Covid-19 Update
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I am happy to look into it. I am also pleased that the cost of the tests that are needed for travel is coming down, and an important piece of work is under way to see how we can get that down further. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend makes a strong case for her constituent.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Face coverings are likely to remain a feature to protect against covid-19, but people with hidden disabilities who cannot wear such coverings will face abuse. Despite raising the matter on previous occasions, including once with the Prime Minister, and having been promised an awareness campaign, nothing has happened. Will the Secretary of State tell me when that campaign will happen?
Matt Hancock
Yes, an awareness campaign is under way, and I am grateful for advance notice of this question. I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the full details. He may say to me, “Sorry, Matt; more needs to be done,” in which case I will look into it, but he makes an important point on which I essentially agree with him.
UK Rare Diseases Framework
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this important debate and on her excellent opening speech.
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sickle cell and thalassaemia, I know that this subject is of great interest to people with thalassaemia. I will focus my speech on one of the four high-level priorities of the framework: improved access to specialist care, treatment and medicine. People with rare diseases say that the tantalising prospect that one day there will be a cure for the rare diseases affecting them is something that gives them hope and huge motivation, and that drives them to campaign passionately for the development, and then approval, of that medicine or therapy. When it comes to assessing the effectiveness of such drugs or treatments for rare diseases, however, the approach taken by NICE leaves a lot to be desired.
Recently, NICE gave a provisional negative appraisal to a ground-breaking gene therapy treatment that would have eliminated the need for the chronic treatment of many people with a severe form of thalassaemia. One of the contentious issues with NICE’s assessment has been the inflexibility of the arbitrary discount rates. The small number of people with rare diseases means that there is often insufficient evidence available to satisfy NICE’s assessors. I note that NICE has undertaken a methods review process in which the discount rate is a key area of potential reform, which I very much welcome. Additionally, I want to ask NICE to take greater account of the testimony from patients, because only by understanding patients’ lived experience can a committee properly assess the effectiveness of a drug or treatment.
For people with rare diseases such as thalassaemia, the approval of a drug or treatment can be the difference between life and death. It is imperative that we get this right, and that means things have to change quickly. We need the implementation of an action plan for the rare diseases framework, and we need it now.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Helen Whately
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I can tell him that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a guideline on vitamin D for covid in December. Its expert panel supported current Government advice to take vitamin D supplements through the autumn and winter. However, there is insufficient evidence that taking vitamin D mitigates effects of covid-19. I can also say that hydroxychloroquine is not recommended or authorised for the treatment of covid outside of trials.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
The tremendous efforts of our NHS cancer workforce are helping to ensure that those who need treatment can continue to access it without delay. The NHS has been clear, as have Ministers, since the beginning of the pandemic that continuation of urgent cancer care must be a priority. The NHS has established covid-secure cancer hubs, consolidated surgery, centralised triage to prioritise patients based on clinical need, and utilised the independent sector for capacity.
Bambos Charalambous
Staff at North Middlesex University Hospital have done an incredible job under difficult circumstances, delivering cancer care and treatment, but despite that the Government have acknowledged that more than 30,000 people are missing a diagnosis of cancer compared with 2019. With the cancer recovery plan due to expire at the end of March, can the Minister please set out her commitments to beat the backlog after March? How will a renewed cancer recovery plan help meet the ambitions for cancer care set out in the NHS long-term plan?
Jo Churchill
I am concerned, like the hon. Gentleman, about those who have not come forward and those who are not currently accessing treatment. I reassure him that once people do come forward, there is a speedy path to treatment. The numbers of those who are entering treatment, both on two weeks and on 31 days, is ahead of what it was at this time last year, and we are seeing enormous efforts from the cancer workforce. I am meeting this afternoon with the all-party parliamentary groups on radiotherapy and on cancer, and we will be discussing the recovery plan, which he is right goes to March. However, every single trust has been given a target to produce a plan for ongoing assessment of how it is addressing the backlog going forward.
Covid-19
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Edward Argar
My hon. Friend was a distinguished Minister in the Department for some time and rightly highlights the situation that we faced at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. It is testament to the phenomenal efforts to procure PPE of the officials in my Department, in the Paymaster General’s Department and others that we did not run out of PPE in this country. Indeed, credit for that should also go to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who ensured that throughout he put the provision of PPE and people first, even when, as we have seen, that may have led to challenges and to process not being entirely adhered to in respect of the timings for the publication of contract details. He and I have the greatest respect not only for the recent judgment, which we will consider carefully, but for the importance of transparency. I believe that my right hon. Friend did the right thing: he did everything he could to ensure that his No. 1 priority was to get that PPE procured and to the frontline to protect those who were protecting all of us and helping to save lives.
As on so many occasions over the past year, in recent weeks the British people have once again made huge sacrifices to comply with the necessary restrictions. It has been incredibly hard for individuals and businesses up and down the country, but in the figures that I have set out, we can see the impact that those sacrifices have made in helping to suppress the spread of this virus.
Despite the progress, over the past week an average of 449 people still lost their lives each day—449 families and friends who have lost loved ones. It is still far, far too many. It reminds us that, even now, as we map a brighter course forward, we must never lose sight of the threat posed by this virus.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
When I asked the Prime Minister a question about his road map a short while ago, he said that he supported a public awareness campaigns for people who cannot wear face coverings but are subject to abuse because people are not aware of their exemption. Does the Minister support such a campaign and will he make the same commitment as the Prime Minister, so that people do not face abuse, and so that people are educated and know that there are reasons why people cannot wear face coverings?
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman makes a typically measured and sensible point. He is absolutely right: those who are exempt from wearing face coverings for medical reasons should be able to go about their lives without fear of abuse or verbal or other attacks on them for not doing so. I heard what the Prime Minister said and I echo those words. The Paymaster General and I will look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman has just suggested in respect of what we can do as a Government to raise awareness of the fact that there are people who, for entirely legitimate reasons, are not wearing face coverings.
Finally, I turn to the third factor that has changed the situation for the better. That, of course, is our vaccine roll-out, which throughout has been key to the future. As of today, we have provided a first dose to over 17.5 million people. That is almost one in three adults in the United Kingdom. Vaccine take-up has surpassed our expectations. In England, for example, we have now given a first dose to 93% of the over-80s, to 96% of those aged between 70 and 79, and to 94% of eligible care home residents. Those are phenomenal achievements—the result of a huge team effort. In that context, I pay tribute to our NHS, to pharmacists, to the armed forces and, of course, to the army of volunteers who have done their bit to help make this process run as smoothly as it has.
Those are vital achievements because we know that vaccines save lives. The cohorts we are currently working to vaccinate by mid-April represent some 99% of covid deaths, but we will not rest until we can offer that protection to everyone. We urge, and I would urge, everyone who has been offered the vaccine to take up that offer, as I will certainly be doing when I become eligible to receive it. It is safe and it is saving lives.
With an average of 358,341 doses being given each and every day in the UK and more vaccines coming on stream in the spring, I believe that we can confidently begin to look to the future. That is why a few moments ago, at this Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister set out his road map for how we will carefully but irreversibly unlock our country. As he set out, it is based on four tests: first, that the vaccine deployment programme continues successfully; secondly, that evidence shows that vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths; thirdly, that infection rates do not pose a risk of a surge in hospitalisations that would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS; and fourthly, that our assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by new variants of the virus that cause concern.
Our road map out of lockdown will be taken, as my right hon. Friend set out, in four steps, each step reflecting the reality on the ground, not just our understandable expectations and desires. At every stage, our decisions will be led by data, not dates, with at least five weeks between steps; we will review the data every four weeks and give one week’s notice of any changes. The dates that my right hon. Friend set out today are not target dates; they are, importantly, “no earlier than” dates. We will continue to undertake statutory reviews, including the one taking place today. Yet in doing so, we are ever mindful of those expectations and desires.
Covid-19 Update
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues, and these are difficult choices that we face. She has raised with me previously the need for a plan for exit so that we can motivate people to do what is needed to get the disease under control in London. In her constituency, almost more than any other, decisions to restrict social life have a significant direct impact. On economic and health grounds, getting this virus under control helps on both counts, particularly if we take into account, for instance, the mental health impacts. Having spoken to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, it is clear that the mental health impacts if the virus gets out of control are worse than the mental health impacts of the measures necessary to keep it in control, but nevertheless we have to ensure that the services are there to support people.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
I wrote to the Secretary of State on 16 September about the inadequacies of track and trace, and I acknowledge what he has said today about the need for local and national teamwork, but I need to be further reassured that he will get track and trace right, because that is central to dealing with the covid-19 pandemic. London is now in tier 2, and we have seen Manchester go from tier 2 to tier 3. We need to have a national circuit break for that to work, because otherwise we will have tier 2 going piecemeal to tier 3, and that is not a plan.
Matt Hancock
First, yes, we want to work more closely with Ealing to make sure we get that national and local link-up in the test and trace system—I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. [Interruption.] And in Enfield as well. Just to be clear, no decisions have yet been taken on Greater Manchester, and I want to reassure colleagues from Greater Manchester who are in the Chamber of that. Finally, having this targeted approach is clear for people to understand. There are three levels. Everyone knows what is in each of the three levels, and it is very easy for someone to know which level their area is in.
Covid-19 Update
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. My hon. Friend makes the point well. We are putting more localised testing in and making sure that it is as accessible as possible. Of course, the challenge is to ensure that those tests get to the right people, prioritised appropriately, and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to deliver that across Kent.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
At least six care homes in my borough of Enfield have seen the return of covid-19 cases. At the same time, they are experiencing delays in receiving pillar 1 and pillar 2 test kits, and results are taking more than a week to arrive, potentially leading to a rise in the spread of the virus. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that testing is not taking as long? What does he intend to do to fix this mess?
Matt Hancock
Making sure that test kits get returned rapidly is incredibly important, including in social care. I am glad to say that the backlog has come down over the past week. At its core, our response to the problems in social care, because so many people who live in care homes are older and therefore vulnerable, is to protect the amount of test kits. The weekly testing of staff and the monthly testing of residents has been delivered and is being protected, even despite all the other pressures on testing capacity.
Covid-19 Update
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes. My hon. Friend, who speaks so clearly for his constituents and for the young people who enjoy those facilities, will I am sure be pleased to know that youth groups are exempt from the rule of six, because they have their own covid-secure guidelines, in the same way that schools do and in the same way that organised sport is exempt.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
In his statement yesterday, the Prime Minister said he would introduce an army of covid marshals to help ensure social distancing in town centres. Can the Secretary of State tell me how these covid marshals will be recruited, how much they will be paid, how they will be paid for and what powers they will have?
Matt Hancock
This programme will be rolled out by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, because we will be working very closely with local authorities to make it happen, and we will publish the details in due course.
Covid-19
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise these issues, which are very important. I acknowledge and can see the challenges that mental health services face. Some cautiously positive news announced today by the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of suicides during the peak of the pandemic was down from 10.3 per 100,000 to 6.9 per 100,000, but of course we have to ensure that mental health services are there for people as we come out of lockdown, so that they can access them again more easily, and that we do all we can to support those who need them.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Following on from the Secretary of State’s answer to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked about cancer, obviously winter is a time of huge pressures on NHS services, with pressures on acute beds in recent years. Can he tell us more about his plan to tackle the backlog and deal with cancer patients, and about the treatments they will receive in the wintertime?
Matt Hancock
Yes; the hon. Gentleman is right to raise exactly this point. Now is the time to get through as much of the backlog as possible. At the same time, we have introduced changes to the way that the NHS operates so that it is more risk-based, so that infection control procedures, which are important, can also be more risk-based, to try to increase the amount of surgery that can happen, essentially splitting the NHS into areas that are deemed “covid green”, which are secure from covid, and “covid blue”, which means the areas where there may be covid, to allow the throughput of surgery to increase. Of course, cancer services have continued all the way through, but obviously they were diminished during the peak. With winter coming, we want to put the extra funds into the NHS to try to ensure that those services can continue all the way through, as much as is possible. The flu vaccination programme is also an important part of protecting the NHS from higher demand this winter.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (Ms Nadine Dorries)
We welcomed the Cumberlege report and we are looking into the recommendations made, but the hon. Lady knows that, as a result of live litigation, I am not able to comment further.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
Guidance to explain the Government’s policy on face coverings continues to be updated and fully takes into account groups with protected characteristics. This guidance makes it clear that there are exemptions for people who are unable, for a variety of reasons, to wear face coverings. We have also run a proactive communications campaign to ensure that people are aware that some people are unable to wear a face covering in certain circumstances.
Bambos Charalambous
Georgina Fallows is a rape survivor who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder when her mouth is covered. Georgina and others like her have been challenged for not wearing a mask in shops and on public transport, and this causes further stress and anxiety. Does the Minister support Georgina’s campaign for a badge to identify people who legitimately cannot wear a mask, and will she consider raising awareness of this issue via a public information campaign?
Jo Churchill
I was incredibly sorry to hear what Georgina has been through, and fully understand that she and others who have undergone traumatic experiences cannot wear a face covering without distress. That is why our guidance and public messaging have been very clear that there may be people who should be exempt from wearing a covering for a variety of reasons. It is also clear that people do not need to prove it when challenged. We are actively engaging with stakeholders and charities to ensure that these messages sensitively get across, and we will continue to do so, but I would welcome a fuller discussion with the hon. Member about anything we can do further to help individuals such as Georgina.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes. David Rosser is a great leader of a very, very impressive trust. I was speaking to him only last week. There is an important lesson from covid, which is that many of the NHS central rules and much of the bureaucracy was lifted to allow local systems to respond as a health system. That has worked well. We need to learn from that. We need to not only make that permanent, but see where we can go further in that sort of system working.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Matt Hancock
We were scrupulously fair in the allocation of funding to local authorities, ensuring, for instance, that the support for social care went according to the number of beds. We have taken a great deal of care to make sure we get this right.