Health and Social Care Committee
Debate between Paul Williams and Sarah Wollaston(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Williams
I agree with my right hon. Friend’s proposition that investment at the beginning of life is likely to pay the greatest dividends, particularly in reducing inequalities. As politicians, we should represent all members of our communities, not just those who are old enough to vote or who choose to vote. There is an opportunity in the comprehensive spending review to make the case for long-term investment in that group of children.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Ind)
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his effective chairing of the inquiry, and for his powerful speech. I also pay tribute to the other Committee members and the wider Committee team for the excellent report. It is fantastic that it sets out effectively the importance of early intervention in the first 1,000 days if we are to make the greatest difference and have the greatest impact on reducing inequalities.
Will the hon. Gentleman join me in paying tribute to a group in my constituency, the Dartmouth Nurslings, for its work to support breastfeeding mothers through peer-to-peer support? Will he touch on the evidence about the important of breastfeeding in the first 1,000 days of life, and how effective it can be? Will he also join me in hoping that we can reduce some of the fragmentation that means there is not a consistent level of support across the country? I hope that such groups will receive the support they deserve.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Order. Hon. Members should keep their questions short.
Health and Social Care Committee
Debate between Paul Williams and Sarah Wollaston(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Dr Wollaston
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The point is that if someone goes into prison with a serious underlying medical problem, it is simply unacceptable that they cannot access the healthcare that they should be receiving. That is what we heard time and again: people’s appointments are cancelled, issues are not addressed and thing are not followed up. Sometimes an outside appointment with a specialist, for very serious conditions at times, will simply be cancelled, and then there is no continuity and follow-up, so the person simply falls out of the system. Undoubtedly, therefore, people’s health is suffering and, as I said at the beginning, no one is sentenced to worse healthcare when they are sentenced to deprivation of their liberty. The situation is unacceptable.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady not just for her presentation today, but for so ably chairing the inquiry. Her presentation put across very eloquently the fact that we put in prison a population of people who are very unhealthy already, but unfortunately our prison environment makes them even less healthy instead of taking the opportunity to reduce health inequalities and improve their health. It makes them even less healthy for two reasons. One is the prison environment that they are in, which is very unhealthy. The second is prison health services. Despite some excellent prison health services that really work, we found that on the whole prison health services are not adequate. The hon. Lady has already talked about the need for accountability and consequences. Can she say something about the role that we recommend the Care Quality Commission might play in that?
Dr Wollaston
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his own really important role in the course of our inquiry. He highlights the point about the CQC. The CQC has no powers of entry into our prisons. We now know that it can carry out unannounced inspections just about anywhere else, but it cannot in prisons. The other challenge that it faces is being able to take a whole-system approach to the way services are commissioned. We heard from it again, in relation to a separate inquiry, earlier this week that it would like to have the powers independently to look at a whole-system approach, rather than just very narrowly looking at one aspect of it. It was very clear to us that a whole-system public health approach needs to be taken to the commissioning and provision of healthcare.
The hon. Gentleman’s other point was about the conditions in our jails. Keeping people in conditions where there are broken windows, cockroach infestations and so on is wholly unacceptable. No one should be living in those conditions in Britain today.