Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The adult social care Green Paper will look at the long-term sustainability of the funding of the adult social care system. In the meantime the Government are investing by giving councils access to up to £10 billion over the current three-year period, to help to address some of the shortfalls in adult social care funding and to ensure that people have the right services in their local areas.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The best way to help dementia patients is to have joined-up NHS and social care provision. Will my hon. Friend work with the Secretary of State to take advantage of local government reorganisation in Northamptonshire to develop a combined NHS and adult social care pilot?

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this point. Integrated health and care systems are very much the way forward if we are to deliver the future of adult social care that we all want. The long-term plan for the NHS was developed in tandem with the adult social care Green Paper and has already shown some of the innovations that we think will make a massive difference, such as the roll-out of the enhanced health in care homes model.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s campaign and her tireless work on behalf of her constituents. Figures from the Royal College of Midwives show that there are over 2,000 more midwives on our wards since 2010. The NHS plans to train 3,000 more midwives over the next four years, and as of last September there are over 5,000 more doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology than there were in May 2010. The NHS is hoping to fulfil what my hon. Friend wants to see.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 there has been an increase of 4,000 EU nationals working in our NHS?

[Stephen Hammond]

My hon. Friend and I do not always agree on everything about the EU, but numbers and statistics show that he is correct on that matter.

NHS Long-term Plan

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

In debates on the future of our nation’s healthcare, we should always start with the facts, and the fact is that social care funding is going up. It went up by £240 million this year, and it is going up next year, too.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Adult social care is not working properly in Northamptonshire, with far too many delayed transfers of care for elderly people. With the root-and-branch reform of local government in Northamptonshire, there is a wonderful, unique opportunity to create successful integrated health and social care pilots. Will the Secretary of State seize this opportunity and get the 10-year NHS long-term plan off to a wonderful start in Northamptonshire?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. I have discussed the proposals made by my hon. Friend and his Northamptonshire colleagues with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. We are both enthusiastic to see what can be done, and I invite my hon. Friend into the Department to speak to my officials about how this could be done. His proposals are, by design, entirely consistent with the proposals in paragraph 1.58 of the long-term plan, and I very much look forward to working with him and his Northamptonshire colleagues on making it happen.

NHS: Staffing Levels

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The debate can last until 5.30 pm. I have to call the Front Benchers no later than 5.7 pm. Four Members are seeking to catch my eye. The guideline limits for the Front Benchers’ speeches are five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister, and then Tracy Brabin will have two or three minutes at the end of the debate to sum it up. There are 20 minutes of Back-Bench time before I call the Front Benchers, so there will have to be a five-minute time limit on Back Benchers’ contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

I would give way, but I cannot—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Tracy Brabin.

[Tracy Brabin]

If that is the case, the statistics are welcome, but in my constituency we are losing European members of staff. We cannot get away from the overall numbers—there are staffing shortages of 10%. In my constituency and in my trust they cannot recruit, because of various issues. I am grateful that the Government listened when I raised the question of tier 2 visas with the Prime Minister, when we wanted to bring over a paediatrician but could not because the visa took so long that he got another job. I welcome that when it comes to nurses, too, but we have to accept that there are things such as the bursary—

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Far too long.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

As local government is reorganised in Northamptonshire ahead of May 2020, will the Minister consider whether it may not be appropriate in all cases for local councils to manage public health budgets, and whether in some cases it might make sense for the NHS to regain control?

[Steve Brine]

There are active discussions going on between my right hon. Friends the Health Secretary and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about this, but the bottom line is that Parliament legislated through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 for local authorities up and down the country in England to be public health authorities. We believe that they are well placed to make these spending decisions with the ring-fenced grant—£16 billion —that we have given them.

Assessment and Treatment Units: Vulnerable People

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Why has the number of children detained in assessment and treatment units more than doubled in the past three years, from 110 to 230?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is a really good question. We are looking carefully at how we can support children much better so that they do not go into these sorts of units at all. As I say, it is about the wraparound services that can identify much earlier somebody who might be at a crisis point, and making sure that the care and support is put in place to prevent people from having to be admitted to units of this kind.

Prevention of Ill Health: Government Vision

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are increasing the budget in future and making sure that we target it more on community services and making sure that we get more prevention rather than cure. I can look at the case of York; I can look right across the country at what we need to do. Making sure that we get better prevention is all part of that.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Children’s dental health is shocking and child obesity levels are too high. Will the two words, “parental responsibility”, appear in the Secretary of State’s forthcoming Green Paper?

[Matt Hancock]

They will now. I believe very strongly in parental responsibility as well as personal responsibility and the responsibilities of employers. We all have a part to play. As parents, we have a very big responsibility to bring up our children in a heathy way, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

As part of the EU deal we are negotiating, the relationship with the EMA will be extremely close, so I am sure that that will be a part of our agreement.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Health Secretary confirm that since the referendum the number of EU nationals working in our NHS has actually risen by 4,000, and that regardless of the state of the negotiations their rights will be protected and they will continue to be able to work in the NHS after we leave?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, the number of EU nationals working in the NHS has now risen by more than 4,000 since the referendum, and we welcome them all.

Clinical Waste Incineration

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that, had he not taken action, the failure of Healthcare Environmental Services to dispose of the clinical waste properly would have presented a serious risk of clinical waste backing up in hospitals and other healthcare facilities? Owing to his taking effective action in a timely way, that has been avoided and healthcare delivery has not been interrupted.

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. There has very much been a Government-wide effort to ensure that waste did not build up, for the reason he mentions—the ability of the NHS to maintain its services and continue to operate if clinical waste could not be removed from the site. There is a varying degree of contingency capacity on different sites, so certain hospital sites would quite quickly exhaust that capacity if it was not cleared. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) said, the ability to mobilise the contract quickly was so important.

Dangerous Waste and Body Parts Disposal: NHS

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

On the split to which the right hon. Lady referred between clinical waste and other waste at the Normanton site—she rightly focused on that for her constituents—just under a third of the flow of waste to the site is clinical. Just over two thirds, in my understanding, is non-clinical. It is not the case that all the waste on the Normanton site is clinical waste. As I have mentioned, some media reports about what the term “clinical waste” constitutes are slightly different from the reality.

As for notification, I set that out in my written ministerial statement and in my comments today. The key focus is on maintaining the continuity of operations and service within the NHS trusts so that we are not in a position where clinical waste cannot be cleared from them. That is the focus, and that is why, given the commercial negotiations and the contingency arrangements that have been put in place, we came to the House today, and not at an earlier point.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In the end, the system has worked. There has been no back-up of clinical waste in hospitals—it has just been overstored in these sites. However, it is worrying, if it is true, that 13 warning notices and two compliance notices were issued to the company. Does the Minister think that he should be alerted earlier by the Environment Agency if this sort of thing happens in future?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the lessons to be learned from this. Part of what I would expect to look at as we move forward are questions about when the NHS was first made aware of this and what powers are available to enforce at an earlier stage. As I have mentioned, enforcement notices cover a spectrum of risk. Some of those risks are more technical in nature than others, so while there have been 13 notices, their enforcement encompasses a range of severity.