NHS Outsourcing and Privatisation

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), but I come at this debate with a real sense of frustration, because the NHS is once again right at the heart of political knockabout, which does absolutely nothing to advance the cause or to pursue better patient care. I am frustrated that the word “privatisation” is so readily bandied around for cynical ends to scare the public and to try to give a misleading picture of what is happening for dogmatic reasons.

Nobody is seeking to privatise the NHS, but it was Labour that introduced competition into the NHS. What does that mean? It means that there is often greater capacity to treat people more quickly based on demand. What could possibly be wrong with buying in 100 hip operations, for example, if people get treated more quickly, if they are getting the best possible care and if they are fit and well sooner? Who could possibly argue with that? Not a single constituent of mine would argue that there is anything wrong with that. Surely they matter most in all this.

Labour Members hark on about money and not about outcomes—we do not hear anything about outcomes; we hear just about money, often in crude terms. A more effective debate today would have been about moving the agenda forward. We could have talked about things such as prevention. I am all for discussing prevention—at Prime Minister’s questions today, I talked about prevention through the daily mile, which would be a welcome step. In a time of increasing demand, prevention means that we are able to provide better care and that people do not get into desperate situations. It is often more effective for the taxpayer. Prevention means that people will be fitter and healthier for longer, which we should focus on.

The Government have consistently increased health spending year on year since 2010. I would be happy for a Labour Member to intervene and answer this question. Why have they not supported this Government’s increases in health spending? Could they say which services would have less money if we had taken their advice, given that we would be starting from a lower base? Back in 2010, the former shadow Health Secretary, who is now metro Mayor of Manchester, said:

“I am putting the ball right back in…Osborne’s…court. It is irresponsible to increase NHS spending in real terms within the overall financial envelope that he, as chancellor, is setting.”

On the prevalence of private providers in the health service, currently less than 8% of the NHS budget is spent via private providers. The rate at which that has increased since 2010 has been slower than the rate under the Labour party, under whose Administration the NHS spent around 5% on private providers. The motion is a bit churlish. It does not focus on what we should focus on, which is patients, better care and moving the agenda towards the direction of prevention.

It frustrates me enormously that we use terms such as privatisation so readily, while knowing full well that they give a misleading picture to the public. We hear a lot of complaining from Labour Members, but, as with police and local government funding, and stamp duty for first-time buyers, when the Government find solutions, Labour Members vote against them. People will make their own minds up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to do more, because this is a very serious issue. I think that she is being slightly unfair on our first initiative. The sugary drinks tax has been responsible for 45 million kg of sugar being removed from the market, which is enormously important for children. There is more to be done and I hope that we will be able to announce plans soon.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

The Daily Mile initiative in schools has huge potential in reducing childhood obesity, improving academic attainment, and improving the mental wellbeing of our young people. Will my right hon. Friend look closely at that and have conversations across Government about the benefits it could bring?

[Mr Hunt]

That is an excellent initiative from Scotland, and it shows why we all benefit from being in the United Kingdom together. Yes, we will look at it very closely.

Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

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

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Gentleman puts that as well as it could possibly be expressed. That is entirely the motivation behind the Bill. We are losing too many people each year because they need organs, and it would be a poor Health Minister who did not do their best to remedy that. He is absolutely right to describe the very real impact when we see people in that situation. I have been on my own journey with my constituent, who has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). My constituent painfully lost her daughter, who was waiting for a transplant, and she has used that experience to campaign for this important cause. She has also taken the step of becoming an altruistic donor herself. Who could fail to be inspired by such a story? I am pleased to be able to deliver on the promise that I made to Patricia, when she came to see me for the first time, that I would do everything I could to secure more organ donations. And here we are today, delivering that.

Last October, the Prime Minister pledged her personal support to change the law on organ donation and, in doing so, to help more people across the country to achieve an organ transplant. We should also remember the contribution of Max Johnson, whose struggle was embraced by the nation and who has done so much to highlight this important cause. As a consequence, we in the Government will be referring to this legislation as Max’s law, and we will do everything we can to ensure its passage. In that regard, I am grateful for the Opposition’s support, which will ensure that it has a speedy passage. With such cross-party commitment, we should not fail. As Max, his family and families all over the country who have experienced life on the transplant waiting list know, organ donation is a precious gift, and the family of Keira Ball deserve our special tribute. The fact that she has saved four lives is incredibly inspirational.

I want to echo the tributes that have been paid to the Daily Mirror. We do not often talk about national newspapers in a complimentary way in this House, but the Daily Mirror has done a fantastic job of highlighting this cause. This illustrates what the press can achieve when it puts its mind to something positive. I echo the tribute paid to “Coronation Street” by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). Like her, I am pretty addicted to the soaps, and we should not leave out “EastEnders”, which highlighted live liver transplantation last year. She was right to say that the soap operas have also been good at highlighting mental health, but it is particularly apposite that we have seen the organ donation story this week. I commend “Coronation Street” for tweeting a link to the Government consultation in the immediate wake of that programme, which I think is a first. It would be helpful if soap operas highlighted future Government consultations, but I do not think it will be common.

I will be fairly brief in addressing some of the points that have been raised. A number of Members expressed concern about moving from an opt-in system to an opt-out system, and I reassure them that the concept of organ donation being a gift voluntarily given by the donor remains central to the Bill’s principles. There can be no question of the state taking control of organs, which is why the ability to opt out is central to the Bill. Opting out will have to be made extremely easy, and people will have to be able to continually revisit their decision if they wish to change their mind.

It is also central to the Bill that family consent is respected. The circumstance in which someone is able to donate their organs is clearly traumatic and difficult. In considering the whole period at the end of life and the struggle that surgeons are undertaking to save lives, it is important that we are sensitive about that time. We need to be sure that, once someone has lost the capacity to give consent, their family, as next of kin, have their rights protected. I have no doubt that we will explore some of those issues in Committee.

I put on record the representations I have had from the medical establishment, which would feel uncomfortable if consent were not sought from the family. In developing a regime that secures more organs but is also sensitive to everybody’s views, we are able to strike the right balance in the Bill.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

I entirely support the Bill. Has the Department given any early thought to public engagement, so that people are aware of any changes coming into force and of what those changes mean?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend will be aware that we are consulting on the principles enshrined in this Bill. That consultation will end on 6 March, and we will reflect on those representations. As we have already heard, we are seeing an unprecedented response to the consultation, and there is a substantial degree of support. The consultation will inform our communications.

We have also heard a lot about the high incidence of people from Asian and black backgrounds on the waiting list, and again that is a priority for the Government. The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) said MPs should show leadership. We are leaders, and it is certainly something that I want to do. I have a large black African community in my constituency that I am engaging with on this issue. With that in mind, I have tasked NHS Blood and Transplant to develop MP toolkits that we can all use to go out into the community to sell the concept of organ donation. As and when those toolkits are available, I hope to have support from many Members in rolling out that communication.

Acute and Community Health

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right to allude to the importance of learning lessons, especially given that there are many vulnerable people in prisons, and given the risks that accrue as a result. Yesterday I spoke to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is responsible for offender management issues, and the Prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), visited Liverpool prison last week. I know that they have both taken a great interest in the report, and that they will take any further action that is needed.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend envisage an ongoing oversight role for Dr Kirkup that would enable him to help to put these failures right?

[Stephen Barclay]

I should be happy to discuss any such future opportunities with Dr Kirkup. His excellent report builds on the work that he did at Morecambe, and I think there is a huge amount for us to take forward from its findings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I point the hon. Gentleman to what the King’s Fund says, which is that accountable care organisations and integrated care systems make a “massive difference” in care to patients. The King’s Fund is not a pro-Government organisation; it regularly holds the Government to account at election time and throughout the year. Not just the King’s Fund but Polly Toynbee and many other people are saying that.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

It is very positive that Corby clinical commissioning group has announced that core urgent care services will be protected in Corby, along with the announced new GP access and new primary care facilities, but will the Minister join me in keeping a close eye on the CCG as it designs the new access arrangements? People need to be able to access those urgent care services at the right place, at the right time and without delay.

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the funding going into Corby, and it is a tribute to his campaigning as a constituency MP that there is such progress on that measure. I am happy to look at the specific issue. It is important that the CCG continues to consult both Members of Parliament and the public as it takes that work forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady raises exactly the point that we are trying to address through the Green Paper. We are committed to delivering on the four-week waiting time by 2020, which will make sure that we treat over 70,000 more children with mental health issues that need to be addressed. I will be quite honest: this is not where I want us to be, but that is exactly why the Government have made it a priority and we will deliver by 2020.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to relieve pressure on A&E departments.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

The Budget announced an extra £337 million to help NHS trusts to deal with the pressures of winter.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, and I welcome the additional £2.6 million for Kettering General Hospital. As he knows, the Corby urgent care centre is a vital service that helps to relieve pressure on Kettering General’s A&E all year round. What role does he see such facilities playing in relieving pressures, particularly during the winter period?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his campaigning, and I am delighted that the Budget allocated an extra £2.4 million to help Kettering General Hospital. He is absolutely right that urgent care centres play a vital role in keeping people away from busy A&E departments. We need to be better at signposting the public so that they know when to go to a GP surgery, when to go to an urgent care centre and when to go to a hospital.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point but I think that we are all agreed in this House—certainly in this debate—that we need to balance rights and liberties with the need to achieve safety. I can say, quite categorically, that this Bill goes a long way towards achieving that.

The Government support the principles set out in the Bill, but we accept—as I think the hon. Member for Croydon North would—that there is still some work to do on the detail regarding the right mechanisms and processes. We can explore those matters in Committee and we are fully behind the Bill’s Second Reading.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the thrust of the Bill is about accountability, and that the measures provide protection for the individual patient and for the professionals working around them?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I agree with that point very ably made by my hon. Friend. The Bill brings real accountability and transparency, which will protect everyone in the system.

I welcome the opportunity to debate the Bill, and to highlight some of the progress we have already made on some of the provisions that the Bill seeks to introduce and strengthen. First, we should examine the issue of restrictive restraint. It is not a great picture, to be frank. Information from NHS Digital shows that more than 6,000 people who spent time in hospital in 2013-14 were subject to at least one incident of restraint. Collectively, these people experienced more than 23,000 incidents of restraint, with 960 people having been restrained five or more times in a year. As colleagues across the House have said, that can cause real trauma and should be avoided at all costs. The group who experienced the highest proportion of restraint per 1,000 inpatients was the category labelled “mixed ethnic group”, with 101 incidents of restraint per 1,000 in-patients. We need to get to the bottom of why that is the case. There is a link between the use of restraint and particular points in the patient pathway. For example, in 2015, the survey of restraint commissioned by the Government found that 23.6% of restraint incidents occurred in the first week of admission. We have discussed gender, and I can confirm that 54.7% of people who were restrained were men, compared with 42.5% being women. That clearly does not reflect the gender balance of people in detention.

Members have referred to the fact that on Monday the House welcomed the publication of Dame Elish Angiolini’s independent review of deaths and serious incidents in police custody, and the Government response. The report is thorough and identifies room for improvement at every stage in procedures and processes surrounding deaths in police custody. It makes 110 recommendations on the use of restraint, on training for officers and on making it easier for families facing an inquest into a death in police custody to access legal aid. The hon. Member for Croydon North is concerned about that issue.

The extent to which restraint techniques contribute to a death in custody and whether current training is fit for purpose is a crucial aspect of Dame Elish’s report. Police training and practice emphasise that under certain circumstances any form of restraint can potentially lead to death, so the National Police Chiefs Council and the College of Policing continue to ensure that legal, medical and tactical advice are embedded in the national personal safety manual, especially in relation to the challenges of prone restraint and mental health issues.

Members have expressed views on the use of restraint, particularly prone restraint, with some of them suggesting that that type of restraint should be banned altogether. I was at Broadmoor yesterday, and I was told about a man who had experienced a head injury and needed stitches. Because of the challenges of his behaviour and mental health condition, prone restraint was used. I am not condoning the use of prone restraint in that situation or in any other, but I will say some words of caution. We need to understand restraint and define it clearly before introducing an outright ban. The guidance says that prone restraint should be used only as a last resort, and we must be careful not to put staff at risk by introducing a blanket ban without understanding more about the circumstances in which that type of restraint might be necessary.

In August this year, the CQC published its report, “The state of care in mental health services 2014-2017”, which identified variations in the frequency with which staff used restrictive practices to manage people with challenging behaviour. It is looking at the issue more closely, and it has committed to reviewing how it assesses the use of restrictive interventions, including developing and regularly updating tools for inspection teams to ensure consistency of assessment and reporting. We believe that the variations are as much due to the principles behind the making of reports as differences in behaviour.

As part of its annual report, “Monitoring the Mental Health Act”, the CQC is developing a publication to highlight areas of good practice in reducing the need for restrictive interventions. Colleagues at the CQC have indicated that they support the principles of better reporting, improved training and accountability, and greater transparency under the Bill, and it is vital that we engage with that as we take this forward.

Turning to the measures in the Bill, there is provision for front-line staff to receive training in equality and non-discrimination, as well as awareness of conduct prohibited under the Equality Act 2010; a trauma-informed approach to care; and, critically, techniques to avoid and reduce the use of force. Individual providers are expected to ensure that all their staff are appropriately trained in the use of force, and there are many training programmes available to health service providers The Bill will help us to address the variation across the system in the training received by staff. Healthcare providers are encouraged to focus training on de-escalation and on understanding the causes of challenging behaviour, and to reflect on incidents of restraint to see how they can be reduced or avoided for both the individual concerned and for all service users.

Treating and caring for people in a safe, compassionate environment both for patients and staff is a priority for this Government. We know that restrictive physical interventions are risky for all individuals involved and that they have a negative impact on patients’ dignity and their trust in services. We have made progress since the publication of “Positive and proactive care: reducing the need for restrictive interventions” in April 2014. This guidance focuses on the use of preventive approaches and de-escalation for managing behaviour that services may find challenging. It also recommends that all restrictive interventions should be for the shortest time possible and use the least restrictive means to meet the immediate need. The guidance introduced an expectation that services develop restrictive intervention reduction plans. These plans, along with organisations’ relative use of restraint in comparison with other organisations, form a key focus of the CQC inspections. We expect the CQC to use its regulatory powers to ensure that services minimise the use of force and other restrictive interventions, including face-down restraint.

Our colleagues in the police are training officers on how to respond to calls that relate to those with mental health conditions and people with learning difficulties. The revised national police guidance on authorised professional practice on mental health was published by the College of Policing in October last year. It aims to give officers the knowledge they need to resolve situations and ensure that the public get the most appropriate service. While the police are not, and are not expected to be, mental health professionals, they are often first on the scene at incidents involving those experiencing a mental health crisis. The aim is therefore to ensure that officers can respond appropriately.

On data collection, the Bill seeks to gain more detailed information in relation to incidents of force used in mental health settings. From January 2016, NHS Digital has collected information about the use of face-down restraint as part of the mental health services dataset. There is still a lot of work to be done on the quality of the data, as the hon. Member for Croydon North said, as they do not currently go into the amount of detail that the Bill would require. However, we are confident that we can make changes to improve the transparency of the information that we collect.

Corby Urgent Care Centre

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Corby urgent care centre.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I have to say that in the two and a half years I have been a Member of this place, this is the first Westminster Hall debate that I have ever applied for. The reason is that I think we should use these sorts of opportunity sparingly, for issues that are very pertinent and significant for our constituents. This issue matters very much to people in Corby and the surrounding area, so I felt that it warranted a debate. I am delighted that this opportunity has been granted.

I want to emphasise at the outset that the facility we have in Corby at the moment—the Corby urgent care centre—is class-leading, hugely popular, well used and a beacon of best practice. I know that representatives of Lakeside Plus, which is the current provider, are watching this debate closely. At this point, I want to say a huge thank you to Lakeside Plus for the quality of service it has provided since 2012, when the Corby urgent care centre opened under the coalition Government. I am proud that it was Conservatives in government who delivered this class-leading facility for my constituents. The dedicated staff who work there day in, day out do a remarkable job, and that is something I hear all the time. When I knock on doors in the constituency and am out in the town centre, that is the message I hear loud and clear.

Back on 20 July, I spoke in the final debate before the summer recess, which was an important opportunity, given the press release issued by Corby clinical commissioning group on 13 July that led to concern locally about the potential loss of this service at the end of September. Fortunately, we are in a better position now than we were when I spoke in that debate on 20 July. That is because on 29 August, the governing body of the CCG met, and the CCG subsequently communicated with me to advise that at that meeting a number of things had been agreed to, including a rolling four-month extension to Lakeside Plus’s contract, subject to legal agreement, and a “robust timeline” for patient, public and stakeholder engagement and consultation. That is obviously a very important step forward and, in some respects, provides reassurance to my constituents in the short term.

I understand that the contract extension has not yet been agreed, and the clock is ticking. Once we get to the end of September, that is the cliff edge. I want to see urgent action taken by the CCG, getting around the table with Lakeside Plus to get the contract signed, to take the cliff edge out of the equation, because that is what my constituents are most worried about at this point—and with good reason, because we can conclude that, were the facility to close on 30 September, it would be very difficult for it to be reopened. We must avoid that cliff edge, and I urge everybody concerned to get around the table and ensure that we get the agreement signed as quickly as possible.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on his tireless efforts, not only in this House but locally in Corby, to fight this cause. It is a hugely popular facility. My constituents in Kettering know that without the Corby urgent care centre, the pressure on Kettering General Hospital would be even greater. The Minister knows how busy Kettering General Hospital is because he had the good heart to visit it recently. I am 100% behind my hon. Friend in his campaign.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been unstinting in his support for the Corby urgent care centre and the local campaign. He recognises, quite rightly, the pressures that the facility relieves Kettering General Hospital of. Kettering General Hospital is obviously a very important facility in our community. I will touch on those pressures a little bit later, but I very much appreciate his support for what we are doing.

I have talked about the short-term situation. In the longer term, the CCG appears to be committed to much more thorough consultation, first with a pre-consultation, and followed by a thorough consultation on options, which I understand would run between November and January. I welcome that, but I am clear that corners must not be cut in that process. The whole community must be engaged. It is not enough to engage with a group of 700 people in a patient participation group; that is just not good enough.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. His reference to Kettering General Hospital and this fairly narrow consultation leads me to ask whether he agrees that not only Kettering General Hospital but Northampton General Hospital would be impacted by this. Have those he has been working with made references to that in the course of their discussions?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my county colleague for his intervention. He is absolutely right. As this campaign has progressed since July, I have been receiving communication from people across the county and from outside the county who say they make use of the Corby urgent care centre rather than going to the acute hospitals in our area. I have no doubt that not only Kettering General Hospital but Northampton General Hospital would be affected. This is not just a Corby issue by any means, although it is obviously very important to Corby residents. It is also fundamental to the wider health infrastructure of north Northamptonshire.

I want Corby CCG to be very aware of and alive to the fact that I will be watching the consultation process ahead of us like a hawk, because the consultation that has gone on previously has not been good enough. I think the CCG would recognise, if it were honest, that that has not been good enough, and we need to see improvement. I will not hesitate to ask difficult questions, should they need to be asked. I will also be clear with the CCG that it ought to make no mistake that in the long term we need urgent care facilities in our town. There are a number of key reasons for that.

The first is the growth agenda. There can be no doubt that in north Northamptonshire, there will be increasing pressures on our health infrastructure more generally in the years ahead. We are taking thousands and thousands of new homes, not just in Corby but in east Northamptonshire, Kettering and Wellingborough. That inevitably brings pressures for existing health services.

I have already referred to the KGH pressures, which are very pertinent. I am pleased, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) will be, that the recent Care Quality Commission inspection saw quite considerable improvement compared with the last inspection. We welcome that, but I do not want to see all that good work undone by additional people who would previously have gone to the Corby urgent care centre turning up at A&E.

One flaw in the CCG’s argument to date has been that it has never been able to account for the number of people who currently go to the urgent care centre and who, if that were not available, would go on to Kettering General Hospital. I am very concerned about that. We must not forget that last year, 70,000 people made use of the Corby urgent care centre, and only 6% of those went on to Kettering General Hospital for further treatment. That gives us an idea of the impact here. I think we would also all recognise that Corby has significant and acute health needs, particularly on the back of the fact that we are an industrial town. Our town has been built on our industries, which inevitably leads to acute health needs among the local population.

I know that local people share my strength of feeling on this. The “Save Corby Urgent Care Centre” group has done a fantastic job, particularly online, harnessing local opinion and local support for the campaign. In fact, tomorrow night at the end of business, I shall present a petition signed by more than 2,500 local people in support of the urgent care centre. I pay tribute to Lyn Buckingham, Maria Bryan and others for the work that they have been doing on the issue.

As the local Member of Parliament, I am proud to say that the fact that we have a Labour council in Corby does not mean that we do not work together for what is best for the people of our area. Tom Beattie, the Labour leader of the council, and I have worked very closely on this issue, as we do on others, such as the steel issue, because party politics does not matter when it comes to these issues. People do not want to see politicians squabbling and arguing about petty points; they want solutions to the problems, so I am pleased that that cross-party work continues in our community. I want to say again a big thank you to my Northamptonshire colleagues for their support on this issue, because, as I said, it affects not just my constituents, but people in their areas.

The final thing giving me heart in terms of the strength of local feeling is that I launched a parliamentary postcode campaign on this issue, and although not that many have yet been delivered—that process is going on at the moment—we are seeing hundreds and hundreds returned. I look forward to the opportunity to present sacks of those cards to the commissioners in the months ahead, as part of the consultation process, to hammer home how strongly we as a community feel about the issue. They are also coming in thick and fast on email, and not just from people in Northamptonshire.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his interest. Obviously, we have just had a recess, which is not necessarily a particularly good time for challenges to occur in constituencies, but I have really appreciated the fact that he has always been willing and available to talk about this issue when concerns have been brought to my attention. That availability is appreciated. Often, politicians are accused of talking about problems, raising issues, but having no solutions. When I look at this issue, there are some things that really stand out for me that I think are just common sense. What concerns me is that when we look at the figures for same-day access in Corby, for example, we are not doing well enough. There are clearly key challenges ahead, and the CCG’s performance on that particular matter has to improve.

However, that should not be at the expense of urgent care facilities in the town, and local people should not be penalised in relation to the urgent care centre as a result of the current contract not having been handled as it should have been by the commissioners. Obviously, the expert determination speaks to that point. I do not need to say any more on that, but local people should not be penalised, in terms of the health services available to them going forward, as a result of the contract not having been handled as it should have been.

It is clear to me that if we improved GP access, the cost of the urgent care centre service would reduce, because if more of my constituents, or more of those people from the surrounding areas, could see their GP on the day that they needed an appointment, they would not have cause to go to the urgent care centre, where they have perhaps been going because the access has not been good enough to date. It should be about doing both: improving GP access at the same time as providing urgent care facilities. I argue very strongly that the cost of the urgent care facilities would be less were the GP access better.

I will continue to advance these arguments in the months ahead. I am conscious that county colleagues who are present may want to say a few words, so I shall wrap up, but I want to be very clear about the fact that losing this facility would be a betrayal of local people. The proof is in the pudding: it is making an impact. The idea of losing it is obscene when we consider that other areas look at Corby urgent care centre with envy. For example, people in Wellingborough want to see, at the Isebrook site, a very similar service replicated. Were we to lose Corby urgent care centre, that would also undermine the whole model that we have been working on, cross-party, for some years. I am talking about a hub-and-spoke model—ensuring that we have the urgent care hub on the Kettering General Hospital site, with a spoke in Wellingborough and a spoke in Corby. That makes absolute sense, and I do not want the good work that has been done on it undone, because this facility is class-leading and can demonstrate that it has made quite an impact. I say again that I am in no doubt that losing the facility would be a disaster for Kettering General Hospital. I also recognise that Corby CCG has responsibility for Kettering General Hospital as its pinned CCG.

As I said in the debate before the summer recess, my message to the CCG remains very clear: please don’t let us down.

Contaminated Blood

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

As I have said, that was the first of what I hope will be many conversations. Arrangements were made for the campaign groups in Scotland to dial into the meeting, so that they could participate. I have already started discussions with the Scottish Government about how this inquiry will play out and affect the position in Scotland. I am pleased to say that we are having those discussions in a spirit of healthy co-operation. In particular, we are looking at how we can make use of what has already been gone through with the Penrose inquiry. We will continue to have dialogue, and we are very sensitive to those issues.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

At the weekend, I saw my constituent, Sue Wathen, whose case I raised in the debate last week. She was delighted with the Government’s commitment. The one issue that she particularly wants to see considered is that of access to appropriate treatments for victims. For most victims, that is the most important issue. Will my hon. Friend feed that back?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is exactly the sort of thing we need to hear from this consultation when we are setting the scope, and clearly access to treatment is very important. I encourage him to ask his constituent to write in and make those points.

Contaminated Blood

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

May I, too, welcome you to your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am absolutely delighted. I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) on her brilliant maiden speech and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for being such a doughty champion of this issue in Parliament.

This debate has been conducted in a way we can all recognise as hugely positive. It has been very constructive, which I think is what people out there in the country would expect—they would expect us to conduct this debate responsibly because this issue very much affects people’s lives. I am acutely aware of that because one of my constituents who has been caught up in this tragedy is Sue Wathen, a local teacher whose husband is a councillor. They are friends I care about very much. Rather like several of my colleagues, I was shocked when, shortly after I was elected, Sue and Peter asked me to go around to their house, where they told me all about the things they had gone through and the difficulties that Sue was facing in trying to access the Harvoni treatment that she so desperately needed.

I know that Sue will be sat at home watching this debate and will welcome the Government’s announcement no end. Things went so disastrously wrong in the past and we need to get to the bottom of that. A particular shock to Sue was that she was diagnosed as having her condition after some 30 years. It was a bombshell: she was marking books in her office at school when she received the telephone call telling her that she had this condition.

The most welcome thing about today’s announcement is the firm commitment to ensure that the victims of this tragedy are properly listened to and are really involved in shaping the inquiry. There are lessons to be learned from what happened with Hillsborough. It does not surprise me in the slightest that the Prime Minister is so committed to addressing this issue: we have seen her take up a number of injustices, of which Hillsborough is one example. I hope that we can get to the bottom of this particular tragedy. The victims know how it affects them on a day-to-day basis. They know what the consequences are for their families and they should be listened to and encouraged to help shape the inquiry.

One key point that I suspect will come up in these discussions in the weeks and months ahead is access to treatment. Unfortunately, from time to time, NHS bureaucracy gets in the way of people accessing treatments. In Sue’s case, we went through a multitude of dramas to get the Harvoni treatment that she so desperately needed. In the end, we were successful. I am very grateful to Ministers for all their efforts in helping to achieve that. I remember what Sue said to me when we first had that early conversation. She said, “I am not worried about compensation; I just want to get better.” There is a lot in that. These are all issues that the public inquiry should consider and address. I welcome it very much and look forward to the debates ahead.