the treatment provided and the outcomes for women.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Warm congratulations to the Secretary of State.

Whether it is online consultations or more traditional, face-to-face ones, will the Secretary of State join me in thanking all the NHS staff who do fantastic work in taking care of my constituents in Chipping Barnet?

[Matt Hancock]

I certainly will. I pay tribute to the NHS workforce and the social care workforce who, every day of their working lives, give up their time to serve their community, to serve their fellow man and woman, and to ensure that we have the healthiest nation we possibly can. I love the NHS, as does everybody in the House. Almost everyone is touched by the NHS at some of the most difficult times in their lives. I pay tribute to the workforce.

NHS Long-Term Plan

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Okay, may I decisively say to the hon. Gentleman, if he was so proud of what the last Labour Government did, why did he say nothing when, at the last election, his party was only offering a 2.2% increase? If he thinks it is important to be generous, he should be welcoming what we are saying today.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this new money for the NHS in its 70th anniversary year. Does the Secretary of State agree that it should devote some of these new resources to more staff dealing with early diagnosis of cancer, to help more people beat this condition in accordance with the “Shoulder to Shoulder” campaign being run by Cancer Research UK?

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely agree. In fact, the critical thing that we need to improve in our cancer care is diagnosing more people at stages 1 and 2, rather than at stages 3 and 4. That means more staff and more diagnostic machinery. One of the most encouraging points about Simon Stevens’s response to the new settlement was that he said that it will allow us to accelerate the improvements that we are making in cancer care.

Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is right to raise those points. The Government are absolutely committed to reducing the number of people with learning disabilities whose deaths might have been preventable had there been different health and care interventions. That is why we set up the learning from deaths programme, and have commissioned an investigation of the issue. We are determined not only to learn from every single one of these tragic and avoidable deaths, but to share that learning with those in trusts up and down the country so that they can take a clear look at what is going on under their noses, and ensure that the terrible incidents that we have seen in the past do not happen again.

The hon. Lady was wise to raise the issue of training. It is important to have specialist practitioners, but it is also important to ensure that all healthcare staff, throughout the country, have the training that they need in order to recognise and support the needs of people with learning disabilities. That is something that we have done very successfully with dementia: we record the number of staff in the country who have received tier 1 and tier 2 training, and we are looking into how we can extend that to address the issues of people with learning disabilities.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

In learning lessons from these truly horrific cases, will the Minister commit herself to working closely with the charities that do such incredible work to support people with learning disabilities and their families?

[Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Charities and voluntary organisations all over the country do remarkable work, supporting not only people with learning disabilities but their families and their carers, for whom instances involving their health and wellbeing can be incredibly distressing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and it is certainly something that we can look at more closely.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

Will the Minister explain the work that the Government are doing with Public Health England to raise awareness of sepsis infections, and do urgent work to tackle that potential killer?

[Caroline Dinenage]

This is a massive priority for the Government, and we are about to start a public information campaign. Sepsis is a killer—one that deserves to be given the utmost importance, and one that we will be seeking to tackle in every way that we can.

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Theresa Villiers Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for that and thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. His support throughout has been consistent, welcome and a great help. I am pleased to tell the House we also have the support of three previous Prime Ministers. Only Sir John Major felt that he could not support us. He said he did not know enough about it, which was sometimes his problem as Prime Minister.

As I was saying, we should try to carry the unity of the House on this issue to the country and raise public awareness about the need for the opt-out solution we are proposing. That would be a major achievement. The Government have launched a consultation on the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who was with me in the early meetings, urged that course upon the Government. They responded quickly and to great effect: the response has been unprecedented. I am informed, unofficially, that the number of individual responses—separate, individually written letters—is now over 11,000, which is a record for any public consultation of this kind. The consultation does not finish until 6 March. I hope that the campaign will create sufficient awareness for people to find the opportunity to participate in it online via the Government’s website.

The predominantly positive response that we have been led to understand the public consultation is producing is hardly surprising—it is very welcome, but hardly surprising. According to recent reliable polling from the British Heart Foundation, up to 90% of the public said they were in favour of donation in principle, but that only 36% get around to signing the register. I think that many people are guilty, as I was for a number of years, of finding themselves in that position. That in itself suggests how effective an opt-out register could be.

Why are we actively looking towards implementing an opt-out solution at this stage? In England, for example, the situation is disappointing. We have some of the lowest rates of consent for organ donation in western Europe. Low family rates of consent have been one of the major barriers to the donor rate increasing. In effect, that prevents one third of available organs from being used. They go straight to the grave or to the crematorium. None of us likes to think about the worst happening, and it is challenging to have conversations with family and loved ones about one’s wishes after death. However, one of the Bill’s principal aims must be to encourage open discussions among families, so that an individual’s real wishes are known to their nearest and dearest. I think it reasonable to say that in the majority of cases, given the outcome of the consultation and what we know from the polls, people would wish to donate their organs after their death.

However, there will be those who take a different view. Perhaps even one or two in the Chamber feel that way and will make their feelings known in the debate. In no way do I wish them to feel that they have been railroaded into decisions that they do not wish to take. Therefore, I emphasise to those who feel that they cannot lend their support or have doubts about the Bill at this stage that soft opt-out provisions will be built into it. Naturally, I imagine that there will be a fair amount of discussion about those in Committee. I assure hon. Members that, as the Bill’s promoter, I give them my fullest personal commitment to approach discussions about the opt-outs in the spirit of sympathetic open-mindedness.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I am here to support the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, but I ask him to engage with the Jewish community to see whether he can allay their concerns about how it might affect observance with their religious teachings.

[Mr Robinson]

I am very pleased to have taken that intervention. I remember that one of the former Prime Ministers who supports us—Gordon Brown—wanted to introduce an opt-out system, but came up against a fairly immovable block in the then Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Sacks, who said then that at no cost could he commit the Jewish community to supporting it. That rather held matters up and the Government were then overtaken by other matters with that Bill, but yes, we will do that. I have been in touch, and we believe that the council itself has made an official statement supporting the Bill.