Health and Care Bill

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I rise to speak on amendment 10. I want to start by relaying a conversation that I had soon after being elected 11 years ago in Gloucester. I talked to the chief executive of a hospital trust—he has subsequently moved on—and asked him how many nurses a year we needed to replace those who have retired and resigned, and to cope with increasing demand, not just in the hospital trust but including district nurses and nurses to cover the whole panoply of our needs in the county of Gloucestershire. He explained that we needed roughly 400 a year at that time. I asked him how many we were training. He said that the University of the West of England trains around 120 graduates a year from its nursing outlet in Gloucester. How do we meet the gap, I asked, and he said, “Well, we advertise. We try to encourage people from London to look for a change in their lifestyle and we recruit from abroad.” I asked him where that got us to. He said, “Well, it increases the numbers, but it never gets us enough. We struggle with a permanent shortfall of recruitment.”

Over the next few years, I worked on three things. The first was to support the Government push to create nursing associates. The second was to encourage the University of Gloucestershire to become a nursing teaching university and to submit an application to get pilot project status for the nursing associates’ training. Both of those came to pass. They were a credit to the Government, a credit to the university and a credit to the Nursing and Midwifery Council that supported them. None the less, we were, and are, still short; that gap has not been closed.

One other thing that I have done recently is to support the close engagement with the Government of the Philippines, who have kindly allowed us to carry on recruiting nurses from the Philippines to the United Kingdom during the pandemic. I ask everyone here to join me in paying tribute to the roughly 35,000 nurses from the Philippines who have made such a difference to our NHS. All those things have helped, but anyone who has played the role that all of us in this House have over the past two years will know that the people problem is the greatest problem that we have.

I chaired, first every week and now every two or three weeks, a meeting between all the MPs in Gloucestershire, the heads of the NHS trusts, public health and the county council. Time and again, the same issue comes up in a slightly different way: it is about people. Yes, we could build extra wards. Yes, we could convert offices into wards. Yes, we could build bed capacity, but we do not have more people to look after the patients in them. Yes, we have plenty of spaces in care homes, but we need to be able to send people back to their home from hospital, because that is how they recover best, and we do not have enough domiciliary care workers.

We have gone round and round for the past 10 or 11 years on this issue of staff—doctors in primary care surgeries, nurses everywhere and domiciliary care workers. I do not believe that we can resolve this problem until we start planning for the needs in different parts of the country and then working out how we can provide the training, the skills and the recruitment of individuals to make that happen. Of course it will not be perfect. Of course disasters such as the pandemic will make a bad situation much worse. We recognise that, but until we start that process, I do not believe that things will change. For as long as I am MP for Gloucester, I am absolutely certain that I will be having the same conversations about human resources—the people who deliver the care and health that all the people in my constituency and across the county and country need and deserve. It is not the best use of MPs’ time to constantly have to sit down with our health professionals in local NHS trusts to work out how we are going to mind the gap. That whole process has to be started from higher up, in the Department of Health and Social Care.

Today, we have an amendment that has enormous support not just from the Select Committee that my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) chairs, but from outside this House from the royal colleges, the NHS trusts and many others beside. I am frustrated that the Government have so far not indicated whether they will accept the amendment. In their hearts, the Minister and his colleagues, all good people trying to do their best, recognise that this problem will have to be tackled. Perhaps part of the solution will be in the White Paper that we are all so eagerly waiting for and that we wish that we had been able to have a few days ago, before the votes last night, on which I supported the Government on the basis of trust. None the less, there comes a time when we have to say and vote for what we believe in. I do believe that we need this change and that the Government can and should do it, and I will vote for it.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clause 1, which stands in the name of the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), myself and 18 other right hon. and hon. Members from across the House. I first took an interest in this subject through a constituent, Dawn Knight, from Tanfield in my constituency. Dawn raised issues around the cosmetic surgery industry having been a victim of a particular hospital group. She has been a tireless campaigner in ensuring not only that victims get a voice, but that we press for more regulation.

I join others in paying tribute to the all-party group on beauty, aesthetics and wellbeing for its recent report and to my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) for their work on that report, which highlights what my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) called the “wild west”. That is exactly what it is: it is a wild west without any regulation. It is a multibillion-pound industry, which is not only putting people at risk, but costing the NHS money.

In April 2013, the Health Secretary at the time—Andrew Lansley, now Lord Lansley—commissioned Sir Bruce Keogh to carry out a review of the regulation of cosmetic surgery. The review came out not only when we were having problems in the sector itself, but when interest was heightened around Poly Implant Prothèse breast implants, which people will well remember. When the review concluded, it explicitly advised the Government to increase regulation of the cosmetic surgery industry to prevent unlicensed treatments and increase patient safety. The review stated that a person having a non-surgical procedure

“has no more protection and redress than someone buying a ballpoint pen or a toothbrush”,

and

“dermal fillers are a crisis waiting to happen.”

As the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North said, that crisis has actually happened already.

I have been campaigning on this issue for a number of years, during which time I have gone through a succession of Health Ministers, all of whom have come back with two points. The first is, “We are going to implement the Keogh recommendations”. But because Ministers were too terrified previously to make any health legislation, they were reluctant to bring those recommendations forward in that way.

The only good news in the area has been private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act 2021. That legislation was tightly focused—as all private Member’s Bill have to be—and banned botox injections for under-18s. I congratulate the hon. Member on that work. However, any other regulations have been left unfinished. I have sheaves of letters from former Health Ministers saying, “The Keogh recommendations will be implemented”, but they have not been to date. If we do not do that in this Bill, when will it be done? I doubt that the Department will come forward with a Bill just to implement those recommendations; that is wishful thinking.

There is clearly no regulatory framework in the UK at present for those performing aesthetic non-surgical cosmetic treatments. The area is completely unregulated and lacks any national standards. There is no consumer protection, education, training or qualifications for those administering such treatments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) said, some people call themselves nurses with no qualifications whatever. There is a huge discrepancy between the standards and qualifications of the training of these people. The other side of the issue, to which I will turn in a minute, is the regulated system, which, frankly, is failing as well.

The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North raised the issue of training. If hon. Members visit any website tonight, they will see huge adverts saying, “Become a dermal filler specialist: training and qualification online within half an hour”—even less time in some cases. The people offering such services have no qualifications whatever, because the qualifications are not worth the paper that they are written on, but these people start carrying out invasive procedures without anybody stopping them. They can do it in a kitchen, or in any area that has not been clinically cleaned and is not of a standard that we would expect for medical procedures. It is a multimillion-pound racket that includes both the people offering the training and those carrying out procedures. It is an increasing issue, which needs to be addressed.

We also need to address the issue of advertising. As I have said before in the House, the Advertising Standards Authority is frankly a complete waste of time. If hon. Members go on any website tonight, or even open the national newspapers, they will see people advertising these services—potentially dangerous procedures—without any qualifications. We might ask, “Why would people have these procedures?” Well, I suggest that everyone reads the Mental Health Foundation’s 2019 report on body image, which shows the increasing pressure on young people.

The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North is correct that this issue mainly affects young women, but it is increasingly an issue for some young men. The pressure of factors such as advertising and photo enhancements lead people to think that there is the perfect individual, but—apart from you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am not sure that there is. The foundation’s reports highlights the pressure that is put on young people, but particularly young women. If they look at prices for procedures, they end up going to people who are completely unqualified. It is a scandal that there is no legislation to prevent this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 10, tabled by the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, because the amendment reflects the key issue facing the NHS and all our health and care services at this time: the workforce. Access to healthcare services is the No. 1 issue raised with me by constituents at the moment, and I know that concern is being echoed in other constituencies across the country.

People are experiencing the issue in many different ways. Some are struggling to get a GP appointment. I regularly speak to parents in great distress because of the lack of available help for their children’s mental health needs. The accident and emergency department at Kingston Hospital in my constituency has regularly had to ask patients to consider whether there are more appropriate sources of help for their needs. Patients waiting in the backlog of elective procedures are regularly having appointments rescheduled or cancelled. Ambulances do not always arrive when called.

The impacts are many and various, but when I speak to health service leaders in my local area, the answer is pretty much the same: there is a lack of available staff. Even in cases where lack of funds is not in itself a limiting factor, the lack of people with the relevant skills makes it impossible to fill all the vacancies they are able to pay for.

Many of these problems are covid-related. The current NHS waiting list is estimated to be over 6 million, and it is clear that much of that is because so many elective treatments were delayed during lockdown. Demand for mental health services has accelerated because of the impact of the lockdown, particularly on young people. Covid is still with us, of course, and workforces in every part of the economy are being impacted by the need for individuals to isolate when they have symptoms or test positive. Healthcare staff need to be more vigilant than the rest of us.

Many of these problems are also Brexit related. A lot of young Europeans decided to return to their home countries at the start of lockdown and have not since returned. Brexit has stymied our ability to recruit from the EU, shutting off an extremely important supply for all parts of the labour market, but the effect is being felt most markedly in health and social care, since it is having to manage the extraordinary demand of a global pandemic at the same time.

Many of these problems are also the result of a long-term failure to correctly predict or prepare for workforce demand. One of the huge advantages of a national health service is that it is possible to get clear data from right across the sector and to make appropriate plans and decisions. For some reason, that has not been done, and it is absolutely right that the Government should adopt amendment 10 to start to put that right.

I want to amplify a Backbench Business debate that I was able to bring to this Chamber a few weeks ago, in partnership with the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). It was on the subject of giving every baby the best start in life, and it was the firm view of all who attended that debate that the health visiting workforce needs to be substantially boosted to enable all new parents to receive a home visit from a trained healthcare professional. During the course of that debate, we heard of the many ways in which a health visiting workforce can support new families and the critical role they play in supporting babies and their families. One estimate is that the cost of poor parental mental health in the first year of life is more than £8 billion. It is clear that the cost of boosting our health visiting workforce would more than pay for itself in a very short time.

I also want to reflect briefly on a conversation I had with a constituent in the street in Richmond town centre on Saturday. Despite having two degrees, she was working in the care sector, and she was talking to me about her terms and conditions of work. She is employed by an agency and is not allowed to engage with any other agency. She is on a zero-hours contract, so she has to sit at home and wait to hear how many hours she might be required to work the following week. For various reasons that suits her, but I feel that it underpins the recruitment crisis we are experiencing in our social care sector, because that is no way to retain skilled and committed staff.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is not just about levels of pay and uncertainty for those individuals, but ensuring that we nationally accredit the qualifications of those individuals and address the career paths that do not exist in those sectors at the moment?

[Sarah Olney]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is the point I want to make: we need to boost the status of our care home staff and improve their terms and conditions. We need to improve their pay. This lady who I spoke to on Saturday was telling me that she gets paid for the hours she spends in people’s homes, but not the time spent travelling in between. It is clear to me that the crisis of staffing we are experiencing in our care sector—I think every one of us as MPs is hearing about it regularly from our constituents, who are at the sharp end of that—is as much about workforce planning and improving terms and conditions. The Government needs to give that the most urgent attention, and amendment 10 would go some way to resolving that, although it will not resolve it entirely.

I know that Ministers will push back against the cost of boosting the workforce in all areas of the NHS, but they must surely realise the cost of failing to do so. The right hon. Member for South West Surrey. along with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), spoke about the cost of locum resource in the NHS. It is not just about the direct cost of locums or of worsening health outcomes as people wait longer for treatment; it is also about the lost productivity of days off sick, the cost of poor mental health as lives are put on hold and, as has been mentioned many times, the cost of exhausted and demoralised staff who are overwhelmed by the demands on the NHS. We cannot afford to continue to fail to effectively plan our healthcare workforce.

I am also very happy to support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) on virginity testing and hymenoplasty. I am delighted that the Government are adopting the provisions on virginity testing. We still have much to do to make this country a safe place for women and girls, but all progress is to be welcomed, and I am very glad that this opportunity to bring to an end the degrading practice of virginity testing has not been lost. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Durham on all the work he has done and, although they may have left the Chamber, the representatives of the other charities referred to earlier. I hope in due course we will see the provisions for hymenoplasty as well, when the review has concluded.