Dementia

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the timely opportunity to debate on the Floor of the House this most important of issues. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for her commitment to, and interest in, these issues and her determination to ensure this debate took place today, and the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who chairs the all-party group on dementia. Together, the three of us argued the case for this debate to come to the House, and I look forward to their contributions. They are both passionate about this issue.

Earlier this week, I was at an event at which the daughter of an 86-year-old woman with dementia said some things that spoke to what this debate is all about. She talked about being a full-time carer for her mother and about the agonising decision to move her mother into a care home. She said that although death and moving house were probably the two most traumatic events in our lives, dementia was a never-ending bereavement and that the daily trauma had robbed her and her mother of life. Such true-life experiences, many more of which I hope will come out in today’s debate, make it plain why dementia is now the disease most feared by the over-55s.

My interest in the issue goes back well over a decade and was started by a report that I read into the inappropriate and, in some cases almost abusive, use of anti-psychotic medication. Even then, the side effects were beginning to be well documented and understood, so it is no wonder that at the time these anti-psychotics were labelled as a chemical cosh. As the evidence has mounted over the last decade or so of the increased risk of stroke as a result of these drugs and of the fact that they can shorten lives, I was prompted to ask endless parliamentary questions to Ministers about the matter and to produce a series of reports. At times, it felt a bit like banging my head against a brick wall.

I am pleased to say that the wall has started to tumble and that things have begun to change, and, in the last two and a half years, we have seen a 52% reduction in the prescription of these drugs to individuals receiving them for inappropriate reasons. As a result, lives have been saved and lives have been changed. But—and it is an important but—the Prime Minister’s progress report on his dementia challenge made it clear that there is no room for complacency and that there is still too much regional variation in the use of these drugs to manage people with dementia and too much prescribing. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the next steps will be, when the next audit, which has been committed to, will take place and be published and what other steps he thinks will be necessary to ensure that we achieve the goal of a two-thirds reduction in prescribing.

I pay tribute to Clare Gerada, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who was instrumental in getting the co-operation of GPs for the necessary surveys to understand prescribing practice and who has led some of the change in culture and behaviour in this area. I also pay tribute to the last Labour Government—not something I always do—for producing the first national dementia strategy. It was one of the first in the world, in fact, and should be recognised as an important contribution.

When I became care services Minister in May 2010, I had to make a judgment: did we carry on the road laid out in that strategy, or did we start again? I took the view that we should use the strategy as the foundation for future action, and I am pleased to say that, as a result, the Government have done a lot to deliver on the strategy and go beyond it, through the creation of a dementia action alliance, bringing many different organisations together in a common cause, through clearer commissioning guidance, through collaboration with the Design Council and through funding the Life Story Network to run training courses. The latter is a small thing, but it makes a big, big difference: by telling our stories and understanding who we are, we start to look beyond the diagnosis of dementia, and, as a result, we start to treat the person, not just the disease.

Furthermore, the audit of dementia services has given us a handle on where different parts of the country have reached in developing their services and has led to new incentives in hospitals to support best practice and the much-valued—I hope—analytical tools that will help to drive up diagnosis rates, which are still far too low. Following the research call made just over a year ago, I was delighted to see just last week that £20 million of funding has now gone to new dementia research projects. That far exceeds what I expected at the time as a Minister and certainly what many officials in the Department expected. It really is fantastic news.

The Prime Minister’s dementia challenge has put dementia centre stage, promoting dementia-friendly communities and raising the bar for early diagnosis and quality of care, along with ensuring vital dementia research too. There is a lot happening and it can happen back in our constituencies as well. All of us have an opportunity—and, I believe, a responsibility—to challenge our local services to do more to become more dementia-friendly and ensure that they learn the lessons from best practice. However, there are some questions that the Minister needs to answer about what comes next. The current dementia strategy runs its course in 2014. What comes next? In my view, there has to be a successor strategy—one that is perhaps different from the current strategy in a number of ways, building on the work being done as a result of the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge.

That challenge is a challenge to the whole of Whitehall, not just the Department of Health. Every Department should be a catalyst for action on dementia within its sphere of responsibilities. Indeed, just before Christmas I tabled a series of parliamentary questions to try to establish what each Department was doing to support the dementia challenge. The answers I received were highly variable. Not all Departments seem to have clocked the fact that they could materially do something to make a difference in their sphere of responsibilities. I hope we can pick up on what the Prime Minister said about this being a challenge that cuts right across society, as well as ensuring that it is picked up and understood right across government. Any new strategy needs to embed dementia-friendly thinking right across Whitehall.

We cannot have a debate such as this and not talk about carers. It is important to stress and value the role that family carers play. That is why I was pleased to see recently that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has launched a consultation on new indicators in the quality and outcomes framework for identifying carers of people with dementia. That is fantastic, but what about all the carers who do not happen to be caring for someone with dementia? On this occasion I think it is wrong to single out one disease. I hope that others will make that comment in the consultation too. The most recent research by the Carers Trust into the NHS and carers’ breaks continues to make depressing reading, however. Too much of the NHS is still ignoring carers and not doing enough to passport the money that this Government have committed to carers’ breaks and make them a reality. As the NHS increasingly wakes up to the big challenge of supporting people with dementia and other long-term health conditions, it needs to wake up to its role in supporting carers too.

I have already mentioned that I was pleased to see the increased research funding that is coming through. I was delighted in 2010 when the coalition programme included a commitment to dementia research. That is a commitment that I lobbied the then Liberal Democrat health spokesman—now the Minister on the Front Bench—to include in our manifesto. Although there has been progress—with a road map now setting the direction of travel, a challenge group bringing various players together and a commitment to double research spending—I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated as a Minister by what I felt to be a poverty of ambition when measured against the burden of disease that dementia represents. We are not yet doing enough—we do not yet have the critical mass—to reach the scale and pace necessary to gain the understanding and insights that we need to make the breakthroughs. The £20 million from the research call is fantastic and I hope it will make a difference, but we still have lessons to learn from the journey made by the cancer research movement. I believe the dementia research challenge group itself needs to be challenged more. We need a long-term plan for dementia research and a sustained increase in funding for at least the next decade. This is about a common endeavour—a collaboration, as it were—between the research funders and the research community, so that we make a concerted effort to expand our knowledge of this disease, to diagnose and treat it and, ultimately, to understand and defeat it.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend, but dementia is clearly not an English disease; rather, it is an international threat. Is there not scope for massive international collaboration on what is an issue confronting all nations?

[Paul Burstow]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Yes, there is scope for that; indeed, many research organisations in this field are already collaborating internationally. However, as a country with a very reputable research tradition, it is important that we should be in the vanguard of that research and put in place the necessary infrastructure to drive it forward.

Cancer Treatments

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate and on setting out—as he always does so admirably—the terrain that he wished us to traverse. Other hon. Members have done just that, and it is helpful to have this opportunity to mention the progress that has been made since the publication of the Government’s cancer outcome strategy in 2011. The annual report that we published last December set out that strategy in greater detail than I fear I will be able to provide in the time available today, and I commend it to Members.

Interestingly, one common theme in this debate has been touched on, quite rightly, by most of those who have contributed. Health inequality has been raised in the context of patient experience surveys—with which the Government will continue—and of age. The Government take health inequality so seriously that we have placed for the first time clear duties on commissioners and other parts of the NHS to act to reduce it, and we will say more about that soon when we publish the draft mandate for the NHS Commissioning Board.

The hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) referred to age and the differences in outcomes from cancer services for older people. I approved funding for a joint piece of work by Macmillan Cancer Support and Age UK to explore some of the obstacles and barriers that may prevent people from taking up cancer treatment or accessing it in the first place. We recently visited Barts Health NHS trust, which is taking part in that pilot programme, and we are looking at issues such as comorbidity and services in the community. We will report accordingly and take action to ensure that lessons are learned. The hon. Lady was right to raise the issue, and the Government have decided to implement provisions on age with regard to goods and services in the NHS and social services. On taking office, one of my first responsibilities was to take the necessary decisions to ensure that no part of the NHS would be exempt from those provisions, and key decisions needed to be taken to make it clear that age can be used only on an objective basis in health care and social care decision making.

I will say something about the NHS outcomes framework, and then respond to as many of the points that have been raised as I can in the time remaining. Recognising that many people have more than one medical condition, we have deliberately taken a generic approach to the NHS outcomes framework, rather than focusing on specific diseases. We recognise, however, that cancer is a big killer, and we have said repeatedly that improving health outcomes for cancer patients is a priority for the Government. We have aimed to reflect that in the framework by including seven specific indicators on cancer. Those include the under-75 mortality rate from cancer, and the one and five-year survival rates for the three major cancers, to which other hon. Members have referred: colorectal, breast, and lung. In addition, two overarching indicators include data on cancer: potential years of life lost from causes considered amenable to health care; and life expectancy at 75.

The indicator “under 75 mortality rate from cancer” is shared with the public health outcomes framework. By having that shared indicator, with joint accountability for delivery, Public Health England and the NHS Commissioning Board will have the incentive to work together to improve cancer mortality and survival. That relates to the question about the commissioning of public awareness campaigns. I can confirm to the hon. Member for Leicester West that Public Health England and the NHS Commissioning Board will have a joint responsibility, and a clear obligation, to commission in that regard.

[John Pugh]

On the point about indicators, a clear theme throughout the debate has been late diagnosis. Late diagnosis is not the same as late treatment. With GPs probably under more pressure than ever before not to make unnecessary referrals to secondary health settings of one kind or another, do the Government keep or have they any intention of keeping statistics on whether, where people are diagnosed late, the cause of the late diagnosis was that they presented far too late or that the GP and whoever they saw figured out what was wrong with them far too late?

[Paul Burstow]

I am coming to that. It relates to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who chairs the all-party group, about staging data. I will say more about that in a minute.

Outcomes for cancer patients and survivors will also be covered by other areas of the NHS outcomes framework. For example, we will measure patients’ experience of the NHS by looking at different patient surveys. We have been talking about that in this debate.

In addition to the indicators in the outcomes frameworks, the cancer outcomes strategy sets out a commitment to improve cancer survival rates generally and—we have heard the figure—to save an additional 5,000 lives a year by 2014-15. The strategy is supported by more than £750 million of investment for implementation during this spending review period.

Our aspiration is to have cancer survival rates as good as the best in Europe, but we have to stage progress to that goal. Our ambition during this spending review period is to halve the gap between England’s survival rates and those of the best in Europe. The estimate, based on the latest figures available, is that that would save an extra 5,000 lives. To deliver on that ambition, we must tackle survival rates for all cancers. To realise our goal, we are taking action to achieve earlier diagnosis of cancer, to extend existing screening programmes for breast and bowel cancer and to improve access to radiotherapy.

Let me deal specifically with early diagnosis. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport referred to the recent lung cancer awareness campaign—the “coughing” campaign as I think he described it. Obviously that campaign has not just dropped out of thin air into the broadcasts of our media around the country. It is the product of a detailed process of testing, trialling and evaluation. Indeed, the original idea came from a local campaign in Doncaster. Then there was a series of regional pilots to see how it would affect behaviour and what benefits would arise from that. I will be more than happy to send my hon. Friend the details of that and, as we evaluate the national programme, how that is going as well.

Early diagnosis is central to our strategy. It is one of the areas to which our international benchmarking has pointed us. By diagnosing cancer earlier, we will improve patients’ chances of being successfully treated, as other hon. Members have said. Through the national awareness and early diagnosis initiative, we have worked with the NHS and other stakeholders to run a number of campaigns to raise awareness. That is about getting people to talk about things that they would not necessarily normally want to discuss—getting them to overcome embarrassment, because embarrassment never killed anyone, but not turning up at the GP’s and asking key questions about particular cancers certainly does.

The hon. Member for Leicester West asked about support for GPs. A range of support is available to help GPs assess when it is appropriate to refer patients for investigation of suspected cancer. Obviously, there are the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence referral guidelines. However, we need to do more and we are investing in better GP access to diagnostic tests. I will say a little more about that in a moment. The national cancer action team, Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support are working together to develop a broader GP support programme for the coming years. That includes working with the Royal College of General Practitioners.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised the issue of pancreatic cancer. We are working closely with Pancreatic Cancer UK. In fact, we will be working through many of the issues of early diagnosis in a workshop specifically on pancreatic cancer next week. I will be speaking at that event.

We know from the latest diagnostic waiting times and activity figures that despite increasing demand, the proportion of people waiting more than six weeks for an endoscopy has decreased during 2011-12. I hope that hon. Members will join me in congratulating the NHS on the way in which it went about preparing for and dealing with the increased work load that arose from the bowel cancer symptoms awareness campaign that ran between January and March this year.

The Department is working with partners to support the NHS to improve the management of diagnostic demand. There are a couple of things that we are doing in particular. We are promoting the uptake and spread of efficient and productive service models. Some places have no problem in utilising the capacity that they have. Other trusts have struggled, and we are using NHS Improvement to target the trusts where the highest waits have occurred. We are also providing a variety of tools and information to support commissioners. Data are a key component in driving improvements, and we have a new data set for diagnostics, which is providing a wealth of new information.

In our cancer outcomes strategy, we said that access to appropriate treatment, delivered to a high standard, was critical to improving outcomes. That is why we have made available £150 million more over the spending review period. In April 2012, we confirmed plans to develop proton beam therapy services in Manchester and London by the end of 2017. Those services will have the capacity to treat up to 1,500 people a year. Much has been achieved with regard to access to radiotherapy in recent years. Radiotherapy waiting times are now within the 31-day operational standard for both first definitive and subsequent radiotherapy. Modelling shows that that improvement saves 2,500 lives annually in comparison with waiting times in 2007. Data are playing their part, and there are other issues around that.

I want to touch on investment. In answer to a question last week, I said that the first and foremost responsibility for maintaining equipment and identifying when it needs to be replaced does, of course, sit with the provider that uses that equipment. However, in March 2012, we announced the establishment of a £300 million fund, to be operated by NHS Supply Chain, to bulk-purchase medical equipment to achieve better prices for the NHS and to encourage trusts to keep their equipment up to date. It is therefore a combination of responsibilities, but we certainly see the foremost responsibility sitting clearly with providers in that regard.

About 1.8 million people living in England have had a diagnosis of cancer, and the number is growing. We know that we can do more to improve their quality of life, which is why we have been working in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support on the national cancer survivorship initiative. The use of patient surveys has been a key aspect of that. We will publish a full analysis of the detailed work that we have undertaken jointly this autumn.

We have committed to the next cancer patient experience survey in 2012. We find those data invaluable. The shock to the system when a provider finds itself at the bottom of the tables is very powerful indeed and is leading to significant improvements.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) talked about the limited scope of existing indicators. I can tell him and other hon. Members that we are considering how we can make progress on bringing a number of indicators together. My officials are working with the information centre to consider the resource implications of substituting existing indicators and whether it would be appropriate for a composite indicator to replace some of the individual survival rate indicators. Ensuring that we cover more cancers was a concern that several hon. Members raised in the debate.

On funding cancer networks, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made the position clear. We have provided funding for the remaining year for which the Department is responsible. Indicative figures have been set out. A review is going on of clinical networks and how they are governed. That will ultimately determine precisely how much resource is allocated. There is no final figure at this stage.

Regretfully, I shall conclude now, as I am about to run out of time. There is much going on in respect of cancer. I will write to the hon. Members who took part in the debate so that they can see what I would have said if I had more time. However, the cancer outcomes strategy remains the guiding light for the Government to deliver the world-class cancer care that people deserve in this country.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for having given me the opportunity to talk about this at some length, and I want to give him some reassurance. However, it is hardly a back-stop to have in clause 1 something that is not what the Secretary of State on a day-to-day basis actually does. It is a back-stop to say that when things fail, the Secretary of State should be able to exercise those functions to make sure that things are put right. I would like to say a bit more about that now.

I want it to be clear that we do not envisage the Secretary of State having to intervene other than in exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless, the measures are the legislative back-stops in the Bill and it is right that they are there to protect the comprehensive nature of our NHS and to provide reassurance. To answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) directly, there are a number of ways in which the Secretary of State could secure the provision of services. In particular, he could impose requirements on the NHS commissioning board and clinical commissioning groups using both the mandate and the standing rules. He could establish, and has the powers to do so, a special health authority, and could direct it to carry out any NHS function. That power has been used in the past to establish NHS Direct—a service-providing organisation. Also, he could intervene, including by replacing the management and directing them in the event of a significant failure. Those measures are the belt and braces in the Bill to make absolutely sure that the NHS and the public are protected from all eventualities. We have ensured that the Secretary of State’s powers are sufficient to ensure that a comprehensive NHS is provided, including through the public sector, rather than simply relying on existing providers and the market.

The position is clear: we are giving the NHS more freedoms and autonomy—something that many of us in the House have for many years argued should take place—and we are increasing its accountability. We are making watertight the obligations to provide a comprehensive health service that is free to all, based on need and not ability to pay.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State will retain his powers to create new hospital trusts and that the Bill does not change that power ?

[Paul Burstow]

The power to establish NHS trusts is contained in previous legislation. The Bill provides for, in due course, the repeal of the provision to establish NHS trusts. As we indicated in our response to the NHS Future Forum, that will not take place for several years to come. Regardless of that, however, the Secretary of State will retain the power to establish special health authorities that can exercise a provider function.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

Within the current legal framework established in the Health and Social Care Act 2008, there are requirements on financial viability, but we will undoubtedly want to look at those issues when we come to publish a White Paper on social care reform later this year.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that to avoid similar issues we need to build consensus throughout the House on the future of social care—and its financial governance?

[Paul Burstow]

I could simply say yes to my hon. Friend, but I agree entirely, and that is why last year we acted quickly to establish an independent commission, led by Andrew Dilnot, to undertake a review of how we fund social care. His report will be coming forward shortly, and I would certainly welcome all necessary discussions to ensure that we deliver effective reform.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that prevention is undoubtedly the right way forward, but earlier diagnosis is also very important. That is why we continue, as a Government, to support the roll-out of NHS heath checks for people aged 40 to 65 as a way of ensuring that we detect more readily and earlier so that we can provide the appropriate support.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Just 10 minutes ago, I met representatives of Diabetes UK, who want to see greater emphasis on integration and co-operation between and within services in the NHS Bill. Can I assume that they will not be disappointed?

[Paul Burstow]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already indicated in today’s exchanges in this House, we are committed to listening and reflecting during this pause, and to ensuring that we come back with substantive improvements to the Bill to deliver its central purpose of improving health care for the people of this country.

Epilepsy Services

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Paul Burstow]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I was talking about using the data to improve standards, but we also need to ensure that, through NHS information prescriptions, we provide better and more timely information to people. Further work is also necessary in that area.

A message that comes through strongly is that commissioning is key to better epilepsy care. We believe that placing decision making much closer to the patient through general practice consortiums will unlock new opportunities and lead to more sensitive and responsive decision making about care and treatment pathways. Some patient groups and some hon. Members in this debate have expressed concern about the experience and knowledge of GP commissioners in designing epilepsy services. Let me say a little more about that.

The NHS commissioning board will have a vital role to play in supporting consortiums. It will set commissioning guidelines based on clinically approved standards developed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. In addition, the long-term conditions delivery support team will work closely with new directors of commissioning, their commissioning boards and GP consortiums to build skills and awareness. For example, the team has already developed a new commissioning pack, bringing together information that commissioners will need to design good epilepsy services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southport has asked me, within about four days of the close of consultation on the White Paper, to describe in full and complete detail every aspect of the new accountability regime for the new system. I will not do that in the debate today, because that would not do justice to the 5,000 respondents to the consultation. The Department is in the process of properly considering the responses to the consultation and we shall give a considered and proper response. What we have done so far is set out clearly the direction of travel and reform. I think that my hon. Friend has conflated two or three things in his test of accountability: professional accountability, accountability to the public and accountability to other organisations. We will make clear, when we set out the next steps to the reforms that we have proposed in the White Paper, precisely how each part of the accountability conundrum that he posed is properly addressed.

[Dr Pugh]

I thank the Minister for that response. He has spoken about frameworks and about commissioning standards. I hope that he will go on to speak about what happens when the frameworks are not in application and when the commissioning standards are not observed, for whatever reason. The only thing that I have heard him say so far is, “We’re going to have a competitive local environment. People can vote with their feet.” That is an awfully London-centric view, because in many areas of the country, that is not a realistic option.

[Paul Burstow]

I think that my hon. Friend perhaps needs to reflect a little further on the White Paper proposals and what I have said in the debate, because what we are actually talking about is not competition in terms of people always choosing to go somewhere else, but in terms of the ability to see what somewhere else looks like and make a comparison and to ask commissioners locally why they are not commissioning to the same standard. It is as much about that as about being able to move around the country, and certainly that is what we are determined to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and John Pugh

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burstow]

It is perhaps worth noting that the Select Committee on Health, when there was a Labour majority on it before the election, back in March, identified significant weaknesses in PCT commissioning. In particular, it identified the lack of clinical input. Our White Paper puts that clinical input back into commissioning. When one considers that one in four of all consultations involve mental health problems and that 90% of all mental health care is delivered in primary care settings, one sees that putting the GP right at the centre is critical to better outcomes.

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

On the subject of consultation, what consultations have taken place with the mental health charities, either prior or subsequent to the proposals?

[Mr Burstow]

In July, I and the Secretary of State had a successful and long engagement with all the mental health charities, and we are continuing to have a dialogue with them.