NHS Long-Term Plan

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do that. My hon. Friend asks the same question as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). These matters are now decided at arm’s length by NHS England because we think that the fairest way is to take the politics out of it, but I am happy to work with him to engage with NHS England on the Cornish questions.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I listened to what the Secretary of State said earlier about how there can be no transformation of the NHS without a proper emphasis on public health. How will the planned £800 million of cuts to public health help with that transformation, particularly when it comes to tackling the child obesity crisis, the growing sexual health services crisis and the cuts to addiction services, which are causing enormous problems for individuals and the communities now having to deal with them?

[Mr Hunt]

I fully recognise the pressures the hon. Lady is talking about. I said what I said about public health because I do not believe there is a sustainable long-term solution to NHS funding pressures unless we have an equally sustainable solution for public health, and indeed for social care, which she also talks about. She will have to wait for us to negotiate our next spending review settlement to understand how we intend to address those.

Learning Disabilities Mortality Review

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important issue. Sepsis is a silent killer. If not identified early, it can lead to life-changing implications or death. She is right that we have made great steps in addressing sepsis. Only a couple of weeks ago, we launched a new e-learning tool to help healthcare professionals better identify the symptoms of sepsis, particularly in children, so they can tackle it early.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Minister has spoken a lot about being committed to improvements in this area. Does she think it is acceptable that she did not know a report in this important area was to be published on Friday? Why did she not come to make a statement today, rather than waiting to be summoned to the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley)?

[Caroline Dinenage]

What is unacceptable is that people with learning disabilities have poorer health outcomes than the rest of the population, which is why NHS England commissioned this piece of work and why we are determined to address it.

Breast Cancer Screening

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I assure him that the review being done by Lynda Thomas, one of the most senior cancer campaigners in the country, and Professor Gore, one of the most senior oncologists in the country, will look at what lessons can be learned for the entire cancer programme, and not just at the specific issue of why this particular IT problem occurred.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The statement the Secretary of State has made today is truly shocking, and many women and their families will be very worried this afternoon. The Secretary of State said that it is estimated that 309,000 women in this group are still alive and that the first 65,000 letters are going out this week. Why are the letters not going out this afternoon to all 309,000 women? Why are we having to wait until the end of May to put at rest the minds of these women and their families?

[Mr Hunt]

That is a reasonable question, and I assure the hon. Lady that we are sending these letters out as quickly as we possibly can, but we felt that, even though we are not able to send them all out this afternoon—for example, because we have to reconcile with the clinical databases in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for women who have moved to those areas and that is going to take place later this month—it was important to come to the House as soon as possible, without delay, to inform Members that this was happening. There will be a period of a few weeks during which people will have to wait to see if they get one of the letters, and we fully appreciate that that will cause a lot of worry to the women involved.

NHS Staff Pay

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do so. Work-life balance is something that we need to handle a lot better. I think we have been slow to recognise that today’s NHS staff are likely to live in households in which both partners are working and that juggling life and work has therefore become much more complex than it was 30 or 40 years ago. The reform of the increments system means that there will be more focus on training and skills, which will be much more motivating for NHS staff, so I hope that my hon. Friend’s wife is pleased.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s change of heart in awarding a pay rise to our hard-working NHS staff. May I pursue the point made by the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)? Our Committee’s report emphasised that continuing professional development was key to the retention of nurses. It was not clear to me from what the Secretary of State said whether money would be ring-fenced—sadly, the amount has been cut—to ensure that nurses can access CPD not only in the NHS, but in social care settings.

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise that there have been pressures on the CPD budget, and that is because we have made increasing the number of nurse training places our main priority. We have increased that by 25%, which has meant that difficult decisions have had to be made about other parts of the budget. I can reassure the hon. Lady, however, that I think that CPD will continue to have a vital role, and we will need to return to the issue.

Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

As I have said, the overall budget is the money we have promised in the Green Paper, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Green Paper has at its heart a focus on prevention and significant support—in early years, through schools and, as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned, through higher education—to prevent issues from snowballing in the first place.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

With the understaffing of mental health services and the recent Health Select Committee report on the nursing shortage, does the Minister accept that the Government’s decision to remove nursing bursaries, which has particularly affected the number of students training to be mental health nurses, was a mistake?

[Steve Brine]

No, I do not accept that it was a mistake. We need to increase the number of people coming into nursing, and we were turning away far too many who wanted to come into it. The workforce is obviously a huge challenge across the NHS, in primary care—my area—in secondary care and, of course, in mental health, which is why the Secretary of State has said we will create 21,000 new posts by 2021 to support one of the biggest expansions in mental health services in Europe.

Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is the right question to ask. I suggested in the statement that we might need a patients’ champion whose job would be to collect the experiences and views of patients who think that they may have suffered as a result of medicine or medical devices. However, we want Baroness Cumberlege to look at the issue in much more detail. The central point is that if we are to avoid the agonies experienced by my hon. Friend’s constituents, the patient’s voice needs to be as strong as the clinician’s in discussions about the efficacy of medicines or medical devices. That clearly has not been happening to date, but I think that we are moving away from the paternalist system that has operated in the past, and the review will constitute a further step in that direction.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know the phrase

“the patronising disposition of unaccountable power”,

which applied in the Hillsborough families’ fight to get justice, and applies, it seems to me, in what has happened to the groups affected by today’s statement. Will the Secretary of State explain why Baroness Cumberlege’s report will not come straight to Parliament, so it can make a decision about how patients can get justice quicker than has happened in many cases such as the ones we are discussing today?

[Mr Hunt]

Those words about the patronising disposition of unaccountable power came from Bishop James Jones, who has made an extraordinary contribution as a voice for people whose voices have been ignored for too long. The House will have every opportunity to debate Baroness Cumberlege’s report. The Government will decide their actions and we will put them to the House, which will have every opportunity to listen, make suggestions for improvements, and to become involved at every stage of the process as we take this forward.

NHS Winter Crisis

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

We all knew this was going to be a difficult winter for the NHS, but I just wondered whether the Minister felt that his Department had helped the situation by delaying the announcement of additional funds until the November Budget, with most trusts not receiving that money until December. That meant that my trust, for example, had to make plans without knowing whether it would get additional funding and that it was taking a risk.

[Stephen Barclay]

The Labour party seems to have moved from complaining about the amount of money to complaining that it was not delivered early enough. The hon. Lady’s trust received £3.4 million of additional money, but, as Sir Bruce Keogh has made clear, the point is that preparation for winter this year began much earlier than normal and was far better advanced than has been the case before. That is what the medical director of the NHS has said about how we prepared for winter this year.

Patient Transport Services: Northern Lincolnshire

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. This is the problem. In many ways, it is nice that Thames Ambulance Service have met him. The correspondence that I have repeatedly sent them, chased by their official complaints procedure, by their chief executive, has not been responded to. So constituents who have not had a response have come to me, and I have then gone to Thames Ambulance Service, which has not responded to me. The service has not got any better. I will cite a few of the examples that my constituents have given, which are similar to my hon. Friend’s experience.

These experiences are being wrought on very vulnerable people. I want to go through a number of examples from my constituency. I will not name patients.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this evening’s debate. In Hull, we were also covered by Thames Ambulance Service. They are already under a contract performance notice because of their failure to do what their contract says they should. A constituent—a cancer patient—contacted me just today to tell me about being left, being forgotten, not being able to get to chemotherapy sessions, not being able to get to radiotherapy sessions. That constituent had seen people who had had to wait up to four hours for a journey back to Scarborough or Lincolnshire, in a waiting area with only upright chairs, when all one would want to do at that stage is sleep. It is totally unacceptable and the service does not seem to have improved, despite that contract performance notice.

[Andrew Percy]

It is saddening that the same experiences are happening just across the river in the city of Hull as well. This appears to be a consistent theme wherever this company provides ambulance transport services. Unfortunately, the hon. Lady describes an experience that many of my constituents have shared.

In fairness to the north Lincolnshire clinical commissioning group, it has, through the scrutiny processes at North Lincolnshire Council, effectively put the company on notice and informed it that the service is not good enough. Despite that, the improvements have not happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

I completely understand why the hon. Lady is articulating that; every one of these incidents is absolutely unacceptable and in many cases very distressing. The issue with devolving such clinical decisions to local areas, however, is that we have to allow the CCG to take the necessary steps to ensure the service is put back on to a better footing.

[Diana Johnson]

This is not just one CCG; it involves more than one. I have already mentioned the fact that Hull contracts with Thames Ambulance Service. Does the Minister really think that this business—it is a profit- making business—is fit for purpose?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that point. I am aware that similar problems have been identified with the same provider in other parts of Yorkshire and the east midlands. Improvements must of course be made, which is why commissioners are working to oversee and manage the necessary improvements and trying to achieve the level of performance that is required.

Turning to the particular issues affecting northern Lincolnshire, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole and other hon. Members across the House are absolutely right to point out the problems with the services commissioned in and around their constituencies. I have read some of the cases today, including some distressing cases involving patients with conditions such as dementia and cancer experiencing long delays with their transport. Such delays are clearly a source of incredible distress for people who are already facing a very difficult time in their lives. Many of them may be very vulnerable, and we are absolutely clear that this needs to change.

North Lincolnshire CCG awarded a patient transport contract to Thames Ambulance Service in October 2016 following an open procurement process. Issues around the quality of service are acknowledged, and we are aware that people have experienced delays. That is clearly unacceptable. I assure my hon. Friend and other Members that a range of actions is being undertaken to ensure the delivery of an appropriately high-quality service. The CCG is working closely to support Thames Ambulance Service to achieve the required level of performance. It has served a contract notice to the provider based on delivery against key performance indicators, the number of patient complaints, and issues associated with data reporting.

A robust recovery plan has been put in place, and delivery against this is carefully monitored on an ongoing basis. Key actions include the recruitment of six additional staff in north Lincolnshire and the mobilisation of additional vehicles. I understand these staff have recently been trained and deployed. A patient transport co-ordinator has also been employed, working with the hospital to improve the process for patients being discharged. The CCG has also worked with the provider to improve its complaints process, and I am advised that its backlog of complaints has now been cleared.

I hope that my hon. Friend is also reassured by the level of Care Quality Commission engagement with Thames Ambulance Service. In its inspection report of April 2017, the CQC uncovered a number of areas for improvement, ultimately issuing enforcement action against the provider in respect of regulation 17, which covers good governance; regulation 13, covering safeguarding; and regulation 5, which deals with requirements relating to registered managers. The CQC continues to monitor the provider closely to ensure that the required improvements are being made. It is currently undertaking a fresh review of the service and will issue a further report when its latest inspection is complete. We expect this to be published and available online before the end of March. That will be exactly the same for the provider in the constituency of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson).

Finally, I am also advised that the CCG has reviewed the application of the eligibility criteria for patient transport services across the area to ensure that they are being applied evenly. Through this process, it has determined that some patients who have historically accessed these services may no longer be considered eligible. We obviously have to take steps to ensure that the service is more consistent and that the CCG is working with the provider to ensure that affected patients are informed as soon as possible and given helpful advice on how to access alternative services if they are required. I would like to thank my hon. Friend again for bringing these matters to our attention, and I very much hope he is reassured that all appropriate actions are beginning to be taken to restore the delivery of effective patient transport services to his constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

NHS Winter Crisis

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

My right hon. Friend is another consistent campaigner in favour of improving the infrastructure and estate of his hospital. He has invited me to visit; I have seen it and I am well aware that the hospital trust has put in an application for a significant rebuild, which will be considered in the allocation of the next phase of sustainability and transformation plan funding.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Up to 31 December, more than 400 patients had to wait an hour outside the A&E at Hull Royal Infirmary, and a further 1,000 had to wait half an hour. Has the time not come for the Minister to accept that the NHS does not have enough beds and to reverse the policy of cutting beds, which has happened under successive Governments? This Government need to take action now.

[Mr Dunne]

I indicated in my opening remarks that this Government have taken action. We have freed up the number of beds available through the DToC procedure, with an increase of 1,100 in the run-up to winter. We have also, as a result of the extra money we have been given, including the several million pounds given to the hon. Lady’s area, provided an additional 2,700 winter beds. The procedure for future bed closures has been made very clear by NHS England: it will not happen unless acceptable alternative community provision is available in the area.

Social Care

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. If I may, I will suggest to my hon. Friends in the Department for Education that they respond to him on those points.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

May I say how nice it is to see my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) back in her rightful place on the Front Bench? I endorse what the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), has said to the Minister. Does the Minister regret that the Chancellor failed to mention social care at all in the Budget?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think we are in danger of getting into a false debate. When I talk about social care, I do not talk about it to the exclusion of health but automatically include it. When people talk about the failure of the Chancellor to mention social care, the reality is that more money was made available to the NHS, which will benefit the social care system.