Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Paul Howell

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Last month, we published a cross-Government five-year suicide prevention strategy. It sets out our pledge to reduce England’s suicide rates within two and a half years, with over 100 measures aimed at saving lives and providing early intervention for those at highest risk of suicide, including new mums and middle-aged men.

[Paul Howell]

Like many others, I dropped into the campaign event for “One Million Lives”, developed by Jacobs and supported by R;pple, and I was impressed by its efforts to interfere with the online risk of suicide-centric websites. The Minister may be aware that my wife is a long-term volunteer with Darlington and district Samaritans, which has raised with me the “Saving Lives Can’t Wait” campaign. It asks the Government to review local funding for suicide-safer communities, which is due to end. Could I ask the Minister to support the “One Million Lives” campaign, and to push for the renewal of local funding to support suicide-safer communities?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for his hard work in this area and for his mental health campaigning overall, and also his wife and all who selflessly give their time to volunteer with the invaluable mental health charities. We fully recognise that, and that is why when we launched the suicide prevention strategy we also launched our £10 million suicide prevention grant fund.

On my hon. Friend’s point about wider funding beyond 2024-25, that is subject to a future spending review, but our commitment and record in delivering record investment of £15.9 billion in mental health services just in this financial year, which is 28% more funding than in 2018, should give him confidence that this Conservative Government deliver on mental health services.

Abuse and Deaths in Secure Mental Health Units

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Paul Howell

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I want to reassure hon. and right hon. Members across the House that mental health is not seen as a poor relation by this Government. We are investing record levels of funding in mental health services—£2.3 billion annually—and we are recruiting record numbers of staff into the service as well. As I said to the shadow Minister, I fully accept the failings that have been laid bare, whether by media investigations or by internal investigations of the individual trusts. I am not shying away from those challenges, and I have set out the urgency with which I and the Secretary of State will be looking at this problem. I want to be satisfied that, across the country, safety is as good as it can be, and that where flags are being raised, they are acted on as quickly as possible, which does mean now, not in 18 months or two or three years. We are seeing young people die because of failings of care, and I understand the urgency of the situation.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I would like to acknowledge what has been said already about the difficulty for staff working in this environment. It is a very challenging space, and my respect goes to anybody and everybody there. My respect also goes to people who work in suicide prevention, whether in Mind, the Samaritans or organisations like them, because this is a very difficult place.

I would like to come back to the specifics, and I will start by expressing my sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) for his lead on the stuff going on up in our part of the world. It is a tremendous effort, and I applaud him and thank him for it. This week finally saw the publication of the independent investigation into the deaths of the three young ladies in the care of the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. Christie Harnett, one of those young ladies, was a constituent of mine, and her stepfather is among those calling for a public inquiry. I hear what the Minister is saying, but I really would encourage her to have this looked into very closely. I very strongly support the family on this.

Christie, along with Nadia and Emily, were badly let down. In Christie’s case, the report identified 21 care delivery problems and 20 service delivery problems. It was not an isolated mistake; this is systemic and massive, and it really needs to be looked at. May I ask the Minister to support this call for a public inquiry, please, and may I also ask her to confirm that a reply is imminent to the letters delivered by Mr Harnett to Downing Street on 10 October? He cycled from Newton Aycliffe down to here, a distance of 250 miles, to hand them in. This is emotional, but Christie’s family’s description of her in their statement in the report was:

“Family was everything to Christie and we all miss her so much, nothing will ever be the same again now our sunshine has gone.”

It is imperative that we do all we can to give the families of these young ladies what little satisfaction can be delivered by a proper and full inquiry into these atrocious failings.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comprehensive question about the issues we face. He is absolutely right to say that systemic failings were identified, and as I have said, at this stage I have not said no to a public inquiry. We need urgently to address these issues, and ensure that, nationally, the same failings are not happening across the board. My concern about a public inquiry is the time that such inquiries take, and whether a rapid review would be more appropriate. I will make that decision in the coming days once advice has been taken. Nationally, some work is being done. For example, the Care Quality Commission is introducing a new approach into how it undertakes inspections. As with maternity services, one concern I have is that the CQC can do an inspection and rate a service as good, yet soon afterwards incidents are happening. I want to be satisfied that the CQC inspection process and the new approach it is taking will address issues and flag them as quickly as possible.

The National Mental Health Director wrote to every mental health and learning disability trust on 30 September, to ask them urgently to review their services in light of the findings we are seeing. The Secretary of State and I will meet her soon to follow up on that. NHS England is also reviewing everyone with a learning disability or autistic people in long-term segregation mental health in-patient units, because they are extremely vulnerable patients who may not have the ability to speak out when there are problems. I also want to look at whistleblowing, and support staff who want to flag problems but may not feel confident in doing so. We need to look at range of areas, but I very much take my hon. Friend’s points and I will look into the petition urgently today.

Automated External Defibrillators: Public Access

Debate between Maria Caulfield and Paul Howell

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate, and also for his passion and dedication in championing this cause. He will know of my interest in the subject before I became a Minister. If anyone can get these changes through, it will be him. I thank him for that. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), who is the No. 2 in these proceedings.

This is such an important issue. Twelve young people a week in this country die from sudden cardiac arrest. As we have heard, there are 30,000 cardiac arrests a year. This is not an insignificant issue. Behind every single one of those people is a family and a community. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) when he spoke of the tragic news of Sam Benson, the impact will last forever.

I reassure hon. Members that the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease and access to defibrillators is a priority for the Government. There has been some significant progress in the last two years. We know that about 90% of sudden cardiac arrests are fatal, but if a defibrillator is used in the first three to five minutes, survival can be around 50% to 70%. Again, it makes a significant difference if someone has a sudden cardiac arrest out of hospital.

The Government are supporting a number of measures and working with key stakeholders. I want to highlight some of the work being done to ensure the best possible access to defibrillators and that people feel confident to use them. Hon. Members may be aware that “The NHS Long Term Plan”, published in January 2019, includes a section on cardiovascular disease and defibrillators. The NHS has committed to developing a national network of first responders and access to automated external defibrillators, which will save roughly 4,000 lives a year by 2028. It is high on our agenda, but it is important that we deliver on it now. I think that is the key message from the hon. Member for Strangford, because the chance of survival from a cardiac arrest occurring out of hospital doubles if someone received CPR or defibrillation, so it makes a difference.

I will highlight some of the work that has been done, notably with the British Heart Foundation, which a number of Members have mentioned today. We have worked with the British Heart Foundation to put in place The Circuit, a national network providing evidence of where defibs are in all our communities. If someone calls 999 or contacts the emergency services, ambulance services can identify for them where their nearest defibrillator is.

The Circuit is now live and covers 10 ambulance services, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is working with the two remaining ambulance services, London and South East Coast ambulance services, to get them on to the system. We expect that to happen in the first half of next year. That means all our ambulance services will be able to direct people to the nearest defibrillator ahead of the ambulance attending to the person in need. Currently, 33,237 defibrillators are registered with the eight live ambulance services in England, so we now have a network that we can direct people to.

Although defibrillators do not yet need to be legally registered with the British Heart Foundation, we are working with manufacturers, stakeholders and partners to promote the registration of all defibrillators. My ask of colleagues here this afternoon and anyone who is watching is please to register a defibrillator with the British Heart Foundation. Please do check it is on the register, because it is crucial that the ambulance service can give directions to the nearest defibrillator if someone has a cardiac arrest. We can also ensure that existing defibrillators are managed and looked after and that the register is a live register. We all know that things happen in our communities—defibrillators can be vandalised, or a building can be taken out of use and the defibrillator goes with it. It is important that this is a live piece of work.

The NHS is also working with St John Ambulance. Again, a number of Members have mentioned its excellent work to increase the importance of CPR. It is true that although people do not need training in order to use a defibrillator—my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield put it well—it is about educating them so that they are confident in using them. I want to reinforce the message that no harm can be done with a defibrillator; simply stick the stickers to someone’s chest, turn the machine on, and it will tell us exactly what to do. In some cases, it will not be appropriate, in which case it will say exactly what will happen. It is a valuable piece of kit; almost idiot-proof, in that you cannot get it wrong. We want to give the public the absolute confidence that if they come across a defibrillator, they should feel free to use it, but that overall CPR training is also vital.

[Paul Howell]

Just to clarify the point about a defibrillator telling someone if it will not work, it actually will not work as a machine if it is used in the wrong way.

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That gives people added reassurance that they can do no harm, because the machine is totally in control.

We are also using technology, and there are some exciting apps—the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) talked about having apps. Some mobile technology works with the NHS to help people play a role in becoming first responders. If people know how to do CPR—the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) seems to be trained up in that—I encourage them to use the GoodSAM app, which allows members of the public who can do CPR and feel confident about using a defibrillator to receive alerts. If someone collapses in the local area, they will get an alert on their phone, which will tell them where the nearest defibrillator and the person who needs help are. It integrates with ambulance dispatch systems and has a crowd-sourced map of defibrillators, including those in vehicles. The platform now has more than 19,000 volunteers and partnerships with 80 organisations, including the NHS and ambulance trusts.

We are also reassured that the British Heart Foundation is developing an app. It will link to The Circuit and show people where their nearest defibrillator is. Technology is being used to help communities to help themselves.