Local Contact Tracing
Naz Shah Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
May I start by placing on the record my thanks to my local director of public health, Sarah Muckle, and her team for all their hard work during this pandemic? Labour has been calling on the Government to learn the lessons, help curb a rise in infections and save lives. The Government continue to use this phrase “NHS track and trace system”, which is more widely and truthfully known by the British public as, “Huge amounts of cash going to big private companies”—companies with links to the Tory party, and companies with truly abysmal track and trace records and poor results: in short, Serco and Sitel. The Government are doing this instead of funding local contact tracing and addressing the failures of a privatised and centralised contact tracing model.
Bradford, which contains my constituency, consistently seems to perform bottom on tracking and tracing the contacts of those who test positive for covid-19. The average percentage of contacts reached in Bradford over the last nine-week data period was 48.1%, but some weeks the figure has been lower than 40%. That is half the Government’s target. The rising infection rates are the direct result of a broken track and trace system, the Government’s inability to use straightforward communication and sheer incompetence on the part of this Government.
Here are some examples to illustrate how poor the Government’s communications have been. Two days ago, the Secretary of State told me that Bradford will be in the high tier of restrictions. Later that same day, in the press conference, the chief medical officer praised Bradford for our response to the situation. Then yesterday, we heard that the Government had started discussions to place Bradford in the highest tier of restrictions. Today, there is a pre-paid, pre-booked full-page Government advertisement in the Telegraph and Argus, Bradford’s local paper, saying that Bradford is in the medium tier of restrictions. So which one is it? Are we in the medium, high or higher tier?
Hold on—there’s more. On a Zoom call two days ago, I asked the Secretary of State what his Department was doing to address the issue of low numbers of people being tracked and traced in Bradford. Two days later, I still have no response, and yet the Secretary of State expects Members to be on a call with 20 minutes’ notice, and that is if they are lucky enough to get the email and not be on a train travelling down here.
The privatised track and trace programme is not working. My constituents deserve better. We need to get ahead of this virus. I will come to this Chamber time and again to highlight the Government’s incompetence and hold them to account for the sake of my constituents, because my constituents deserve better.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I spent an early part of my career in the sales industry, selling in the IT sector. I just wish that at some point I had come across a customer with as much money as this Government, and one so easily impressed and willing to give money to suppliers and then to defend them when they let them down. I never came across a customer nearly as naive as this Government.
Occasionally, a story seems to demonstrate a much wider point. So it was today with the scoop revealed by Ed Conway of Sky News that the Government are paying £7,360 per day to the management consultants at Boston Consulting Group, who are in charge of test and trace. That is the equivalent of a £1.5 million salary to preside over this shambolic system that is letting down all the people in my constituency and so many others. We will not find dedicated public servants being paid £7,500 a day or £1.5 million a year, but we will find a basic competence, a knowledge of their area and a desire to ensure that systems work before they are implemented. That is what we need right now in our system.
It is telling that, in a debate of this importance, with every Back-Bench Member of Parliament invited to contribute, just three Conservative MPs wanted to put their name on the list and say, “I will go in and speak up for the Government, because I think they are doing a good job.” That is because people in their constituencies know what is happening, and Conservative Members do not want it to be on their record that they were the ones speaking up for the Government, so they leave it to us to come here and expose the reality. That is what is happening. There are 365 Tory MPs—where are they? They are off in their offices hiding, while people in my constituency are being let down. [Interruption.] I accept that three have turned up, and I thank them for that, but I am talking about the rest of them.
We all remember when Leicester first went into lockdown and everyone said, “Oh my God! The rate in Leicester is appalling—those poor people.” The infection rate was less than 100 per 100,000 then.
Mr Perkins
Yes, I do, and I had an experience of that recently.
Leicester had a rate of 100 per 100,000 when it went into lockdown. In Chesterfield, we have a rate of 143 per 100,000, and we are still in tier 1. The scale of how bad this must be before the Government are shocked is changing all the time.
I was recently in self-isolation because a friend told me that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus four days before Test and Trace got in touch with me. The date that Test and Trace had was nine days after I came out of self-isolation. The whole system is not working, and when you experience it yourself, you can see why this failure is happening.
Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations
Naz Shah Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
My constituency has been under what are now known as tier 2 restrictions for 75 days. Yesterday evening, public health authorities and the local authority were told that we should now enter into talks to consider going into the highest tier. That quite shocked me, because it was not what I was told in the calls with the Secretary of State yesterday or in any other calls. It has also come as a surprise to people in Bradford.
Just as other Members have made cases for their constituencies, I will be no different in making the case for mine. Bradford West is a special case in that in 2017-18 child poverty was at 50.9% when we take into account children’s deprivation and housing costs. We have the seventh highest rates of unemployment in the country. Under the current support package, minimum wage workers on £8.72 will have to pay rent and live off £5.84 if the businesses they work for are forced to close. Those excluded from any financial support from the Government during the pandemic face another £20 cut in their universal credit claims as the Government drive on with their roll-back of vital support.
I ask the Minister directly: how does he expect people to survive in a constituency such as Bradford West, which has rising rates of child deprivation and is currently under additional restrictions, if their places of work were to close? Do not he and the Government see how the lack of adequate support alongside these restrictions will, rather than preventing a rise in child poverty, lead to an increase in child poverty in constituencies such as mine? If these measures are to be effective, the support needs to be adequate. I therefore ask him to speak to the Chancellor and consider additional funding support for constituencies such as mine. I know this Government may not have the political will to try to reduce child deprivation in constituencies such as mine, but I sincerely hope that they have the moral will to do so.
When history judges how we responded to this pandemic, social media has plenty of memes that give really good outlines of what the Government’s U-turns have been—from “whack-a-mole” to “world-beating” and all these “moonshot” theories. But actually the real test will be: how will our next generation make their way? Will their education be right? Will they be the next generation of poverty, even after 10 years of austerity and 10 years of this Government? What will life look like for my children and the children beyond? That will be the real test, so that is the responsibility the Government need to step up to today.
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con)
In March, we adhered to lockdown measures to protect one another’s lives and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Evidence indicates that the virus is on the increase across the nation. The analysis of what that means, however, is contested, and I remain to be convinced that the imposition of further measures in Wakefield at this time is the right thing to do. The measures before the House, which seek to arrest the spread of covid-19, will cripple Wakefield’s economic recovery and sound the death knell for many businesses. There is no silver bullet, and without one, although it is difficult, we must learn to live with the virus. The continued peaks and troughs are unsustainable and offer false hope.
Last week I visited Ossett brewery, which employs close to 400 people in my constituency. Having spent tens of thousands of pounds on becoming a covid-secure business, the incomprehensible 10 pm curfew—at best grounded in questionable science—has left the business in jeopardy. This afternoon I received an email from the managing director, who said that the imposition of tier 2 measures would merit the brewery’s closure.
I have similar stories to tell from restaurateurs and businesses from across my constituency. My inbox is swamped with people asking me—imploring me—to help the Government to realise that their businesses will be damned. I have not received one letter or email asking me to commend the Government on their proposals.
Throughout the pandemic, the people of Wakefield behaved responsibly, adhering to the Government’s guidelines. When my constituency was marked as an area of concern, my constituents diligently followed social distancing advice and were rewarded. Wakefield now has a lower number of covid cases than neighbouring Kirklees and Calderdale—indeed, lower than the Chancellor’s constituency of Richmond, which has been categorised as tier 1. As a consequence of this new tier system, Wakefield will be unfairly characterised as tier 2, along with the rest of West Yorkshire. As Wakefield is placed in stricter measures—
Naz Shah
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should thank local health officials, particularly the directors of public health such as in Bradford West, and that they have the real answers? That expertise is very local and this needs to be led locally, as opposed to nationally with “one size fits all” in cases such as his?
Imran Ahmad Khan
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. Certainly, if we used a model such as Germany, that would be the case, but Germany has a strong federal system with the Länder while the United Kingdom is far more centralised, so I do not think there is a fair comparison. It would be best if all our citizens co-operated entirely with test, track and trace, downloaded the app and used it, and behaved responsibly. In the end, with the covid virus, the human variable is key to limiting and controlling the disease. We have to get individuals to understand their responsibility and their key use in sorting this problem out themselves.
As I was saying, under this new tier system, Wakefield will be placed under stricter measures while other areas in West Yorkshire with a far higher incidence, such as the hon. Lady’s, will enjoy eased measures. Wakefield’s infection rate merits the disaggregation of the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council area from West Yorkshire and its placement in tier 1. The Secretary of State has already said that this is possible in High Peak and parts of North Yorkshire, so, if he would commit to so doing for Wakefield, I would reconsider and vote with the Government. Without such assurances, I fear these measures would, for Wakefield, be death by a thousand cuts. I could not look my constituents in the eye if I had voted for measures that broke them.
Covid-19
Naz Shah Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), but I must disagree with what he said on having to respond to a pandemic. While I absolutely agree that the pandemic brings up new situations, the truth is that we were slow into lockdown. The Government were slow in testing and they were slow with PPE. Those facts are well documented.
It is absolutely right that the British people want the Government to succeed in fighting this virus. This is a time for leadership, but leadership also requires integrity. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned the issue of Dominic Cummings. That was a time when the Prime Minister fractured the relationship with the British public, in terms of them looking up to him for the leadership that was required. At times like this, the leadership needs to step up, but sadly, the Government and the Prime Minister have lost that control.
The rate of infection is rising. Our testing system is not fit for purpose. Our university students should be having one of the best experiences of their lives, but hundreds are describing their current experience as like being locked in a prison. Schools in my constituency are being forced to partially close, and I agree with the hon. Member for Winchester about the ill-thought-out 10 pm curfew, which has been described as shambolic by Tory MPs and the Mayor of Manchester.
Test and Trace is massively important, and on just about every measure, the Test and Trace system is going backwards. It is clear that the Government have wasted the last few months and have failed to get Test and Trace ready for the increase in cases that they should have anticipated. I have had numerous emails from parents, key workers, the elderly and the most vulnerable, all desperate to get an appointment for a test. If they do get an appointment for a test, it might be hundreds of miles away. The truth is that there is no availability, and that is simply not acceptable. The Government need to get a grip on fixing the system before things get even worse.
On care homes, back in March, we saw the Government’s strategy to enable hospitals to cope with the anticipated number of coronavirus cases lead to the elderly and most vulnerable being discharged from hospitals back into care homes without testing for infection. On 15 April, I wrote to all the care homes in my constituency, offering them support and asking about their experiences. In every reply, I saw the same themes emerging over and over again: a lack of PPE, concerns about no testing provision being available, people deeply concerned about the risks to their most vulnerable patients, a lack of financial support from the Government—the list goes on. The Government cannot fail care homes once again. Weekly testing of care home residents and staff is critical to saving lives, yet there have been repeated delays to the roll-out of testing, and care homes have waited days for their results. That cannot carry on.
Labour has repeatedly called for additional resources for social care, so we welcome the news that the adult social care infection control fund will continue, but the real test of the plan is whether the Government deliver on weekly testing for all care staff, first promised in July but still not delivered. We have serious concerns about delays in getting results back.
Reports that infection rates are beginning to rise in care homes once more are extremely concerning. Getting on top of the challenges that social care faces before winter is vital. We cannot afford action to protect care homes and other services to be as slow and chaotic as it was at the start of the pandemic. There are also serious concerns about vacancies in the care sector in the months ahead, particularly if there is a second wave of the virus as care providers prepare for winter. The Government must provide an immediate plan to better support care workers in all settings, including the 70,000 who are employed by direct payments and the 9 million unpaid carers.
I know that local businesses and workers in Bradford West are extremely worried about what the future holds. With the furlough scheme due to end on 31 October, the Chancellor announced the job retention scheme. The new scheme seeks to support only jobs with a viable future under covid-19 restrictions. That means an increase in job losses. Given that Bradford West has the seventh highest unemployment rate in the country, I am extremely concerned—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I was going to allow the hon. Lady her last line.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
The coronavirus pandemic has turned our world upside down. It is the biggest global threat to health and wellbeing in our living memory, with so many lives cruelly taken. The pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond the spread of the disease itself. It has had a catastrophic impact on the global economy, decimating whole industries and putting livelihoods at risk. More than ever, the coronavirus pandemic has shown huge gaps in our health and welfare system after a decade of austerity. We need to protect our public services and to support our communities and our economy through this crisis and beyond.
No one can deny that this pandemic has presented unprecedented health and economic challenges. Labour Members have acted in a spirit of constructive opposition and supported the Government when it was the right thing to do. However, the Government have squandered the good will across parties and out in the country through incompetence that has got worse week in, week out—whether it is PPE shortages, mixed messages about lockdown restrictions, double standards over enforcement of such restrictions, or the fiasco of the mismanagement of GCSE and A-level results over the summer, causing huge misery for young people when they should have been looking to their future and being able to plan for it. There is also the appalling mess over testing and tracing. More recently, thousands of students have been sent to university without the support that they need. We have had 23 U-turns and counting: it is a risible record of incompetence that goes on and on. You couldn’t make this stuff up, Madam Deputy Speaker. Our country, unfortunately, has had the worst death rate in Europe—nearly 42,000.
Coronavirus has also laid bare the deep inequalities faced particularly by black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, and those from white disadvantaged communities. People are twice as likely to die in deprived areas as in affluent areas. Those of Bangladeshi origin are twice as likely to die as their white counterparts. Black men are three times more likely to die. Following the Public Health England report on the disproportionate impact on BAME communities, the Health Secretary said that black lives matter. Well, he has a funny way of showing it. His Government have yet to provide an action plan on how disparities in death rates can be prevented in future. With a second wave looming, that is completely irresponsible, and the Government need to act now.
Rushanara Ali
I could not agree more. I hope that Ministers learn from the things that could have been done better and ensure that those lessons are learned quickly. That is all we want. That is what we all care about and it is imperative that the Government learn those lessons. We stand ready to support the Government, as we have done, wherever possible, to make those things happen, but sadly we have seen the Government go from one crisis to another. I hope that the spirit of listening, responding and working together that we saw at the beginning of the crisis can be resumed as we face another crisis.
When we see the death rates among care workers in the NHS and the incredible sacrifices they have made, we need to ensure that the hospitals and care homes that do not have the tests they desperately need get them as a matter of urgency. There are many reports of that not happening. The Government need to act fast.
More than 620 NHS and care workers have already lost their lives. They have paid the ultimate price to save others and protect all of us. We owe it to them to give their colleagues the testing and protections they desperately need. The Prime Minister promised a “world-beating” track and trace system to prevent a second wave, but instead he delivered world-beating incompetence. The Government had months to prepare the system for the winter period but failed to act.
The Government have made a habit of missing targets, botching results and underperforming when it comes to testing. In May—four months ago—I raised testing with the Health Secretary. I received a response from him four weeks ago, in which he boasted that the speed at which the Government have set up the testing infrastructure is a real success. That could not be further from the truth. We have heard colleagues, one after another, speaking about their constituents being sent to places far, far away from where they live. We have heard that week in, week out.
On the economy, the Government’s incompetence has cost lives, harmed communities and damaged our economy beyond the damage caused by the pandemic. We have seen thousands of people laid off since March, unemployment has risen and a million young people face unemployment. While the Chancellor promised that no one would be left behind, 3 million UK taxpayers were excluded from any kind of support during the pandemic. In my constituency, 47,000 people are on the job retention scheme, but unfortunately not enough of them will benefit from the programme that the Chancellor announced. We need a radical plan to protect the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are likely to go in the coming months.
We need support for local authorities. In my local authority, £30 million of resources is needed to make up for the income lost and the costs of covid. Local authorities up and down the country, whether Conservative-run, Labour-run or run by Liberal Democrats and other parties, desperately need support. I hope that Health Ministers as well as Treasury Ministers will act quickly to save lives and protect the jobs that will continue to face risks.
Covid-19: BAME Communities
Naz Shah Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) for securing this debate. “Unprecedented” is a word we have heard bandied around a lot in the last few months. The new ways of working and interacting with our communities may be unprecedented, but sadly, the effect of covid-19 on black and minority ethnic communities does have precedent. If the Government had taken the findings of previous reports seriously, not only is it possible that many of these black and minority ethnic deaths could have been avoided, but we would not once again have to be asking the Government to ensure that more people do not lose their lives to this horrible disease.
In 2017, the Lammy review and the race disparity audit were published. Both highlighted the structural inequalities experienced by black and minority ethnic communities. Asian and black households and those in other ethnic minority groups were more likely to be poorer and most likely to be in persistent poverty. The ethnic minority population is more likely to live in areas of deprivation—especially black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi people. Around one in 10 adults from black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or mixed backgrounds were unemployed, compared with one in 25 white British people. Overcrowding affects ethnic minority households disproportionately. London has one of the highest rates of overcrowding of all regions in England. There has been an increase in the number of ethnic minority households accepted by local authorities as statutorily homeless over the last decade.
The Government will tell us that tackling racism is at the core of their efforts. Last week, I asked the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government how much it spends on tackling racism. The response said that the Department
“paid approximately £219,00 to projects specifically to target racism in the financial year 19/20.”
People across this nation are watching. Black and minority ethnic communities have faced structural racism for decades, and we are having to have the same conversations 20 years on. People are concerned and, rightly, angry. Although I support both Show Racism the Red Card and the Anne Frank Trust, which the Government fund, is this the message that the Government want to give—just £219,000 of the Department’s annual budget is spent on racism, yet the Prime Minister is willing to spend £900,000 on rebranding his plane? Can somebody tell me what kind of message that sends to our country? The message is that this Government care more about the colour of a plane than fighting racism, bigotry and discrimination for people of colour. Is this the message the Government are sending? Is that the Government’s priority? And they wonder why people are so angry.
Morally, the Government’s priorities are not in the right place and nor are they economically. The McGregor-Smith review found that black and minority ethnic career progression could add £24 billion a year to the UK’s economy. If we could tackle racial inequality, we would be billions better-off. Yet I ask the Government how much they are spending specifically on tackling this type of race inequality. If the Minister wants to tell the House how much is spent on trying to retrieve up to £24 billion lost to the economy, I am happy to give way.
On 9 April, I also wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Over the past few months, the Government have published significant material on covid-19 restrictions and guidelines on the Government website, and Ministers have been briefing the nation on air every single day. Yet I have still not received a response, despite me reaching out to the Government to support them in their efforts to reach minority communities. On a community level in Bradford West, the Al Markaz Medics, the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Bradford Council for Mosques all put out their own communication. It did not come from the Government. Nationally, lot of organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain did what they needed to do for their own communities, but the Government did not. We have had to take it upon ourselves. The Government failed to acknowledge the significant language barriers that exist in communities, despite this being a pandemic where everyone has needed to receive clear messaging.
I am a former commissioner. From my commissioning days, I remember the Rocky Bennett inquiry. In 1998, Rocky Bennett was held down by five nurses. He could not breathe either and he died. The report, published over 20 years ago, made recommendations to the Department of Health to
“cure this festering abscess”—
racism—
“which is a blot upon the good name of the NHS.”
Rocky Bennett was a 38-year-old black man with huge ambitions who had been offered a traineeship with Chelsea.
Structural inequalities are what this comes down to. Even in this place last year, a young man who had grown his Afro for years had to cut it to even be considered for an interview. Structural racism exists in this place. The Government need to listen and stop papering over with more reviews. We know what the issues are. Now is the time for action.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) on successfully securing the debate, and I share the concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement about the stark inequalities and injustices that are faced by black people and other ethnic minorities. Covid-19 has been devastating in our communities, care homes and hospitals. So many hearts have been broken by loss, and today we have heard powerful statements from the heart.
This debate is rightly focused on the impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities—a point extremely pertinent to my constituency. In her maiden speech, my predecessor, Jo Cox, said of Batley and Spen:
“Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency, or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 674.]
I quote Jo Cox in the week of the fourth anniversary of her murder, and she is still desperately missed in this place and in Batley and Spen. That quote perfectly describes the diversity of my constituency. That community is already exposed to underlying health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma, and we now know that there is also a raised risk of death involving covid-19, when compared with people of white ethnicity.
As a proud GMB MP, I know that GMB supports many thousands of ancillary staff, from hospital porters to cleaners, ambulance workers and admin staff, and it has pressed for risk assessments. Sadly, those risk assessments came too late for many staff, and when they did come, they focused on access to PPE and social distancing challenges.
Naz Shah
I think my hon. Friend and I might have been on the EveryDoctor briefing together, which highlighted that although BAME staff make up 17% of the NHS workforce, only 11% of them are in senior management, and that figure then drops to 6.4%. A BMA survey stated that 64% of BAME staff felt pressured into working without PPE, compared with 33% of non- BAME staff.
Tracy Brabin
My hon. Friend makes a powerful comment, and I will get to that point later in my remarks. We must not allow pressure on people to do their job to affect health outcomes for them and their family, and I thank her for that brilliant intervention.
With all that in mind, plus the fact that Pakistani deaths are 2.9 times as high as deaths among white British people, it sadly seems as though my diverse constituency is at a greater risk of being disproportionately affected by covid-19. It is therefore with some optimism and relief that I note the most recent statistics, which show that the Kirklees local authority area remains one of the lowest affected by covid per size of population, with 179.6 cases per 100,000 people. On Tuesday this week, no new deaths were recorded at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust over the previous 24 hours. These low figures clearly reflect the sacrifices of the people of Kirklees and of Batley and Spen, who listened to Government advice and followed the guidance to protect our NHS. I would like to thank the leadership of Kirklees Council and of Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who have worked tirelessly to keep the public and stakeholders informed so that we can all work together to keep people safe.
One serious worry is that the results of the covid testing regime are being held centrally and not shared with the trust, which could make the most of the data in an increasingly fluid situation. That does seem extremely odd. Our NHS trust is the local expert and the institution that people look to to keep them safe, so if it could factor in testing—how many tests are done and in what geographical location—and build a response based on the breakdown and composition of positive results, we would all be better served.
The impact on my community goes further than falling ill. The economic impact also affects my BAME community more deeply than others as we are a large manufacturing region and manufacturing is particularly exposed in an economic downturn. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies data showed only this week, workers in shut-down sectors are more likely than average to be BAME women and part-time workers, with 15% from BAME backgrounds in comparison with the workforce average of 12%. Let us not forget that these are a group of workers already disadvantaged in the labour market, with the ONS showing pre-covid BAME unemployment at 6.3% in January to March 2020, compared with 3.9% of the whole population. Anxiety about money and job prospects will also have a profound impact on their mental health.
As we know, according to the report from Public Health England, racism can make people from BAME backgrounds less likely to ask for help or insist on PPE. Some 90% of the doctors who died during the pandemic were from BAME backgrounds. Doctors from these communities were three times more likely to say that they had felt pressured to work without protective equipment. We must do more to tackle institutionalised racism in the care sector and the NHS. For that to happen, we need to have better data reporting, to support those in low-paid jobs to speak up, to develop a risk assessment for BAME staff members exposed to large numbers of the general public, to deliver culturally sensitive messaging across the community and to intensify health messages around the conditions that can lead to vulnerability.
Before I finish, let me say that each and every one of the statistics has family and friends mourning their loss. I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful, thoughtful and very well liked Dr Nasir Khan, who worked on one of the medical wards at Dewsbury and District Hospital in my constituency. He fell ill with the virus last month and, as a resident of Bolton, was admitted to Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, where he sadly died. His son made a moving tribute to his father. He ended with the words:
“We strive to achieve the greatness that was my dad and fulfil the dreams he has left behind.”
Let us hope that Dr Khan’s sacrifice was not in vain, and that Government will now implement the changes needed to ensure that black, Asian and minority ethnic workers are not allowed to be collateral damage in this fight.
Covid-19
Naz Shah Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady makes an important point, which is that the consequences of closing schools are very complicated. It is something that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is addressing directly.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
Lots of my constituents in Bradford West in the Muslim and Jewish communities have concerns about burials because they want to bury as soon as somebody dies. Given that we might sadly lose people to the virus, what conversations has the Secretary of State had with religious institutions across the country in that regard?
Matt Hancock
The Communities Secretary leads on that question, because ultimately local authorities have an incredibly important role to play in making sure that such things happen smoothly. There are further powers in the Bill. The detail of those will be published tomorrow to try to make sure we have what we need to address that difficult situation.
Budget Resolutions
Naz Shah Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
I was really shocked when the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) said that there is weariness. It was Halloween yesterday, and that Budget was damn scary, never mind wearying. As for asking public sector workers to tighten their belts, it was not about tightening their belts—it was about going and accessing food banks. That is what that Budget was about, and what the Government continue to be about.
I sat here yesterday listening attentively to the Chancellor delivering his Budget. I was not holding my breath given this Government’s track record on breaking their promises, but I am ever an optimist, so I still sat here in hope: hoping, on behalf of my constituents of Bradford West, for this Government to deliver on their all-singing and—dare I say it?—all-dancing “end of austerity” Budget. Alas, even the Chancellor’s self-deprecating humour could not mask the reality of yet more broken promises.
No doubt we will hear from many colleagues, as we have heard before, about what this Budget really means and how it has failed to redress the balance and the crisis in the health and social care sector, with no end in sight under the Conservatives. But for now I want to talk about young people, and particularly their mental health. That is not only because I come from the great city of Bradford, which will have the youngest population in the whole of Europe by 2020, but because, as a former chair of a large mental health charity and a former NHS commissioner, I have an acute understanding of the realities that this Government continue to fail to grasp. They fail to listen to charities such as Barnardo’s, which has warned the Government that they are sleepwalking into a crisis.
Throughout this country we have seen a huge increase in the number of young people, in particular, suffering from mental health issues. Just a few weeks ago in my constituency, I met George Zito. George and his colleagues work to provide positive mental health training across schools in Bradford. George explained to me that 8,500 young people across Bradford have been diagnosed with mental health disorders, but the number with lower-level concerns is estimated to be at least double that. Implementing mental health specialist departments in every large NHS A&E is one way of tackling the crisis in mental health at the last stage, but we cannot afford to provide just last-minute crisis rescue for people’s mental health disorders, as the Government are currently doing with their Brexit negotiations.
When 50% of mental health problems are established by the age of 14, and 75% by the age of 24, making young people’s mental health a priority allows us to prevent future life problems for a whole generation. The Children’s Society has expressed concern that the Government’s plans for improving children’s mental health more generally are moving too slowly. With only one in four children being reached by school-based mental health teams in the next five years, there was nothing in the Budget to address that. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) mentioned earlier that is extremely disappointing that the Government did not put extra resource into schools to provide counsellors who can effectively tackle low levels of wellbeing and support children with poor mental health.
The reality on the ground is that people like George Zito from my constituency will not get the resources they need, and little will be done to help reach young people with mental health issues in their schools. With this Budget, the two-year waiting times for young people trying to see a specialist counsellor for issues to do with mental health will remain to a large extent in Bradford West. The Chancellor decided it was okay to trick the young in my constituency facing issues with mental health while his Budget could treat the wealthiest, who are 14 times more likely to benefit from it than the poor.
Between 2012 and 2016, this Government’s cuts led to a loss of 600 youth centres, 3,500 youth workers, and 140,000 youth centre places for young people. This Budget does nothing at all to resolve the loss of those services. It not only neglects young people’s need for direct access to mental health counsellors in their schools but, given the minimal youth services available, leaves them with little or no face-to-face support. Although I sincerely welcome the Chancellor’s cash injection of £2 billion, which has been referred to on more than a few occasions, I am afraid that it just does not cut it for my constituents, or for young people up and down the country. The Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that almost £4.1 billion is the actual figure needed to meet the necessary provision of mental health services.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
In situations where there are no beds in acute mental health wards, public funds are being used to pay for private beds in private hospitals. Does my hon. Friend think that that is a good use of public funds?
Naz Shah
I absolutely share those concerns about that expenditure when we are not investing in the infrastructure we need. What we heard yesterday, and more of today, was sticking plaster options—those are the only solutions that this Government have come up with. That is one thing that the Conservatives are absolutely the masters of—saying, “We are investing £2 billion, but actually we stripped you of £5 billion the week before.” It just cannot work like that.
My concerns remain as valid as they were before the Chancellor stood up yesterday and delivered his Halloween frighteners, because the truth remains that once again this Government are using their mastery of applying sticking plasters to try to hold together a wound that they have inflicted and that, quite frankly, is not healing. The tricks in his bag were exactly those, delivered by the Chancellor on behalf of a Tory Government who are now a master of disguise. Yesterday, the Chancellor liked to refer to himself as Fiscal Phil. Although it may be humorous for the Chancellor to half-pronounce his name, it is catastrophic for this whole country when his Budget does not even half halt austerity, half provide the provision needed for mental health services, or go halfway towards providing the parity of esteem that his own Government have been promising.
With the Chancellor suggesting that he will put an emergency Budget before Parliament in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a few things come to mind. Is the Minister willing to provide assurances that the extra funding for mental health will not be swallowed up, that there will not be cuts, and that the Prime Minister’s failure to negotiate a Brexit deal will not mean collateral damage for those suffering the most?
Finally, I want to talk about the investment in the public sector leadership academy, which the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk mentioned. I concur: I absolutely value that investment. However, the problem is that it is those very public sector leaders who are having to deal with austerity. For example, there is the former chair of Solace in Doncaster, who has written an article about it. In Northamptonshire, the Tory council is having to go through bankruptcy. There is nothing wrong with the people involved as leaders. What is wrong is the cards that they are dealt in having to cut services and make decisions every single day of the week about whether a woman is not going to get a bed for the night following domestic violence, a child is not going to get a CAMHS referral, or a child is going to take home a begging letter from their school because there is not enough funding and it cannot afford food. That is the reality of austerity, and it needs to stop now.
Autism Diagnosis
Naz Shah Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) on securing the debate.
Like many other Members here, I have met constituents who have talked to me not only about the difficulty of diagnosis, but the importance of getting a diagnosis. I have also heard of the difficulty that both children and adults face when trying to access the services required to support their everyday lives. I stand here today as someone who has worked as an advocate for people with disabilities since 1999—in my previous life—and in our family, my brother and sister-in-law are full-time carers to a young man who is autistic, and the father of my children continues to provide respite for two young men who are autistic, so I am very familiar with the issue of autism.
The story I really want to share today is that of young Mustafa, who will be five years old in October. His parents, Aweis Asghar and Neela Fawad, have had many conversations about the fact that Mustafa was recently diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder. It took 12 months for that diagnosis and a further six months to have an education, health and care plan assessment by the local authority. At a time when young parents should be enjoying spending time with their only child—getting him to school and doing all the normal things—a diagnosis of autism has a massive impact not only on that family, but on the wider family unit: their work life, home life and everything. They are trying to understand something unique to their child. No two children on the spectrum are the same, and no parents will ever feel the same; they all handle things differently.
Aweis told me this morning that in America an assessor comes to the parents’ house, offers advice and guidance on the world of autism, and understands their child as an individual. Here, parents are left to their own devices. Not everybody has the level of education or the time, because of work pressures, required to do what it takes to get their child the support they need. When they get that support, it is usually from local charities, local support groups and other parents, as opposed to statutory services, which is where the ownership for making those interventions and supporting families should lie. Aweis also told me—we have talked extensively about this—that there are no clear pathways anywhere and that we do not follow the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
I want to ask the Government for a few things today. First, we need to revisit the NICE guidelines and ensure that we put in place the right pathways. We need to understand that every child is an individual and create their care packages individually. Secondly, the Government need to have a consistent approach across the country for every child.
NHS and Social Care Funding
Naz Shah Excerpts(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
I am grateful for this opportunity to raise some of the serious concerns that have been caused by this Government’s refusal to fully fund our NHS. The Government are running out of places to cut corners to save money on the NHS. They are showing a lack of respect and compassion as they fail to provide the healthcare that people need and deserve. Those who need care at home are having to make do with 15-minute flying visits.
We have seen the pressure in A&E departments building over the past six years and yet every year we reach a winter crisis that is somehow a surprise to the Government. We have seen an increase in A&E waiting times, with more than 1.8 million people waiting more than four hours in 2015-16—an increase of over 400% since 2010.
Bed-blocking is increasing as our underfunded social care services struggle to deal with demand. We have seen an increase in the number of patients waiting on trolleys to be treated or admitted, and an increase in the number of hospitals running out of beds. We are also about to see a 12% cut to community pharmacies, which will lead to the closure or reduction in services of our local pharmacies. The time it takes to get a GP appointment is also increasing.
This is not the most complex of problems. If we want a proper functioning full person-centred care system that works with compassion and treats those in need professionally and efficiently, this Government must fund it.
Alex Chalk
In 2015, the head of the NHS, Sir Simon Stevens, said that the NHS needed £8 billion. It was this party that committed to fund it; the Labour party did not. If the hon. Lady is so keen on funding the NHS, why did the Labour party not pledge to do so back in 2015?
Naz Shah
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
Let me turn now to pharmacies. This Government fail to grasp the fact that cuts to one service will have a direct impact on another. Let me be clear: only two months ago, I stood on the Floor of this House to condemn the proposed 12% cut to community pharmacies, which could mean the closure of 25% of the 42 pharmacies in my Bradford West constituency. That highlights the short-sighted approach taken by this Government. They are attacking all forms of primary healthcare and frontline services on which people rely.
If the figures are correct, nearly 30% of people who attended A&E services in Bradford royal infirmary over the past month could have been treated elsewhere for minor ailments. Many of them could go to their local pharmacy, through our local ailments scheme, or see their GP. What is the Government’s long-term approach to these systemic issues if they continue to water down primary care services? All we will see is an increase in the number of visitors unnecessarily attending A&E and an increase in the problems faced by those needing access to services.
The impact of the reduction in GP services is the same. Only a few months ago, I campaigned with the local community to save Manningham health practice. The proposal was temporarily put on hold, although we still have fears. Thankfully, we managed to prevent that centre from being closed down in the short term, but others in my constituency are at risk. Many other MPs have GP surgeries in their constituencies that face uncertain futures due to the funding restraints. This paints a picture not only of the underfunding of primary care services, but of a strategy that simply does not work together. Even a simple understanding of healthcare provision would allow us to see that if we decrease NHS services in one sector, there is an impact on the rest of it and an increased pressure on other service providers. But this Government continue to underfund and cut funding to all aspects of frontline services, and they expect the quality of care to remain the same. Where is the long-term planning that will ensure that people get access to the care that they deserve and are entitled to?
The Government’s strategy is the same when it comes to local government social care funding. The cuts to local social care funding have been dramatic. As many other hon. Members have highlighted, nearly £4.6 billion has been taken out of the social care sector since 2010, mainly through local government funding cuts. My district of Bradford has just had to announce that it will need to find another £8 million in savings from its social care budget. The authority is trying to be innovative and trying to find ways to ensure that there is no effect on frontline care by putting its resources into prevention. For me, the Government still fail to recognise the impact of deprivation on care needs. In one of the four most deprived constituencies, health issues go hand in hand with deprivation. The cuts to local government funding make that even more evident. It is not the work of our exceptional healthcare staff that has caused this crisis. It is the reduction in funding and the short-term strategy of this Government that are responsible. It is time for them to wake up and provide the healthcare provision people deserve.
Community Pharmacies
Naz Shah Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
This debate could not come at a more important time for my constituents, because a potential 25% of the 42 community pharmacies in my constituency face closure due to the funding deal that this short-sighted Government imposed last week.
Pharmacies in Bradford West play a vital role in the total holistic healthcare services on offer to my constituents. My constituency is the fourth most deprived in the country, and we have one of the most diverse communities. Constituents face genuine day-to-day struggles to access the services and advice that they require. The 2014 patient survey report showed that more than a quarter of them could not access a GP appointment when they needed it.
We acknowledge the essential and diverse service that our community pharmacies perform and, in an attempt to maximise their impact, Bradford trialled the minor ailments scheme, which the Minister has referred to, in 2014. I spoke to Mr Ajmal Amin of my local pharmacy, Sahara, only this morning, and he explained that, in addition to the more than 100 people a week who walk through his door, an average 50 a week do so as part of the minor ailments scheme. Even if one in four people end up going to a GP appointment, that means 90,000 extra GP appointments a year in my constituency alone, at a cost of more than £4 million.
Bradford has a higher incidence of cancer, diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease, and that is because poverty, deprivation and ill health go hand in hand—there is a clear correlation between them.
I will give a recent personal example. Over the past few months, my mother has suffered three transient ischaemic attacks. One of them was a potential stroke and she has already had cancer. Only last week, she was admitted to Luton hospital with an acute kidney infection. On Monday morning, it took 42 attempts for me to get through to my GP practice to make an appointment, but by the time I got through at 23 minutes past 8, all the appointments had gone. That experience is not unique to me; it is happening across the country. If we close community pharmacies, GPs will come under extra pressure. I have not seen a Government plan to give my constituency—which is one of five in Bradford—£4 million for another 90,000 appointments a year.
The reality is that the proposals will disproportionately affect those who need healthcare the most. Yes, we have lots of pharmacies, but the Government’s proposals do not take into account diverse communities with complex health needs.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
It is interesting to hear what is happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Five of the 23 pharmacies in my constituency of Wirral West are at risk of closure because of the Government cuts. Given the huge pressures that NHS services are under, does my hon. Friend share my concerns that the cuts will further inhibit the options of elderly and infirm people in particular in accessing the services that they need?
Naz Shah
I agree with my hon. Friend. My constituents have so many complex health needs. I am a former NHS commissioner, and I commissioned services in accordance with public health priorities in Bradford. Obesity, cancer and diabetes are long-term chronic conditions and they impact on those communities with the most deprivation. It is not just one whammy: we have deprivation, lack of jobs and so on. We need to look holistically at people. Taking away pharmacies from our communities is not the way to provide healthcare services. We cannot and must not look at pharmacies as stand-alone items. They are part of a holistic care package across the board, and they complement the NHS and GPs.
Let me be clear: the fact that I could not get through to my GP surgery until my 42nd attempt is not a reflection on my GP practice, Kensington Street health centre, which is one of the best I have ever experienced. The staff are amazing. They are working to try to fit a square peg into a round hole because of the extent of the cuts that they have already experienced. This is not about GP practices not delivering what they can; it is simply that they do not have the resources. We do not have enough GPs as it is, and taking away pharmacies will not help.
I urge the Government to revisit this proposal, which has not been clearly thought through and does not take into account constituencies such as mine. I urge the Government to abolish it and bring something else to the table, because it is clearly not going to work.
Junior Doctors Contracts
Naz Shah Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
This morning, Dr Ben White resigned as a trainee doctor. He said it was
“to fight the contract on behalf of his patients and on behalf of the NHS.”
I also met junior doctors over the weekend, and their morale is really low. Does the Health Secretary believe that it can be safe for patients to impose a contract that risks destroying the morale of junior doctors and impacting on staff retention?
Mr Hunt
I will tell the hon. Lady what is unsafe for patients. It is not standing up to the BMA when it behaves in a totally unreasonable way with a Government who are determined to make NHS care safer. With the greatest respect to her, because she is new to the House, she should appreciate that previous Labour Governments did not stand up to the BMA, and that is why we are left with many of the problems that we face today.