Access to NHS Dentistry

Sam Rushworth Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I prefer Ben— I have never enjoyed Andrew—but Andrew will do.

Quite honestly, NHS dentists are saints. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) has said, the reason why we do not have any NHS dentists is that it is far more remunerative to do expensive dental work than the sort of grinding service work that NHS dentistry implies. The reason for that, fundamentally, is the so-called new dental contract introduced in 2006. That is the problem. Units of dental activity have plagued the dental profession and the provision of NHS dentistry all these years.

I am delighted that the Government are revising the dental contract that their Labour predecessor introduced 20 years ago, but, unless they are prepared to underwrite it, I am afraid that we will still be more or less in the same position. It is not as if we are not training dentists—we are training more and more dentists and there are more and more dental schools, and rightly so—but if those professionals are going to practice in the NHS, they need to be incentivised to do so.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the 2006 NHS dentistry contract, which clearly needed revision. Why did his party not do that in 14 years in government?

[Dr Murrison]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has destroyed the consensual way in which I was trying to introduce my remarks.

If I may, I will explain that I think there has been a conspiracy of silence all these years on NHS dentistry. What Government have to get to grips with is whether they intend that dentistry should continue to be a universal part of our NHS and whether it will be exempted from the universality that has characterised the provision of healthcare services in this country since 1948.

The Government could decide that dentistry is a bit like ophthalmic optics, which in the 1940s was deliberately excluded from NHS provision. I am not recommending that, but I am recommending to the Minister that we are at least honest with the public. At the moment, we have this pretence around NHS dentistry that says, “Of course you have the right to have your teeth fixed at no cost to you at all up front.” In reality, in most parts of the country, mine included, that is a complete fiction.

When the Government come to their new arrangements, which I welcome very much, can we first have some honesty? Can we have some money behind them? Can we have some idea about what part of current NHS provision the Government intend to deprioritise, if that is their intention, to ensure that we have truly universal provision of NHS dentistry going forward?

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[Dr Johnson]

I will not because there is not much time at all.

I met Eddie Crouch from the BDA recently, who talked about the national insurance costs. Before today’s announced pay rise, dental practices were facing a 9.5% increase in staff costs, again pushing more of them further to private practice. Will the Minister ask the Chancellor to exempt NHS dentists from the national insurance contribution rise? There has also been discussion about compelling dentists to do a proportion of their work in the NHS, either by compelling dentists who are newly trained or by incentivising with the use of student loan repayments. Have the Government considered that?

We have many overseas trained dentists—some are British students who were trained overseas, some are foreign nationals—but the overseas registration exam has 2,000 people on its waiting list. Somewhat bizarrely, those who pass can work in the private sector, but not in the NHS without supervision. That seems somewhat incoherent. Does the Government have confidence in the exam or not? It is illogical to allow a person to practise as a private dentist but not in the NHS. It is also a clear disincentive to NHS practice. What good discussions have the Government had with the General Dental Council about this issue?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) has repeatedly raised the issue of Ukrainian dentists. There are 200 Ukrainians dentists in the UK. Why not assess them and allow them to work? It is better for them and for us.

Dentists form part of a wider team of hygienists, nurses, technicians and therapists. What are the Government doing to help people in each of those roles practise at the top of their skill range to provide greater dental care? What are the Government doing to support rural areas since they cancelled the mobile dental vans? What are they doing to ensure they deliver the 700,000 promised appointments a year, since they have delivered hardly any of them so far?

[Sam Rushworth]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Johnson]

I will not give way because there is very little time.

It has been clear today that the NHS is not fit for purpose when it comes to dentistry. The Government need to get grip of this, and soon.

Rare Cancers Bill

Sam Rushworth Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Monica Harding]

I would of course support such a move, and I urge the Government to listen and take action.

Getting it right on glioblastoma is vital. Despite minor breakthroughs, exciting innovations and apparently promising research leads, for this disease, there has simply not been the improvement in survival rates that most cancers have had. To put it bluntly, glioblastoma remains a death sentence—an increasingly common one. In the UK, cancer diagnoses have increased, but although there are some worrying sub-themes, this trend is largely due to increased life expectancy. However, that is not the case with glioblastoma. In the past 30 years, rates in the UK have more than doubled. There has been far more of an uptick than is attributable to us all living longer. More people are developing this disease, yet we have failed to make meaningful strides on treatment and cures, or even on giving those with glioblastoma a little more time with those dearest to them. Now is the moment to do something about that.

I welcome the Bill. I welcome its emphasis on improving research—I have already touched on drug development—and the provisions to facilitate clinical trials, because the grim reality is that for glioblastoma, those trials are hard to conduct. There are too few patients, and frequently their life expectancy is too limited. Anything that can be done to connect eligible patients with researchers faster and with less friction is valuable.

I emphasise that there are great opportunities in front of us for accelerating research and making broad advances in the battle against rare cancers. Along with almost half my parliamentary colleagues, I am proud to have pledged my support for the Lobular Moon Shot project, which advocates a boost of around £20 million over five years for research on the basic biology of invasive lobular breast cancer, with a view to developing new treatments. Despite being the second most common form of breast cancer, lobular breast cancer is in many ways treated like a rare cancer. It is under-researched, difficult to diagnose through the standard screening mammogram, and often presents fewer symptoms than invasive ductal carcinoma, which makes up the overwhelming majority of breast cancer incidents.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As the hon. Lady is explaining very well, invasive lobular breast cancer is not classed as a rare cancer. I am concerned that it would not come within the scope of this Bill, so I gently ask if it could be widened at the next stage. As she says, lobular breast cancer has many characteristics of a rare cancer.

[Monica Harding]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Yes, lobular breast cancer is treated in many ways like a rare disease.

I recently met my constituent Kate, who was diagnosed with lobular breast cancer in 2023. She explained to me that because almost all breast cancer research is based on the ductal variant, women like her are diagnosed later and often receive treatment oriented towards a cancer with a different biology from lobular cancer. Those two factors result in higher recurrence and lower survival rates. Kate has been in remission for more than a year, and has become an advocate for research. On her behalf, I ask the Minister whether she has met with the Lobular Moon Shot campaigners. What steps are the Government taking to increase research into the cancer? What consideration has she given to updating guidelines for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to encourage the use of MRIs to diagnose lobular breast cancer earlier?

The moon shot idea is the right one. In fighting cancer we should set ambitious goals, and we should innovate until we meet them. Moreover, as the Apollo project shows, research into seemingly narrow things often has spillover effects, producing vast, unanticipated benefits. That is often true when it comes to orphan drugs. To take just one example, Gleevec has changed the game, and not just for one rare form of leukaemia; it is now used to treat a range of other cancers and conditions.

The British pharmaceutical development sector is exceptionally strong, and now is a moment of potential. On genome mapping, artificial intelligence, biotech, immunotherapy and cancer vaccines, the UK is in a position to transform and save lives. I recognise the limited scope of the Bill, but I believe it to be vital. This House must take a keen interest in accelerating and incentivising research into rare cancers, including glioblastoma. This legislation meaningfully advances that goal.

I will speak briefly about young people and children, and specifically a lovely girl called Maddie Cowey. At the age of 18, Maddie was diagnosed with an alveolar soft part sarcoma. Sarcoma is an uncommon cancer that can occur anywhere in the body. All cancers in someone of Maddie’s age are considered rare, but in her case, the classification was ultra-rare. Partly in consequence, it took five months for her to receive a diagnosis. Maddie had just started university. She recalled that at the time it

“felt like my life was falling apart. In many ways it was and it did. It was a very lonely place.”

Maddie was diagnosed almost 10 years ago now. There are no approved treatments for Maddie’s type of rare cancer, and she is undergoing a clinical trial. It is likely that she will remain on treatment for life. Maddie is amazing; she is brave and she will not let cancer define her. I bring up her story because cancer in young people is so uncommon that often it is diagnosed later. Neither medical professionals nor young people expect it, but the later a diagnosis comes, the more likely the cancer is to be lethal. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the rare cancers afflicting young people are caught earlier?

Finally, I am reminded of something that Emily Dickinson once wrote about hope:

“I’ve heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea”.

We must get this right. We must give sufferers hope. We owe that to Pip’s family—his wife Claire and his five children—and to Nicola in the Gallery, and her and Ian’s sons Adam and Oliver, and to so many others who have suffered and who are here with us. I believe that we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) for bringing the Bill to the House, and join him in paying tribute to our hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) for her campaigning, and for her powerful speech calling for a revolution in attitudes. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) for his very moving speech. As somebody who lost a brother much too young, I was deeply moved by his words.

I have come here today to speak on behalf of my constituent, Katie Swinburne. She is a much-loved school teacher—in fact, she was the school teacher of one of my staff—and a mother of three who was diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer. As was mentioned a moment ago, lobular breast cancer is not classed as a rare cancer—in fact, it is the second most common type of breast cancer in the world, with 8,500 diagnoses annually in the UK alone—but it shares many characteristics of rare cancers in the sense that it is very difficult to detect. In Katie’s case, as in many others, it did not initially form as a lump in the breast, for example. It has distinct genetics, so is not detectable in genetic tests, and it is very easily missed in mammograms and ultrasounds.

As a consequence, many of the women who get this form of cancer will not be diagnosed until long after it has already spread. I am also told—thankfully, Katie is watching today; I received a WhatsApp message from her a moment before speaking—that a key point that I should make to the Minister is that, because lobular breast cancer presents differently from other forms of breast cancer and is not separated out in clinical trials, there is very little trial data on it. I met recently on Zoom with Katie and others who have been campaigning for the moonshot. This is not a lot of money; it is simply £20 million of funding that the University of Manchester could use to better understand the biological architecture of this type of cancer. That would lead to the possibility of developing the right treatments, because it currently has no specific treatment. This is a gentle request, really, that in the next stage of the Bill lobular breast cancer be considered alongside the rare cancers for which it already provides.

I finish by paying tribute to Katie and all the many brave individuals I have met. I cannot imagine what it is like to be young and have parenting responsibilities and be diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer. Many of those campaigning know that they might not live to see the day when the better drugs and treatments are available, but they are bravely taking up this cause on behalf of those who come after them.

Katie was bravely doing a mile a day sponsored walks. My predecessor in this place joined her on one of those miles, and although we disagree about many things politically, we have already seen today that this is a cause that unites, because there is little—in fact, there is nothing—more precious in life for any of us than time spent with the people we love. Money cannot buy that—nothing can buy that—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden made clear, the decisions we make in this place can have a real impact in the lives of others.

Government Policy on Health

Sam Rushworth Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

First, my right honourable friend, Alan Milburn, does not have a role in the Department. Secondly, of course we will publish, in the routine way that we do, details of meetings held in the Department and who attended them. I gently suggest that if the hon. Member has not made his way there already, there are plenty more interesting things to read in the House of Commons Library.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I think Opposition Members may be making the mistake of judging this Government by their own standards. I wish to ask the Secretary of State this: after my constituents and many others have suffered from the economic disaster that was caused in part by dodgy covid contracts and VIP fast lanes, what will this Government do differently?

[Wes Streeting]

I am delighted to see my hon. Friend here representing Bishop Auckland. The people of his constituency will be struck by the fact that this afternoon the Conservative party has chosen to create a mountain out of a molehill about a former Health Secretary coming in to lend his advice and experience to a Labour Government. On covid corruption, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to be angry, as indeed the country is, too. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been very clear that, when it comes to cronyism and corruption in covid contracts, we want our money back and the covid corruption commissioner is coming to get it.