Health Services (North-West)

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. Is it in order for a Secretary of State for Health to announce the closure of another Member’s A and E, which is a very serious matter for all MPs, without making any effort whatsoever to even advise the Member concerned that they might wish to attend the Chamber the following day?

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

It is quite simple.

[Mr Speaker]

It is quite simple. The short answer is that nothing disorderly has taken place. The Secretary of State is entitled to come to the House and make a statement at a time of his choosing. I have experienced a great many Ministers in my time in the House. Different Ministers adopt different approaches. In some cases Ministers have conversations with Members in advance—I know that the Secretary of State himself has done so on other occasions—and signal an intention to make a statement, or the possibility of a statement, at a particular time, but on other occasions they do not do so. On the strict question of whether it is in order, I can confirm that the Secretary of State’s conduct is not disorderly. Beyond that, it is for hon. and right hon. Members to make their own assessment of the handling of the matter. There is scope, as with so many matters, for different points of view. I think that is the fairest thing I can say.

Health and Social Care

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I represent a Lincolnshire seat. I wish to say a bit about opinion in Lincolnshire and relay it to the House, if Members are not already aware of it from the local election results.

Coincidentally, today is the feast day of St Earconwald, who was born in 693 in Lindsey, north Lincolnshire. Various miracles were attributed to him. For example, when he was elderly and in his wheelchair, the wheels fell off but it kept going. I am reminded of how the coalition still keeps going, despite its wheels occasionally falling off. I think we may come to a time before the end of this Parliament when, such is the divergence of opinion—perfectly honourably felt—between very honourable people such as the Minister on the Front Bench and me, that for the sake of the nation we may have to bring this coalition to an end and honestly put our separate programmes to the people.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

When?

[Mr Leigh]

I have no idea when that will happen.

I said I wanted to talk about opinion in Lincolnshire. Despite all the Government’s success in their central aim of attempting to cut the deficit—we have cut it by a third—people there undoubtedly feel that their voice is not being heard. We have to listen to that voice. If I may be forgiven for being party political for a moment, I should point out that there is absolutely no enthusiasm for the Labour party, because people have not forgotten who created the borrowing mess we are in. We heard a lot about plain packaging from the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who led for the Opposition today, but the whole Labour party is plain packaged. We have no idea, frankly, what it will do.

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[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

I wish to speak on four matters in today’s debate on the Queen’s Speech. The first—heart-related issues—has already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) and by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), who is no longer in her place. I am the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on heart disease, which was set up 12 years ago. I give credit to the Government for consulting on minimum pricing of alcohol and on plain packaging for cigarettes and tobacco. Both those consultations have been good, engaging MPs from all parties and, indeed, the wider community, but the Government have lost a golden opportunity to put these measures in this year’s Queen’s Speech.

Over the past 10 or 12 years, we have had a fantastic record on heart disease, with deaths going down by 46%. We have taken some big and bold decisions: for example, the Labour Government passed a measure to ban smoking in public places; we also introduced statins, which are largely responsible for the 46% drop in heart-related deaths. We must keep up the momentum, however, and minimum pricing of alcohol and plain packaging of cigarettes could have helped us to do so.

Each year, about 11,000 10 to 15-year-old children in Wales take up smoking. The industry wants to catch those smokers young and keep them smoking until they are 55, 65 or until they die, in order to keep up profits. Those young people have been deliberately targeted. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire mentioned the use of defibrillators and the teaching of resuscitation skills in schools. If the Government made progress on those, it would help to keep up our excellent momentum on tackling heart disease in the UK.

Many Members have touched on immigration and some have connected it with the health service. There will not be one of us in this Chamber whose life has not been touched by an immigrant worker in the NHS. My doctor for 25 years, Dr Rao—sadly, now passed away—came from the Indian subcontinent, while the man who delivered my first-born child was an Egyptian consultant, and I am really grateful to both of them. If all the immigrants working in the national health service left tomorrow, our national health service would collapse. I pay tribute, too, to the Filipino workers in the care sector—lovely, family-orientated people, who have great respect and great compassion for the elderly. Immigration is an issue throughout the country and we need to reflect concern about it in Parliament. What we do not need to do is add to it. We certainly do not need to whip it up, as I feel some Members have done today.

I praise the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire for what she said about cancer treatments. I pay tribute to the work of my constituent Mike Peters, a friend of mine, who has had cancer twice in his life and currently has a chronic leukaemia condition. Mike is spearheading an international campaign to increase the number of donors of matching blood cells for leukaemia treatment. He has set up two organisations, the Love Hope Strength Foundation and Delete Blood Cancer UK. He is a rock star who is a lead singer in The Alarm and Big Country, and he tries to recruit people when he sings in countries around the world. He has personally recruited 35,000 donors, mainly in America, through his concerts, and 500 people’s lives have been saved as a result.

Mike is holding an event in Room R in Portcullis House on Tuesday 4 June. Anyone—any Member of Parliament!—aged between 17 and 55 will be welcome to become a donor. All it takes is a mouth swab. The DNA is then kept on file, so that anyone in this or any other country who needs stem cells will be able to gain access to them. Let me again pay tribute to the work that Mike Peters has done.

I now want to say something about how mindfulness can help with problems related to health and social care. Members may ask “What is mindfulness?” Mindfulness is an integrative mind-body-based approach which helps people to change the way they think and feel about their experiences, especially stressful experiences. It involves paying attention to our thoughts and feelings so that we become more aware of them, less enmeshed in them, and better able to manage them. It uses breath as an anchor to slow down the mind and body and to help us to live in the present moment, rather than being chased by our past or worried by our future. It is the perfect way to combat stress—and the impact of stress on heart problems, cancer and mental health conditions is massive.

Members may think that that sounds a bit airy-fairy, but the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has backed mindfulness as a better way of treating repeat-episode depression than drug therapy. It puts the individual in control. It is as cheap as drug therapy in the short term, and cheaper in the long term. It has no known side-effects, and, if taught early enough, it is preventive. Let me give the House some statistics. A total of 32.3% of people aged between 15 and 25 suffer from one or more psychological conditions. Every Member in the Chamber will know someone with such a condition, perhaps even a family member. In 1991, 9 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were issued; in 2011, 46 million were issued. That is a 500% increase in 20 years.

[Mrs Moon]

As my hon. Friend says, one of the problems on which we need to focus is depression among young people. Young people oppose the idea of taking anti-depressants. Will my hon. Friend say something about the importance of mindfulness in enabling them to build up their self-awareness, their self-confidence and their ability throughout their lives to handle possible recurring depression?

[Chris Ruane]

I know that the incidence of suicides among young people is a particular issue in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and mindfulness has a role to play in that context.

Many Members have mentioned compassion today. Mindfulness can help to give compassion to the individual and also to the health care worker. If compassion is lacking, mindfulness can enhance it. It can be used within the health care system, and has been taken up by doctors who are then in a better position to relate to their patients. Earlier this year there was a mindfulness session in the House of Commons for Members of this House and the House of Lords, and another will begin on 4 June.

Mindfulness can help in a personal capacity, but it can also assist the development of policy in prisons—85% of prisoners have mental health conditions—in education, in the armed forces, in the police and fire services, and in any area where there is trauma. It can play a big role throughout society and in all departments. I urge the Department of Health to recognise that, to act on NICE’s 2004 recommendations, and to ensure that the use of mindfulness for the treatment of repeat-episode depression is fully implemented. I also urge the Department to consider carefully its possible use in other parts of the national health service.

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[Jim Shannon]

I am sure that my colleagues will intervene.

I thoroughly enjoyed the opening of Parliament. It always fills me with a sense of optimism to look forward to another Session and what we can do. As the DUP Health spokesman, that optimism was dulled when I noted, with some dismay, that the Government had not included standardised cigarette packs in the Queen’s Speech. It would have been great to see essential measures on that.

I am reminded of the dance, the hokey-cokey: they are in for packaging, they are out for packaging, they are in for packaging, they are out for packaging, and they swing it all about. I cannot do the hokey-cokey, but I know who can. The Government can do the hokey-cokey and nobody can do it better. Bruce Forsyth often says, “Didn’t they do well?” If he ever retires, there are two hon. Members who will be vying for his position.

I am encouraged that some hon. Members have had the courage of their convictions. The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has taken a clear stance on plain packaging, as have other Members. I appreciate that.

I have received many e-mails from constituents on this issue. One stated:

“Since tobacco advertising became illegal in the UK, the tobacco companies have been investing a fortune on packaging design to attract new consumers. Most of these new consumers are children with 80% of smokers starting by the age of 19.”

Other Members have made it clear that we must stop smoking being an attraction for young people. About 200,000 children as young as 11 years old are smoking already and the addiction kills one in two long-term users. A recent YouGov poll showed that 63% of the public back plain packaging and that only 16% are against it.

Last week, I asked the Prime Minister whether he would introduce plain packaging. He said:

“On the issue of plain packaging for cigarettes, the consultation is still under way”.—[Official Report, 8 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 24.]

That is not exactly accurate because the standardised packaging consultation started on 16 April last year and ended nine months ago on 10 August 2012. I am keen to hear from the Government just what is happening.

[Chris Ruane]

I am just doing Mr Deputy Speaker’s bidding by intervening to give the hon. Gentleman an extra minute. When plain packaging was introduced in Australia, the tobacco industry fought the longest, dirtiest battle it had ever fought against any Government proposal to curb smoking. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that was? It threatened that triads would come over from China and take over Australia, but that never occurred. Why did it threaten so much and fight so hard? Is he pleased that it lost?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I perceive and am of the opinion that companies saw such measures as a loss to their profit margin, and we would like to see what happened in Australia happen here.

The former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley),was quoted in the media saying that the Government did not work with tobacco companies as they wanted them to have “no business” in the UK. Has that changed? The current Health Secretary stated that one of his key priorities is to reduce premature mortality. His call to action on premature mortality commits to a decision on whether to proceed with standard packaging. He also stated:

“Just because something is not in the Queen’s Speech doesn’t mean that the Government cannot bring it forward in law.”

Even at this late stage, may we hear a commitment to bringing forth such a measure in law? If we do, that will be good news and we will welcome it.

Some 10 million adults smoke in the UK and more than 200,000 children start smoking at a very early age. More than 100,000 people die from cancer-related smoking diseases across the UK, which is more than from the next six causes of preventable death put together. The immensity of the number of deaths from smoking cannot be underestimated. Many Members have spoken about that, and I believe the fact we are all saying the same thing is something we should underline.

We cannot remove people’s choice to smoke—that is a decision to be made by any adult—but we can, and must, ensure that everyone knows they are doing harm to themselves and those around them. Evidence that standardised packaging helps smokers quit and prevents young people from taking up the habit and facing a lifetime of addiction is clear, and we should encourage more people to stop smoking and not to become addicted.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman should talk to the shadow Minister on the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), who said yesterday that she would not automatically oppose all reconfigurations. The coalition Government have introduced four tests, which were not used by the previous Government. Those tests state that we will not impose closures of A and E and maternity units unless there is local clinical support, and evidence that it will benefit local people and improve patient choice. The tests exist to provide precisely the safeguards about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the treatment of repeat episode depression by (a) drugs and (b) mindfulness-based intervention.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has evaluated and recommended the use of mindfulness-based therapies as a psychological intervention for the prevention of relapse, within its guideline, “Depression: the treatment and management of depression in adults”. Drug treatment is also useful in the management of enduring depression.

[Chris Ruane]

The number of prescriptions issued for anti-depressants has gone from 9 million to 46 million in the past 10 years. NICE has recommended mindfulness as a better treatment than drug therapy for repeat episode depression, but it has not been taken up by the NHS. Will the Minister meet a delegation of MPs and mindfulness experts from across the UK to discuss how mindfulness can play its full role in helping the NHS and people with mental health problems?

[Norman Lamb]

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s work on promoting the case for psychological therapies, including mindfulness, and would be happy to meet him and a delegation of experts. The Government have massively increased psychological therapies—nearly 1 million people in the past two years accessed psychological therapies through the improving access to psychological therapies programme. We are totally committed to improving access to psychological therapies to cure the imbalance in access to services for people with mental health problems that has existed for a very long time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I think I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. We are committed to increasing access to NHS dentistry, and over 1.1 million more patients have been seen by an NHS dentist since May 2010 than before the election. Nationally, there are more dentists. In 2010-11, there were 22,799 compared with 22,003 in the preceding year, before the election. NHS Kent and Medway has confirmed that it will have six dentists in place from 1 September 2012 who will temporarily provide the treatment that she is looking for, and it has started tendering processes to commission permanent NHS dental services in her area.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

T2. The Minister will be aware of the 500% increase in the use of antidepressants over the past 20 years. I welcome the announcement of the hundreds of millions that will be spent on talking therapies over the next few years, but will the Minister tell us specifically what funding has been allocated for mindfulness, which is the best known treatment for repeat episode depression?

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. He has been a doughty campaigner and pursuer of this issue and I can tell him that a number of improving access to psychological therapies—IAPT—services are developing and using mindfulness-based approaches. Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman said, NICE recommends them for the treatment of recurrent depression. A number of randomised controlled trials are going on to see how it might be applied to other long-term health conditions. There is baseline allocated funding but there is no specific earmarked funding for this particular project other than in the context of the IAPT programme, in which we have invested £400 million.

NHS Annual Report and Care Objectives

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. From our point of view, the legislation that passed through this House in the last Session, led by the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), will be important and will help us in relation to some of these matters, not least on the use of no-win, no-fee arrangements. From time to time it has been deeply frustrating for us all to see that, of the money paid out by the NHS as a result of negligence claims, sometimes more is paid in fees, not least to lawyers, than is provided in compensation to those who have suffered harm. In the NHS we recognise the need to provide compensation when harm has occurred. It is extremely costly. The costs have risen and we want to minimise them. Reducing harm in the NHS will be important, but ensuring that we respond to complaints and offer redress more openly will also help us to manage the extent to which people resort expensively to the courts.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Of the 150 lines in the Secretary of State’s statement, only six referred specifically to mental health, despite the fact that between 1991 and 2011 the number of antidepressant prescriptions increased from 9 million to 46 million, a 500% increase. In 2004 NICE recommended mindfulness, a non-drug self-help therapy with no side effects, as better, more efficient and less costly than drug therapy, but it has not been taken up. I am not blaming him, but will we have an inquiry into the reasons for the massive increase in the prescription of antidepressants and the reason why mindfulness has not been taken up?

Mental Health

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I completely agree. I do a lot of work shadowing, and I recently shadowed a GP. What amazed me was how many of the people coming through his door were the people who also come through our doors on a Friday and Saturday. They are not necessarily looking for something to take to the chemists; they are actually just crying out for help, in one way or another, with a problem they are struggling with. That GP was very good and did not prescribe, but referred lots of people to the IAPT service, as I sat there with him. However, he said that across Coventry, where he was based, many others were not doing the same.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned the number of prescriptions that have been issued. I received a parliamentary answer a couple of days ago which said that in 1991 there were 9 million prescriptions. The Minister mentioned the figure of 42 million, but from 2010 to 2011 the number went up by 4 million. In the years before that the increase was usually 2 million a year, but in one year the figure increased by 10%, or 4 million. When I asked the Minister what his assessment was of the reason for those increases, there was no conclusive answer. We must get to the bottom of why these prescriptions are being issued and why they have gone up by 500% in a 20-year period.

[Andy Burnham]

We must. Perhaps I am about to make more of a political point, but as has been mentioned so eloquently today by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, as well as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), although the trend is upwards—that is happening come what may: I mentioned the financial crisis, during which the rate has jumped up, including in our time in government—the cumulative effect of some of the benefits changes on some of the most vulnerable members of society, coupled with the withdrawal of social care support by councils, means that, right now, some people out there are suffering very badly indeed. That is part of the explanation for the worrying figures that my hon. Friend has just given the House. The Government need to have a look at what is happening out there and whether or not some people are struggling with mental health problems because of the extra stress that other factors, particularly financial, are putting upon them.

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to the improving access to psychological therapies programme, but I hear that waiting times for it are increasing in parts of the country where GPs face much longer referral times. Indeed, a Mind survey of 2011 said that 30% of GPs were unaware of services to which they could refer patients, beyond medication. That tells us that we still have quite a long way to go. IAPT needs protecting and nurturing; it needs to come with a national direction in the operating framework. In the new and changing NHS world, we cannot allow it to be simply whittled away. More broadly, we need to look carefully at commissioning and find out whether GPs have the right skills to commission properly for mental health. We need to consider what the precise commissioning arrangements for mental health are, as there is still some confusion out there about them.

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[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Most of the contributions we have heard so far today have concentrated on mental ill health, but I also wish to address mental health and well-being, and not just for those who have experienced mental health problems, but for the whole population in general.

Over £400 billion worth of illegal drugs are traded around the world ever year, which is the same amount that is spent on energy, or 8% of the world’s wealth. When that is combined with the amount spent on alcohol, cigarettes, legal drugs to help us over depression, over-eating and the amount spent trying to fix all those problems, we are probably talking about 20% of the world’s wealth being spent on, essentially, escaping from reality. That is a modern reality that has many causes. We need to look at the debate in the round and consider all the factors, including nutrition, advertising, the farming industry and work practices, because they all have an impact on what certain Members have so eloquently described today. We should look not just at the pinnacle of the problem, but what is behind it.

Statistics show that 29% of US school children have mental health problems. At what point will American society say, “Enough is enough”? Is it when 39%, 49% or 59% of their children are mentally ill? The UK is not far behind. We follow the Anglo-American pattern, because 22% of our children experience mental health problems, and they are the lucky ones, because 74% of children in care homes experience mental health problems, as do 46% of those who are fostered. Some 90% of prisoners have mental health problems. Obesity is also a problem. At age five 10% of UK children are obese, but by age 10 the figure is 20%. What is happening in that five-year period to make those kids consume the sugars, fats and salts that will react with their bodies? Those fats will react with the fats in their brain and their myelin sheaths and neural pathways. It is an epidemic that is growing out of control, and we will be picking up the costs, including the financial costs and health costs for the individual and their families, for decades to come.

I recently received an answer to a parliamentary question. It showed that in 1991 almost 9 million prescriptions for antidepressant drugs were dispensed in the UK, but by 2011 the figure had increased to over 46.5 million, a 500% increase. When I asked the Minister for his assessment of why that was so, he replied:

“We are unable to provide a conclusive account for the increase in the number of prescription items dispensed.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 1286W.]

We do not know what is making the kids obese and we do not know what is turning our population into legal addicts. Those statistics are just for antidepressants and do not take into account the other drugs taken to help us sleep, keep us awake, keep us happy or manage our sex lives, although I never use them. There are other ways, because drugs are just one way of handling it. One-to-one counselling is another way, but it is very expensive. There is a third way: self-help. One of the best ways of self-help is mindfulness.

Mindfulness has been around for 2,500 years. To give a definition, mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. In other words, it means someone just focusing—not being chased by their past or worried by their future, but experiencing what they are experiencing there in the moment.

Mindfulness has been taught very effectively in America over a 30-year period and more recently in this country over a 10 to 12-year period. It involves an eight-week course, two-and-a-half hours’ taught lessons a week and 45 minutes’ meditation at home for six days a week, and it is taught in groups of eight to 20, so the costs are minimal and the benefits are unbelievable. It is out there, but it has not been taken up—even when NICE recommended it as a more effective means of treating repeat-episode depression. In 2004, it recommended the programme as being better than pills, but it has not been taken up. GPs and, dare I say it, Ministers do not know about it. I have quizzed Irish and British Ministers, and they do not know about it.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, but my experience is that, although group therapy might work for certain individuals, for many it does not. One thing that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) did in the previous Government, and which has made a real difference, was to open up cognitive behaviour therapy treatments, as they have been a substitute for drugs. So no one treatment is a silver bullet for mental illness.

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[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely. Cognitive behaviour therapy is fantastic, and mindfulness has now been tacked on to it to make it even more effective. The group therapy lasts only for eight weeks; after that the individual can handle it themselves. I have practised it for five years now, and I have been on the formal course.

It was Descartes who said that the mind is separate from the body and the body separate from the mind, but in eastern philosophy and medicine that is not the case: body and mind are inter-related. Mindfulness can be used to combat pain, stress, eating disorders, addiction, anxiety and psoriasis, but it has been recommended in the UK only for the treatment of repeat depression—and it has not even been used for that.

In America they use it in the prison service, in the police, fire and emergency services, including on those with witness trauma, in the health service for a range of medical conditions, to improve heart and cancer treatment and, even, in Congress. Congressman Tim Ryan, its expert on the subject, has just written a book, “A Mindful Nation”, about how mindfulness can be used across the board.

So there are other ways that we have not explored, but they have been around for 2,500 years and proved to be effective. There are experts in mindfulness, such as Jon Kabat-Zinn who pioneered it in America, and experts in positive psychology, such as Martin Seligman. Freud believed that if a person was mentally ill the most they could achieve was wellness, not happiness, but Martin Seligman, who headed the American Psychological Association, turned that around 20 years ago and developed positive psychology in America.

We have our own experts: Professor Richard Layard, a Labour Lord in the other place; and Felicia Huppert, the mother of a famous Liberal MP based in Cambridge, who has a theory that if we shift the whole wellbeing curve, including on the right-hand side those who are mentally ill and on the left-hand side those who are positive, across and make the whole population happier, the greatest impact will be on the unhappiest—on those with mental health problems.

There are also impacts on the policies that we develop throughout society and on what makes people happy. On the Office for National Statistics’ list of what makes people in the UK happy, No. 1 is living next to a park or having access to a swimming pool; No. 2 is having access to cultural services such as libraries; No. 3 is being physically healthy; No. 4 is having time to relax and enjoy oneself; No. 5 is living in a fair society; No. 6, the only one involving money, is having enough money to do what one wants; No. 7 is freedom; No. 8 is being content with one’s situation; No. 9 is people looking after each other; and No. 10 is the smell of freshly ground coffee.

Only one pertains to money, yet our whole society is geared to making money. Those are the values that we and Governments of both parties have adopted, but now we need to develop policies that recognise the situation and the position of mental health in society. It is the No. 1 issue affecting our society, and we need to look at it in the round.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his persistent championing of his constituents, but sadly I cannot be drawn into a discussion about evidence, facts and figures that might come up around this issue, because as he will appreciate it is an independent review which is divorced from Ministers.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

T5. Mindfulness-based meditation techniques have been deemed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to be more effective than drug-based therapy in the treatment of recurring depression in many circumstances. Will the Minister tell the House his views on mindfulness-based techniques and say what other conditions and diseases he thinks would benefit from such therapy?

[Paul Burstow]

The Government are committed to extending the range of NICE approved therapies when it comes to access to talking therapies. Certainly, we will look very carefully at how we extend it in the area he has suggested. I will write to him in further detail about this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important point. The whole purpose of the modernisation of the NHS is to enable it to meet the challenges of an ageing population, an increased drugs bill and new medical procedures, so that we can ensure that patients get their treatments, within the responsibilities of the NHS constitution, and do not have to wait undue lengths of time for treatment.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

11. What recent representations he has received on the Health and Social Care Bill.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Government have listened to representations throughout the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill. In addition to the consultation on the White Paper, the NHS Future Forum has undertaken two engagement exercises. The first involved 6,700 people directly and received more than 28,000 comments and e-mails, and the second involved more than 12,000 people at more than 300 events. Ministers have also continued to meet and to receive representations from a range of interested parties on a regular basis, and we will continue to do so.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank the Minister for that response. May I ask what specific representations he has had on children’s well-being? Is he aware that the Children’s Society will this Thursday publish its 2012 “Good Childhood” report, which will include a specific report on how central and local government could improve and promote positive well-being among children? Will the Minister and the Secretary of State meet the Children’s Society to discuss that important report?

[Mr Burns]

Throughout the consultation process there have been comments and responses to proposals across the whole of the health area, including on children’s health and well-being. Obviously, I cannot comment on a report that will not be published until later this week, but I or one of my ministerial colleagues would be more than happy to meet the Children’s Society once the report has been published if the society thinks that a meeting to discuss the report’s contents would be worth while.

Manufacturing

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I completely agree. To put it in the vernacular, we need a go-to guy who is the one person looking after manufacturing.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Or a go-to girl!

[Guy Opperman]

Of course, it could be a woman—I accept that entirely. I was using the term generically. Such a Minister could provide co-ordinated responses to the concerns of manufacturing businesses. Having such a Minister would send out a message that this really matters. I challenge anyone to say that that is not a good idea. It is something that successive Governments have consistently failed to do, and I do not blame previous Governments for that, but doing it would send out a positive message for the future.

The second issue I want to address is banking and the chronic deficit that every Member of the House must be facing in their constituency—a lack of bank financing for businesses. Every one of us, in every constituency surgery, will regularly have businesses coming to us and saying, “I cannot get the funding I need,” or “I cannot get the borrowing I used to have.” It is a chronic problem. Much good work is done by business angels and credit unions—those hon. Members who attended the debate on credit unions yesterday will know that very positive steps were discussed there—but when it comes to bank finance, the system of the main banks is clearly logjammed. What can we do about that?

Currently, to set up a bank one needs £110 million-worth of assets—of cash, effectively—or the Financial Services Authority will not allow it. If the FSA relaxed that rule or changed the figure to £10 million, for example, then prominent local businessmen or businesses in a local community could set up a local bank.

Traditionally, the problem has always been that banks go bust, as they did in the 1920s and ’30s, because they over-borrow and over-lend in effect. If there were a restriction such that they could not exceed the money held on deposit with the Bank of England, the only loss that could be sustained would be the funds in that bank. The effect would be true localism. Someone could set up the bank of Hexham—or, in the Minister’s case, the bank of Bognor—and that bank would be specifically focused on providing small and medium-sized enterprise lending to local businesses.

Hinchingbrooke Hospital

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that measured contribution. The most important thing must be providing world-class, quality care for patients, not only in the Hinchingbrooke area but throughout the NHS across the country. I am confident that this deal does that, working with the NHS within the NHS, but with a management provided by Circle to do just that.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Can the Minister guarantee that the terms and conditions of current and new staff will be guaranteed by the private sector company, and that it will not go for the easy option of cutting terms and conditions?

[Mr Burns]

With respect, I do not think the hon. Gentleman fully understands what I have said. I said that the status of staff at the hospital will not change in any way. They will continue to be NHS-employed staff working for the NHS as they did yesterday and as they will from the day the project starts working.

[Chris Ruane]

So that is yes?

[Mr Burns]

It is, indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burns]

I have to say that I am disappointed by the hon. Lady’s question.

[Chris Ruane]

You are very condescending.

[Mr Burns]

I am not. I am just being honest. If there is a loss, Circle will pick it up, up to the first £5 million. Hinchingbrooke is a struggling hospital with a deficit of £39 million. That is why we are having to take the actions that the Government that the hon. Gentleman supported instigated more than three years ago. There is a formula that gives an incentive for Circle to deliver, to raise the quality of care, to reduce and, we hope, over the 10-year period to remove the deficit altogether.