Health

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Derek Thomas

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

The diabetes foot pathway relied on opening eight podiatry clinics across Somerset. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the podiatrists who are helping to solve the diabetes problem?

[Derek Thomas]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I attended a conference 18 months ago at which the podiatrists and Plymouth University mentioned the risk of this happening. We are now seeing that prophecy being fulfilled. I appreciate what my hon. Friend says about what has been done to improve the pathway and reduce lower limb amputations. We must not see that good work reversed.

When it comes to caring for our feet, we are heading for a perfect storm. Fewer people are going into training because of financial barriers, and in 10 years we will see an enormous amount of podiatrists retiring from the profession. That adds up to a real challenge that we need to address quickly. I ask the Minister to look at what has happened since the nursing bursary was removed for mature students and whether we can address that.

The impact on patients is severe. Type 2 diabetes is the fastest growing health threat facing our nation, and 3 million people are living with it. That figure is set to reach 4 million by 2030. Diabetic foot care costs the NHS in England between £1.1 billion and £1.3 billion a year—£5.7 million per clinical commissioning group. It accounts for £1 in every £100 spent, more than the combined cost of three of the four most common cancers. Some 80% of the 135 lower extremity amputations each week in England are preventable through good foot care, and the Government have made a commitment in legislation and policy to provide safe care. That is just one example of how, if we do not get this right, we will fail to avoid the impact on patients of more lower limb amputations and lower life expectancy. The facts show that after a lower limb amputation, life expectancy is reduced to about five years.

There is also an impact on the NHS. I have mentioned the sheer cost of caring for lower limb problems, and it will have an impact on multidisciplinary teams if we do not keep people with the skills coming through. It will also have an impact on budgets. As well as the impact on social care and on the budgets for those delivering support in people’s homes, making changes around a home because someone has had a lower limb amputation is a costly affair that is easily avoided if we get it right and get enough podiatrists on the ground.

There is an urgent need for action. I ask the Government to look at why mature students are uniquely impacted when going to study these important professions. If a mature student is on any sort of benefit—housing benefit or other financial support—the minute they take out a student loan to study to be a podiatrist, they lose all that support. Perhaps the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions need to look at that, because that is a significant barrier to people coming into a skill we so badly need.

I ask the Minister to look at solutions to reverse the reduction of mature students going into important parts of the NHS such as podiatry so that we can save money for the future, to be used where needed, and provide a real opportunity to improve people’s lives.

World Health: 25-Year Environment Plan

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Derek Thomas

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

Two things come to mind. First, the environmental plan talks about protecting and enhancing the natural environment. Secondly, in our part of the world, we are seeing the roll-out of the coast path as we speak, which gives far greater access to people to get around the coast and enjoy all that is around us.

To continue with the theme of people supporting this agenda, the Office for National Statistics produced a 2017 report: “The UK environment—fighting pollution, improving our health and saving us money.” It set out the role that the environment plays in tackling air pollution and improving health. The ONS website states:

“Overall, an estimated 1.3 billion kg of air pollutants were removed by woodlands, plants, grasslands and other UK vegetation in 2015”,

saving about

“£1 billion in avoided health damage costs.”

The study by UK Natural Capital states:

“Trees in particular provide a wide range of services and account for most of the volume of air pollutants absorbed by natural vegetation in the UK”.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case and I thank him for securing the debate. I have tried to get one for ages, so many congratulations to him. On trees helping with pollution, soil is brilliant at combating climate change because it can hold so much carbon. Although we are talking about how soil management should be better, soil health is not listed as a headline indicator in the 25-year environment plan. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should try to get it in there as an indicator because the payback to society would be considerable, given that we pay £1.2 billion a year to combat soil erosion?

[Derek Thomas]

The Minister is best placed to respond to how we get that into the plan, but my hon. Friend is right. I have been to see scientists in my constituency who work to improve the soil not only to produce food but to protect our environment and improve and enhance natural habits. She is absolutely right to raise that point.

Public Health England states:

“There is a very significant and strong body of evidence linking contact and exposure to the natural environment with improved health and wellbeing.”

I will continue with these influential bodies. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence encourages local authorities to put pedestrians and cyclists first when designing roads, ensuring our local areas have safe and well-maintained open spaces and that everyone can get around the local area easily.

If the benefits to our physical and mental health are not enough to convince the Treasury of the importance of investing in our natural environment, the Natural Capital committee estimated in its 2015 annual report that well-targeted investment could generate large economic returns: for every £1 invested, the return was between £3 and £9. It stated that

“carefully planned investments in natural capital...will deliver significant value for money”

and generate large economic returns. It is vital that we get the Treasury on board in this debate, as well as the many other debates that happen in this place.

Safety of Riders and Horses on Rural Roads

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Derek Thomas

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention; she is absolutely right, and I was pleased to meet the BHS today to discuss its concerns. A lot of the work, including this debate, that we have been doing over the past couple of years with Debbie Smith, the British Horse Society and many others is about raising awareness of how we should use our roads and consider others’ safety, and pressing on the Government that we believe that there is more they can do to take part in this cause.

For many years, Debbie Smith has been working with others to campaign on behalf of horse riders for safer rural roads. Her most recent petition about passing wide and slow, calling for stronger legal protections for riders on our roads, has reached almost 110,000—maybe now it is 110,000—signatures on the change.org site. I first met Debbie in November 2015 and required little persuasion to join her cause to make our roads safer for horses and their riders. Our initial encounter led to a meeting in February 2016 with the former roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and civil servants from the Department for Transport. We discussed the need for a concerted effort by the Department to make our roads safer. Since then there has been a horse-riding awareness day—earlier this year, in which 15 different locations in the UK took part—and 110,000 signatures on the petition, as I said.

Horse riders make up a significant group of vulnerable road users, but despite there being 2.7 million across the UK, they often find themselves as the forgotten demographic—an afterthought in the minds of drivers and unacceptably low down many politicians’ priority lists. It is for this reason that the British Horse Society launched the horse accidents website in November 2010. Since that launch, 2,510 reports of road incidents involving horses, including near misses and collisions, have been logged by the BHS. That is but the tip of the iceberg. Most significantly, since the launch 222 horses and 38 riders have been killed. This problem is not in decline. In the past year there has been a 29% increase in the number of road incidents involving a horse reported to the British Horse Society.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very sound case. In fact, it is shocking. I am very nervous of horses, so I go incredibly slowly whenever I am near them because I am afraid of the damage that they might do to me, but does he agree that on the whole many people who drive cars just think of a horse as a horse and forget that they are individuals and that one has to be even more careful if it is a young and nervous horse? The 15 mph and distance from the horse are crucial.

[Derek Thomas]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I live in west Cornwall, where most of the roads are very narrow and horses and riders enjoy their valuable and important pursuit. It is absolutely right that we raise awareness and help drivers to understand that horses are living beings—they have brains. Something that they see, but we in the car behind perhaps cannot, may well cause them to get spooked. We need to make drivers aware of the risk not only to the horse and the rider, but to them and their vehicle. That might gain their attention. Statistics such as those should cause alarm.