Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Again, I very much admire the effort and determination that my hon. Friend is showing to stand up for his constituents. He will know that sadly I am constrained from commenting on individual cases, but what I do know is that the innovation he is showing alongside his parish council—and, indeed, I would hope, his local integrated care board—is the approach we want to adopt across our rural and coastal communities to ensure that they, too, have the access to primary care that we all expect.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Equal access to primary care is so important, but the use of physician associates is downright dangerous. Does the Secretary of State agree that patients have the right to see a qualified GP and not be fobbed off with a two-tier primary care system?

[Victoria Atkins]

I understand the concerns—we have seen them in the media—but, please, we in this House have a responsibility to our constituents and to professionals working in healthcare, including our clinicians and physician associates. In fact, physician associates have been working in the NHS for some two decades. They are there to work with doctors to assist them, freeing up doctors’ time to focus on the tasks that only they are qualified to do. We have been very careful to listen to the concerns raised, which is why we recently announced intentions to regulate them. But, please, we must all take that responsibility for ensuring that we are not spreading concern. Actually, these roles can have a very positive effect on healthcare system.

Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Victoria Atkins

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for identifying not just the immediate impacts of sexually violent attacks but the lifelong impacts that they can have. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England are involved in all the discussions that the Deputy Prime Minister and I have on this. NHS England is particularly keen to roll out support to victims longer term as well as short term, and also to roll out the further provision of more independent sexual violence advisers, which we have committed to do by 2024-25, bringing the total to more than 1,000 ISVAs nationally. They will be critical as part of the recovery process. Having met many of them recently, I understand how valuable they can be for victims both in their recovery and in giving them the support they need to take these important criminal cases forward.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister will realise that the whole House welcomes any new measures, but could she say what is being done about some of the older cases that have been stopped in their tracks? Will she ensure that adequate resources are there for those legacy cases where justice has not been done?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Lady for raising those historical cases. They are in the system and the injection of investment—£477 million in the overall Crown court system—will help with those particular cases. One of the reasons we selected the three pilots as we did—I should say that the Lord Chief Justice very much worked on this—is that we looked at the backlog of sexual violence cases within courts. For those courts with a lot of sexual violence cases—through no fault of anyone; we are not alleging that there is any fault within the system—and with these backlogs, we hope that this enhanced specialist support will give us some evidence as to whether these measures work, with a view to going further if need be.