Oral Answers to Questions
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Andrew Stephenson
The SNP, as usual, is a broken record. We all know that diabetes medicine shortages are a global issue affecting countries not just across the whole of the European Union, but across the whole world. Medicine supply chains are highly regulated, complex and global. Issues can occur for multiple reasons, including manufacturing difficulties, regulatory non-compliance, surges in demand, availability of raw materials, sudden spikes in demand, and issues related to the distribution of the product. But once again, as always, the grievance culture of the SNP is: blame everything on Brexit.
Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)
We hugely appreciate the work that general practice nurses do. I know that the hon. Lady was a nurse in her previous life, and I absolutely pay tribute to her for her service. She will be aware that last year the Government provided additional funding for the general practice contract to uplift pay by 6%, in line with the pay review body’s recommendations. We are very much aware of the need to try to ensure that general practice nurses feel appreciated and are keen to be retained in GP practices, which is one of the reasons I have launched a taskforce on the future of general practice. As she will know, it is for GP practices themselves to determine the pay uplift for their nurses. I am looking closely at that, because we know that sometimes the pay rise provided by the Government was not passed on.
Mrs Hamilton
We have all seen images of people queuing around the block for an appointment at their GP surgery, and in my local integrated care board, there has been a decline in general practice nurses since June 2020. It currently takes 12 months to train nurses wishing to move into general practice. Will the Minister tell me and my constituents in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale what she is doing to ensure that the retention of experienced nurses and the training of new nurses does not add to the pressure that GPs are already facing?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady raises an important point. The long-term workforce plan commits to increasing the number of general practice nurses by more than 5,000 by 2036-37. In her area, the number of doctors in general practice in the NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB increased by 134 full-time equivalents between 2019 and 2023, but the number of nurses decreased slightly, by 34 full-time equivalents. However, over the same period, direct patient care staff increased by 1,195 full-time equivalents. I think that demonstrates to the hon. Lady that the actual resources in GP practice are increasing, with specialisms such as physiotherapy and pharmacy, as well as nurse prescribers, to provide patients more access to good healthcare.
Hospice Funding
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for securing an excellent and important debate. We think of hospices as places where people go to die, but they are not; they are places where people go to live comfortably, supported and cared for while they are ill, until that moment of death and—for many of the families—beyond. I might not be the only MP in the Chamber for whom this debate has made me remember my mortality, but I think we would all agree that when we come to that time, we want to be looked after by kind, supportive staff who can give us the care and attention we need. Those staff should be able to look after patients and their families without worrying about how they will feed their own children. Rooms should be warm, and directors of hospices should be thinking about how they can support as many people as possible, not when they will have to switch off the heating or turn someone away.
Hospices across the UK provide care and support to 300,000 people every year. They are absolutely vital to our health and social care system, but unfortunately, they are facing serious financial challenges. It has now become a postcode lottery for many of our constituents.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
I am listening to my hon. Friend’s impassioned speech, and the experience that she brings to this House is valuable. The brilliant Keech Hospice serves so many in Luton North. It does amazing work, not just on end of life care, but on vital bereavement support for everyone, including children. In the past year alone, Keech’s energy costs have increased by a quarter of a million pounds. That, combined with the cost of living crisis, puts financial pressures on fundraising, which makes up two thirds of its total funding. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need sustainable funding models for hospice care? Failure to provide that puts much-needed services at risk.
Mrs Hamilton
I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend says. We absolutely need those models. As I go through my speech, I will be agreeing with what she has just said.
John Taylor Hospice in my constituency, which is run by Birmingham Hospice, does unbelievably important work to support my constituents and their families in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale. The staff work day and night to make sure people are cared for while they are ill, and I could not be prouder to support them in this Chamber today. I must add that I have worked there in the past. Birmingham Hospice cares for almost 1,000 local people with a life-limiting illness every day. Last year, it cost more than £16 million to run its services, some 40% of which needs to be recovered through fundraising income. Over the past few years, the hospice has seen a significant increase in costs, including the price of energy, food and vital medicines, and a shortfall in funding for staff pay awards. At the same time, fundraising has declined across the hospice sector with the cost of living crisis hitting poorer areas like mine the hardest.
Birmingham Hospice is currently losing £200,000 a month. With inflationary costs and falling voluntary income, the only option to keep the hospice going is to reduce the services it provides. A reduced service will increase inequality across our city of Birmingham and the country. Sadly, more people will die in hospital or A&E as a result, when they could have had outstanding care at the hospice or at home with the support of the community team.
The hospice is dedicated to ensuring that outstanding care at the end of life is available to all, but it has recently been in the difficult position of having to make essential staff redundant to maintain financial security. That is not just happening in Birmingham; nationally, Hospice UK estimates that 100,000 people in the UK who could benefit from palliative care die without receiving it each year. Hospices play a huge role in alleviating pressure on our NHS, and they do not have the ability to reset their budgets on 1 April each year, as the NHS does. Instead, their deficits continue and the valuable care that they provide to local communities such as mine is at risk of being lost. I have worked in the health service all my adult life. When we speak about hospices, we rarely mention the vital role that they play in providing respite care and support to the family of someone who is ill.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for her wonderful contribution to the debate. Many people want to stay at home—I have stayed with four people right through to their deaths at home—but hospices give a different care from hospitals. If you go into hospital, you might not get into the hospice. We have 10 beds in the most beautiful hospice, which is funded 71% from fundraising. If they are not in a hospice, and they do not have care at home—not everybody can do it at home; they might not have the family to provide the care they need—they can end up in a hospital for hours. Does my hon. Friend find that in her area? They can get triaged in an ambulance outside the hospital, and they do not get the palliative care and support, and their families do not get support—it is a completely different service. Do you agree that we should be looking for more hospice care, not less, but we should not be changing it to a hospital ward? It is a different atmosphere in a hospice. Do you find that is the case? That is not decrying hospitals, but hospital is not somewhere to die.
Mrs Hamilton
I absolutely agree with your sentiments and statement. As was said earlier, we need to move away from looking at individuals to look at population health and how we will support the local community. I will move on swiftly so that I can finish.
My constituency is the fifth poorest in the UK, and our communities are in some of the UK’s so-called left behind neighbourhoods. For places like mine, respite care is so important to ensure that carers get the break and support they need to keep them doing the incredible work that they do.
I am a nurse, and it breaks my heart that the NHS is in the worst state it has ever been in. Throughout the 14 years of this Tory Government, I have seen doctors striking, nurses striking, technicians striking, people queuing around the block for a GP appointment, people pulling out their own teeth, the highest waiting times in history, and complete disdain for the service that quite literally serves us from birth to death. We must have a national care service and we must properly invest in our NHS. It is no longer acceptable for hospices to rely on charitable donations to try to survive. Now more than ever, our hospices and our NHS need a Labour Government.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I gently remind the House that when people use the word “you”, they are referring to me, so please try to resist that.
Dentistry: Access for Cancer Patients
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) for securing this important debate.
As someone who has lost family members and friends to cancer, I frequently come to this place to try to shine a light on the huge problems in our health service, which disproportionately impact people with cancer and their families. Dentistry is no exception. Like many colleagues, I have been contacted by constituents, in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale, because they are unable to find an NHS dentist. There are more than 100,000 people living in my constituency, but only seven dental surgeries, and at least three of those are not accepting any new adult patients. A constituent without a dentist contacted me and said: “I am desperate for an NHS dental repair. I now have an abscess in my jaw. Please help me”. That case is one of many. The response I received from NHS England advised my constituents to call 111 for any urgent care services and said that it is
“working to address the challenges facing the service right now”.
The challenges in our dental system are exacerbated for people in our communities living with cancer. The Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce states that 90,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with one of the less survivable cancers every year, which is an average of nearly 250 every day. People with less survivable cancers are twice as likely as people with a more survivable cancer not to be diagnosed until symptoms are severe enough for them to go to hospital. I personally know that that is far too long. Some 80% of people with pancreatic cancer are diagnosed at stages 3 and 4.
People with cancer need fast and effective dental services in a system that recognises the difficulties they will face during their treatment. Dentists also play a huge part in detecting, diagnosing and managing oral cancers, which kill more than 3,000 people a year in the UK. Unlike the less survivable cancers, oral cancers have a survival rate of 90% when diagnosed early, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) said, so it is crucial that dentistry can be accessed quickly and treatment is free for those people.
Both those issues come down to one main problem: money. Over the past decade, dental charges have increased by 45%, and last year YouGov found that nearly a quarter of respondents to its survey in England about dentistry delayed or went without dental treatment because they just could not afford it.
There are hidden costs in cancer care, such as increasing energy bills and the cost of frequent travel to and from hospital, and the burden of rising dental costs is too great for people with cancer. Although I think that it is a great idea to introduce free dental treatment for all cancer patients, we need to think bigger. We must reform the NHS and make it fit for the future.
There are two huge problems facing our health service—a crisis in both cancer care and NHS dentistry—with waiting lists for both at record highs. As a nurse, it breaks my heart to say that the NHS has never been in a worse state. The last Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest level of patient satisfaction in history, because we invested properly in our NHS. It is high time that we did so again.
NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins
May I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she did in the Department and has done on this subject? We are taking a long-term view with training dentists. As I said, last year, through the long-term workforce plan, we set out an ambition to train up to 40% more dentists by 2031. As we also begin the consultation on a tie-in with those graduates, we are confident that we will see a greater supply of dentists to our NHS services.
Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The £200 million pledged today is less than half last year’s record-breaking underspend. The plan says that any underspends will be ringfenced for dentistry. That was promised by a Minister last year, but it did not happen because integrated care boards were using that underspend. Why should the 73% of dentists in the west midlands who cannot and are not accepting any new patients believe it will be any different this year?
NHS Dentistry
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I sit on the Health and Social Care Committee and was shocked at what I heard during the inquiry, but it lined up with what residents in my constituency are facing. There are more than 100,000 people living in my constituency and only seven dental surgeries, at least three of which are not accepting any new adult patients. That issue is not unique to Erdington. Across the west midlands, 73% of dentists are not accepting any new adult patients.
A constituent contacted me after her dentist’s practice closed down, as she had spent four hours trawling through websites and ringing practices, and she was not getting anywhere. She cannot afford private dental care, and her son has a serious health condition that means he requires regular dental check-ups. She explained that to every practice she could, but without success. Another constituent’s daughter was referred for braces in 2021. Two years later, after being referred to three separate orthodontists, she was told that there is a waiting list of more than 1,500 children, and it continues to rise. The response that I received from NHS England advised my constituents to call 111 for any urgent care services, and said that it is
“working to address the challenges facing the service right now.”
The list of challenges is long. The record of the Conservative Government means that NHS dentistry has completely collapsed. Over the past two years, 6 million adults tried and failed to get an appointment, and 4.4 million did not even try because they knew that there was no hope. Rotting teeth is the No. 1 reason that children aged six to 10 are admitted to hospital. Despite that, seven in 10 UK dentists are not accepting any new child patients. Shamefully, one in 10 people in the UK have attempted their own dental work out of pure desperation. That is how my constituents are experiencing the shocking record of the Conservative Government: getting them to properly fund our NHS is quite literally like pulling teeth.
In April last year, Ministers promised a dental recovery plan. In December, the Secretary of State promised in the Government’s response to the Health and Social Care Committee’s report—I was there—that the plan would be “published shortly,” so where is it?
Unlike the Government, Labour does have a plan that would help people in our communities to access the NHS dentistry that they so desperately need. Labour would fund NHS practices to provide 700,000 more urgent appointments. Our plan would create incentives for new dentists to work in the dental deserts that the Tories have created. And, rather than offering sticking-plaster solutions, we would reform the dental contract to rebuild the service in the long term.
It is becoming more and more obvious, everywhere we look in Britain, that nothing works, and our NHS dentistry is no exception. My constituents, and people across the UK, cannot go on without basic healthcare while we watch our NHS crumble around us. Only the Labour party has a plan for NHS dentistry. Like a decaying tooth, it is time for this Government’s extraction.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
A primary care walk-in facility at Warren Farm in my constituency faces closure due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The proposal to close the service will mean that services are relocated away from residents who need them. What is the Minister doing to fund the investigation and removal of RAAC in health facilities while making sure that communities can still access the healthcare that they so desperately need?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am incredibly sympathetic to the hon. Lady’s constituents. The issue of RAAC is one that the Government are determined to resolve. There has been a £698 million programme of new funding to eradicate RAAC from the healthcare system, and that work is under way. She will appreciate that it is for integrated care boards to ensure that the provision is there for all patients but, if she should need help with contacting or negotiating with her ICB, I will be delighted to help her.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Will Quince)
Improving cancer treatment waiting times is a top priority for this Government, and it is a key focus of our elective recovery plan, backed by an additional £8 billion in revenue funding across the spending review period. In August 2023, cancer treatment activity for first treatments stood at 105% of pre-pandemic levels on a per working day basis, and the 62-day backlog has fallen 30% since its peak in the pandemic.
Mrs Hamilton
Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest type of common cancer, killing more than half of those diagnosed in England within three months. I know the pain of losing close friends and family to pancreatic cancer and how important it is that people are diagnosed and treated quickly. Under this Government we have seen NHS waiting lists go up, not down. What is the Minister doing to ensure that people with pancreatic cancer are seen, diagnosed and treated quickly?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and, of course, I recognise the importance of early diagnosis and treatment. Cancer checks are up by a quarter on pre-pandemic levels, and in August more than 91% of patients started their first cancer treatment within a month of a decision to treat. We have opened 123 additional community diagnostic centres and an additional 94 surgical hubs, but I accept, of course, that there is much more that we need to do.
Under-age Vaping
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for choosing this important topic for debate.
I recognise that encouraging the use of e-cigarettes is a vital part of the Government’s strategy for a smokefree 2030. I am a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, and two weeks ago I listened to the expert panel and heard some of their disturbing evidence. It is worrying that the risks associated with vaping are still unclear, as long-term studies do not exist.
I was a nurse for 25 years. Believe me, there is no one who wants to support effective public health measures as passionately as I do, but I am concerned. It is illegal to sell vapes containing nicotine to anyone under the age of 18, but, in 2021, over 20% of children aged 11 to 15 had tried vaping. Clearly, something is not working. At the Health and Social Care Committee, I asked the panel about banning vape sticks, but was struck by the answer that banning them would drive them underground, which worried me.
One secondary school in my constituency told me:
“Vaping has massively increased with children—they are too easy to obtain and the negative consequences are not fully appreciated by the children. Vapes are also being used as a method of supplying harder drugs, which is a wider issue across our estate.”
Forty children and young people were admitted to hospital in England last year owing to vaping-related disorders. We have all seen reports about some of the terrible symptoms that they have experienced, from seizures and shortness of breath, to hypertension and high blood pressure. The Khan review, published last year, recommended that the Government do everything they possibly can to prevent children and young people from vaping.
If Conservative Members are really committed to doing everything they possibly can, they could start by fixing the mess that they have created in the NHS and attempting to make new records, rather than those they are currently achieving for the longest waiting list, the highest vacancies and the most disruptive delays. Doctors and nurses are working incredibly hard, but there are just not enough of them. Vital spaces in hospital beds across the country are being taken up by people who cannot access mental health or social care services and so cannot be discharged.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health warned that youth vaping is becoming an epidemic and that the number of children admitted to hospital as a result of vaping has almost quadrupled in two years. Our NHS cannot afford for the Government not to take this issue seriously.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall say this until I am blue in the face: public health is chronically underfunded and prevention is key. If we cannot stop children vaping once they have started, we need to make sure that they never start in the first place. The potential risks associated with vaping, especially for children living under a Conservative Government who are set on wrecking our NHS, are just too great. We need a Government who will prioritise prevention and support the NHS to take this issue seriously before the problem escalates any further.
Smokefree 2030 Target
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for securing this important debate. For seven years, I was the cabinet member on Birmingham City Council overseeing public health. Because of that, I have seen the long-term health impacts of smoking on communities across both Birmingham and the UK.
It is shocking that one of the biggest causes of death in the UK—causing around 150 cases of cancer per day—is entirely preventable. Around 6.6 million adults currently smoke in the UK. In Birmingham and Solihull, more than 10,000 people are admitted to hospital per year as a result of smoking. As a district nurse, I saw the effects that smoking can have on people both with and without existing health conditions and how difficult it can be to quit. I met patients with COPD—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—who were using oxygen to help them to breath and who would still ask to be wheeled outside to smoke because they were so addicted to smoking.
We have a very strong pro-smoking lobby in the UK. Action on Smoking and Health reported that the tobacco industry works to undermine public health measures and is increasing its marketing plans, including to market to young people and to oppose regulation. In the face of that, young people in my constituency do not stand a chance. That is why we truly need strategies to prevent our young people from starting smoking in the first place.
I recognise that encouraging the use of e-cigarettes is a vital part of the Government’s strategy. However, it is important that we do not forget about the risk associated with them. Not enough research has been done on vaping for us to know the long-term effects, especially during pregnancy, and the impact on the lives of children who vape, which are just starting to show through. Last year, 40 children in England were admitted to hospital due to vaping-related disorders, with 15 children under 10 admitted due to the effects of vaping. We are relying on best estimates to understand the impacts of vaping. It is vital that the Government commit to proper research and enforcement, including clamping down on the sale of e-cigarettes containing harmful levels of nicotine.
The ambition is for England to be smoke free by 2030. It is a welcome target, and the Government themselves have recognised that it will need bold action. The Khan review, which was published a year ago, found that, without further action, England will miss the smoke-free target by at least seven years, and the poorest areas, such as my communities in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale, will not meet it until 2044. We are still to see the Government’s new tobacco control plan more than a year later.
It is ridiculous that, since the Smokefree 2030 target was published—only three years ago—the Secretary of State has changed four times. If we are serious about stopping smoking and improving outcomes for all, we need an NHS fit for the future, with the capacity to deliver long-term, ambitious targets for public health. We need a serious Government, committed to backing our health service. Only Labour can deliver on those promises.
Mental Health Treatment and Support
Paulette Hamilton Excerpts(11 months ago)
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Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because I am an independent lay manager. Everywhere we look in Britain at the moment, public services are crumbling. Chronic neglect by the Conservative Government means that people across the UK can no longer trust that they will be able to access mental health services when they need them.
As a lay manager in Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, I often see the impact that dwindling services and limited resources have on residents across our city. In our local ICB area in December, nearly 3,000 children and almost 50,000 adults were on the mental health waiting list. In my constituency, parents have told me that their children are waiting a number of years for urgent mental health support.
Birmingham and Erdington are not unique cases. Since 2010, the Conservative Government have cut one in four mental health beds across the country as waiting times for treatment have soared. Currently, 400,000 children are waiting for mental health treatment across the UK. They are being denied the help that they need.
I am a mum and a grandmother. Like all parents, I want the next generation to have better opportunities than I did. That is why Labour’s plan to recruit thousands more mental health staff, guarantee treatment within a month and provide access to a mental health professional in every school is so important. It is inconceivable that the Government have failed to put forward their own plan to recruit mental health staff or even reduce the shocking waiting times that our constituents are having to put up with.
I worked in the NHS for 25 years and, like many of my colleagues, I despair at how it has been treated by the Government. This year will mark 75 years of our incredible NHS, but, over the last 13 years, the Conservatives have done all they can to wreck it. People suffering with their mental health cannot afford to wait any longer for the support that they need. We need serious government. We need a Labour Government to tackle the crisis now.