Helen Whately
MP for Faversham and Mid Kent · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Every holiday period, Kent and my constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent is brought to a standstill, and that has become much worse with the introduction of the EU entry-exit system, despite the fact that our ports and Eurotunnel have invested in the technology.”
“The situation could be horrific this summer: imagine people, including children and elderly people, and potentially pets, waiting in their cars in this heat for around 12 hours. It is a disaster. I implore the Minister to involve the Prime Minister—and, most likely, the right hon.”
“I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She is making an important point about the fact that we need not just the minimum but the maximum. We need really strong commitments. The Cleve Hill solar development in the village of Graveney in my constituency is huge. It has obliterated 900 acres of agricultural land and marshland.”
“On the point about considering the community benefit, what counts as a community is really important. In some circumstances—this has come up in my local area—a large geographical area is considered as a community, even though the number of households that are very substantially affected is very small.”
“I associate myself and those on the Opposition Benches with the Secretary of State’s comments about the outgoing permanent secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions. I am sorry that this may be my last exchange with the Secretary of State, as we await the coronation of the king in the north and the appointment of his new team.”
“I heard no commitment from the Secretary of State that the benefits bill was going to come down any time soon. Labour can change its leader, but it is still the same old welfare party. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) told us this morning that he is going to bring “Manchesterism” to the whole country.”
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“Perhaps she no longer takes for granted the work her predecessor did saving the Alstom factory in Derby. Or she could prioritise investment in the network, like the £100 billion we spent improving the railways since 2010. On that point, I feel for her because I know what it is like to argue with a Chancellor for investment in something and not win that argument. It is clear from the Chancellor’s statement earlier that the Secretary of State for Transport lost the argument pretty catastrophically. Rather than setting out to reform welfare or control public spending, the Chancellor opted to slash a host of transport infrastructure projects.”
“The railways Bill is the legislation that will actually make a difference to how passengers experience our railways, with simpler tickets, joined-up decision making and efficiency savings that can be passed on to passengers. She could be modernising working practices, instead of bending over backwards to the unions, as reports suggest she has already done. How does she think that creating a single employer and, in the process, uplifting every rail worker’s terms and conditions to the least favourable for passengers, will benefit the network? She could start by saving the train manufacturer, Hitachi—something that, when in Opposition, she said she could do with the stroke of a pen. I notice that it has been three weeks and that pen is yet to materialise.”
“If they are out there, twiddling their thumbs in the hope that this day would arrive, would the Department for Transport not have brought them on board already to help with the running of Northern Trains or Southeastern? It is the same question across the network. Will she be sacking everyone currently working for the train operating companies and replacing them with a horde of superior, yet currently out-of-work, staff? Or, as I suspect, will passengers simply encounter the same group of people in a different colour shirt? What we need to hear is what tangible difference this going to make for passengers, because if the answer is nil, then there are lots of other things she could be doing with her time, such as prioritising the railways Bill.”
“The point is, if the Government are going to change things in the first piece of legislation they bring before this House, they need some pretty clear evidence as to why, so I have some questions for the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood), who will be summing up. How exactly will bringing train operating companies into public ownership benefit passengers? Unfortunately, the Government’s impact assessment does not tell us, for sure. What improvements can passengers expect? Who is the Secretary of State going to get to run these companies? Where are all these different, better train operating experts going to come from?”
“I was perfectly clear at the beginning of my speech that we agree that reform is needed. That is why we commissioned a review and set out ambitious plans for reform, including the Great British Railways. I welcome that the new Government intend to introduce that. I am not here to make an ideological argument. To respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Mike Amesbury), sometimes, like with our plan for Great British Railways, the public sector is the right vehicle to solve a problem. At other times, a competitive, private model will lead to better results.”
“Moving to auto-enrolment would require a substantial redesign of the scheme. In contrast to what I heard the hon. Member for South Shields say, such a move, unfortunately, is not a simple thing to do. I am told that the prepaid card would need to be removed because it is a financial product that, under financial services legislation, requires applicants to accept the terms and conditions on an opt-in basis, so we cannot have it as an opt-out. Creating a new delivery method and process is therefore far from straightforward and would come at an additional cost to Government, with disruption for the beneficiaries.”
“Following user research and testing by both the Department and the NHSBSA, the scheme switched from being paper based to a digitised service in 2021. An online application and prepaid card replaced the previous paper form and vouchers. The number of families being supported by Healthy Start has grown following the introduction of the prepaid card. Since September 2021, of the more than 600,000 successful applications, 45% have come from new families and the scheme now supports more than 360,000 beneficiaries on lower incomes. The uptake is 62% of people who are eligible, which is higher than in the previous paper scheme and shows the benefits of the transition to a digital scheme. Hon. Members have raised the question of auto-enrolling eligible families on Healthy Start.”
“The Healthy Start scheme benefits hundreds of thousands of families across the country. The statutory scheme encourages a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies and young children under four from low-income households. Eligibility criteria for the scheme ensure that we target nutritional support on families who need it most. In April 2021, we increased the value of Healthy Start by 37%, from £3.10 to £4.25 a week, therefore helping families with the increased cost of living. I welcome the support demonstrated by colleagues today for this important scheme and the emphasis placed on its uptake. I fully agree that we need to ensure that eligible families are aware of and able to access Healthy Start. I now turn to how we are doing that. Healthy Start is delivered by the NHS Business Services Authority, on behalf of the Department.”
“Growing up with a healthy diet and weight is strongly protective against ill health in childhood and adulthood. Eating a healthier diet, as set out in “The Eatwell Guide”, could increase population life expectancy by up to eight years. We know that fruit and vegetable consumption is lower among more deprived children, and that those children may be at risk of not getting enough micronutrients. More than one in five children start primary school overweight or obese, and the numbers are higher in more deprived areas. That is a major risk factor for long-term diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and many types of cancer. Against that backdrop, the support for children to eat healthily through the Healthy Start scheme and our provision of free school meals is crucial.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and to respond to the debate on behalf of the Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Start for Life and Primary Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom). I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for raising this important debate about the Healthy Start scheme, and to other hon. Members who have contributed. The Government are committed to supporting the next generation of children, who are, of course, our future, and their own will obviously depend on this as well. A child’s early life is critical to their health later in life. We want every family to receive the right support to care for their children.”
“I welcome colleagues’ interest in the Healthy Start scheme and assure them that although our approach may be different from the one that the hon. Member for South Shields argues for, we are committed to making sure that the children who most need help get it.”
“Under the benefits-based criteria, more than 2 million of the most disadvantaged pupils are provided with free school meals; in fact, the greatest ever proportion of children are receiving free school meals, with more than a third receiving free lunches compared with one in six in 2010. Furthermore, a crucial backdrop to this debate is the latest fall in inflation—because we know that the best way to help people with the cost of living is to bring inflation down. Infancy and early childhood is a crucial time for establishing food preferences and dietary patterns. Giving children a healthy start in life is critical to health outcomes throughout childhood and adulthood. The Healthy Start scheme is one of the essential ways in which the Government support our most vulnerable families to give their children the best start for a healthy life.”
“Children of all ages also benefit from restrictions on the placement of less healthy products in key selling locations, calorie labelling on menus and upcoming landmark restrictions on multi-buy offers and the advertising of less healthy products on TV and online. For school-aged children, we have the school fruit and vegetable scheme and free school meals. The Government have expanded free school meals to more groups of children than any Government over the past 50 years. We have introduced universal infant free school meals for all children in reception, year 1 and year 2.”
“As I said before, the Government are committed to promoting a healthy diet for our children. Healthy Start is an important part of the support provided by Government but it is only one aspect of how we are doing that. For our youngest children, the Government are investing £50 million in infant feeding support as part of the family hubs and the Start for Life programme. We support childcare providers with the cost of milk through the nursery milk scheme. We are also working with industry to improve the healthiness, marketing and labelling of commercially available baby food and drink aimed at those aged up to 36 months.”
“Multiple channels of communication are used to raise awareness and encourage take-up of Healthy Start. NHSBSA actively promotes Healthy Start through its digital channels and has created free toolkits for use by healthcare professionals, local authorities and public health teams. NHSBSA uses a range of communications to raise awareness among parents and pregnant women. For example, it has attended maternity and midwifery forum events and placed advertisements in You and You r Pregnancy magazine, which is given to pregnant women in the first trimester, and the Bounty and Badger Notes apps. As officials confirmed to the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee on 7 May, we also have plans to write to everyone eligible for Healthy Start to ensure they are aware of the scheme and to encourage them to apply.”
“That is why the Government’s focus is on increasing the uptake and effectiveness of the existing scheme, so that more children can benefit from Healthy Start. I also assure the hon. Member for South Shields that the substantial level of investment in the scheme is in the order of £78 million per annum. I was sorry to hear about the problems in getting access and responses to phone calls for people calling up for help with access to the scheme. It is clearly important for people to be able to get help, if needed, to access Healthy Start. I understand that the average speed of answer for calls between 1 April and 10 May was 19 seconds, but I have asked officials to look further into the problems raised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) regarding accessing the phoneline and accessing help.”
“I hear the hon. Member’s point, but as I set out clearly, I understand that this is not a simple thing to do, and not straightforward. As she has offered, however, I suggest that she writes to the Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Start for Life and Primary Care with that suggestion and the proposal from Mastercard. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will look into it and respond to the hon. Member. I have been saying that it is complicated to shift to an auto-enrolment scheme under existing legislation. By contrast, the current scheme has seen increased take-up, with the switch to the prepayment card. We would not want to jeopardise that progress of increasing numbers of families enrolling on what is an important scheme.”
“Just over a year ago, we set out a plan to improve urgent and emergency care. The plan is working. At East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, 78% of A&E patients in March were seen within four hours. That is 4.5 percentage points better than last year—the biggest year-on-year improvement outside the pandemic since 2010. We know that there is more to do; that is why we are working with the NHS on year 2 of the urgent and emergency care recovery plan.”
“I commend my hon. Friend and other east Lancashire colleagues for their campaigning on this matter. I look forward to the meeting we are going to have to discuss the performance of his local A&E, and I thank him very much for the invitation to visit.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes the point that the performance of A&E depends on the flow of patients through hospital and our ability to discharge them. That is why, as part of our work on urgent and emergency care, we have invested in supporting hospitals to discharge patients, and have been supporting social care. We have seen an increased number of discharges across the country over the last year, which has enabled hospitals to treat more people and supported the improved performance in A&E that I mentioned. We continue to work on that, and of course we are supporting social care with up to £8.6 extra billion funding over two years.”
“My hon. Friend rightly flags the excellent work going on to improve access to mental health services across the country. Last year, 3.6 million people got mental health support. That is an increase of around 30% in just three years, supported by record funding of over £16 billion into mental health care.”
“The hon. Member raises the performance of the A&E department in her local hospital. I have worked closely with the NHS over the past year to improve the performance of urgent and emergency care. Since this time last year, we have seen ambulance response times improve by over a quarter and waits in A&E cut. I am happy to meet her to talk about her specific A&E department.”
“Our communities and their needs, and the services they already have in place, are different, and rarely is a one-size-fits-all decision made in Westminster the right answer. I stand by a more localised approach, in which there is, of course, variation. Another source of variation is historical. The hospice movement has grown organically, and the location of hospices has not been planned to meet demographic need, for instance. There are, therefore, inequalities in access to hospice services, especially for those living in rural and more deprived areas. This variation in access to hospice care has to be taken into account by ICBs in the decisions they must make to ensure that people have access to end of life care, whether or not they live in an area served by a hospice.”
“Alongside and in addition to that, hospices do the wonderful work that they do. Recognising the importance of palliative and end of life care, we specified in the Health and Care Act 2022 that integrated care boards must commission these services to meet the needs of their populations. Some hon. Members have argued this evening for hospice funding to be centralised, taken away from integrated care boards and, I assume, allocated by either NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care. While I understand their motivation in making that call, I do not agree. We purposefully set up ICBs to understand the healthcare needs of our local communities, to plan and commission services to meet those needs and, in so doing, to reduce health disparities.”
“Beyond that, I thank everyone who gives palliative and end of life care, as part of hospice teams but also working in the NHS. How you die, how your loved ones die or how you live towards the end of your life, matters. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton) said so eloquently earlier this evening, and as all of us here this evening know, that is why palliative and end of life care matters. It matters when that care is provided by the NHS, as it is for the majority of people, and when it is provided by hospices. I emphasise that point, because there is sometimes a misunderstanding, which I have heard a few times this evening. The fact is that most palliative and end of life care is provided by the NHS, whether in hospitals, by primary care or through community trusts.”
“I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for securing this debate. The number of speeches this evening reflects the strength of feeling, and the support, for hospices across the country. As the Minister with oversight of end of life care, I share the passion of many hon. Members for hospices and for what they do, caring for people towards and at the end of life, providing respite for carers and supporting families both before and after the death of a loved one. Many hon. Members have rightly praised the work of the hospices that serve their constituents and made special mention of the extraordinary work of hospices for children and young people. I also thank the hospices for all they do, and for all they are doing right now, as their staff work around the clock.”
“Member who said that people running a marathon for hospices is “sad”—it is not; it is a wonderful thing. It is a sign of the tremendous support that hospices have in our communities and that people are willing to choose to fund hospices, not just when the taxman comes along; they are choosing to have a hospice providing services to people in their area. It is a good thing because that fundraising gives hospices an independent funding stream, the freedom that goes with that to serve their communities as they see fit, and the strong ties with their communities and with all those people who fundraise for their hospices.”
“NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care data dashboard to help ICBs understand the needs of their populations and then address and track inequalities in access to end of life care. This is progress, but I want the transparency to go further so that we all have the data we need to assure ourselves that our ICBs are commissioning the care that our constituents need. I have heard the calls for more funding for hospices and the stories of some fantastic fundraising efforts, from the “star trek” night walk and the “Santa sprint” to the magnificent marathon runners who have joined us in the Chamber tonight fresh from yesterday’s London marathon. I congratulate those who ran, and particularly those who did so on behalf of hospices, which is timely for this debate. That said, I disagree with the hon.”
“It will vary by area, which is one reason why these decisions should be localised, rather than made by somebody sitting in my place saying, “This is how it should be done across the whole country.” Although I do not agree with centralising hospice funding, I am working on the transparency and accountability of ICBs to their communities and hon. Members, as representatives. That is why I have regular meetings with NHS England leads on palliative and end of life care, and it is why I am pleased to have secured NHS England’s commitment to including palliative and end of life care in the topics discussed at its regular performance meetings with ICBs. It is also why I am pushing NHS England and ICBs to improve the data they collect on the access to and quality of palliative and end of life care.”
“I will pick up on a few of those points. On the NHS providing palliative and end of life care, I have heard a misunderstanding in some speeches, both this evening and on other occasions, that all end of life and palliative care is provided by hospices. It is more mixed. Integrated care boards do, indeed, commission hospices to provide care, but hospices also provide care independently, and NHS services do so, too. These teams also work together collaboratively. That diversity is a strength. In seeking to address inequalities, ICBs can look to hospices to do more in underserved areas, for instance. At other times it may be more appropriate for them to look to NHS services.”
“To conclude, there are no easy answers to the questions raised this evening—there rarely are. I do not have a pot of money otherwise going unspent for hospices; neither do ICBs and nor does NHS England. I will, however, continue working with NHS England to ensure that palliative and end of life care is given the attention it deserves and needs so that it is considered important, just as we consider services that prolong life important, and that the NHS is held to account for doing that. I will continue to agree with hon. Members on the importance of hospices and the important work they do. I see this as a Minister, as a constituency MP and from my own family experience; I will never forget saying goodbye to my grandmother in a hospice near Yeovil, and I will always be grateful.”
“Although committing funding beyond the spending review period is not in my power, I am pushing for our healthcare system to encourage and enable more advance planning by individuals to consider and set out what they want at the end of their life. Inevitably, some of us will die in hospital, and for some of us that will be the right place, but given a choice many people would rather die at home. We should all be setting out a plan that includes our preference of place of death and what sort of treatments we do and do not want. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my fabulous health colleague my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) said, we should talk more about death and plan for it.”
“I do congratulate those people on their fundraising efforts; although I hope their feet are all right! As hon. Members know, the Government have provided dedicated additional funding to hospices; in the pandemic, when I played a part, we were helping them with energy bills and through the children’s hospice grant, which the NHS has confirmed will go to hospices for this financial year too. Looking ahead, I fully appreciate the ask for longer-term certainty of funding—of course I understand that. However, funding for hospices, end of life care and many other things beyond the current financial year depend on a future spending review. I am sure that all hon. Members will understand that I cannot pre-empt such a review, and ICBs similarly will not know their funding until that review.”
“I am confident that the local NHS has been listening, and I know the importance of St Peter’s to the area. Any change in NHS services must be made with the utmost sensitivity to local views. Question put and agreed to.”
“Our primary care recovery plan is making it quicker and easier for patients to get the help that they need from primary care. On facilities for GPs in Maldon, integrated care boards have delegated responsibility for commissioning primary care services and can prioritise capital funding for an essential system of allocation to invest in primary care estates as needed. In closing, I thank my right hon. Friends the Members for Maldon, and for Witham, for speaking in the debate and focusing our attention on healthcare in Essex, specifically on the future of St Peter’s Hospital. They have both done an excellent job of ensuring that the views of their constituents are heard, and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. I am very much looking forward to meeting them to discuss in greater detail the questions we debated today.”
“That includes significant capital funding of £20 million for accident and emergency across 2020-21 and 2021-22; £18 million for the targeted investment fund in 2021-22 and 2022-23; and £7 million for a community diagnostic centre across the same two years. We have invested £61 million in operational capital in 2023-24, and £182 million across the 2023 spending review, which can be used for capital projects and work. I am sure that my right hon. Friends will be in no doubt about the Government’s commitment to the health of their constituents. I can also assure my right hon. Friends that we have now delivered on our manifesto commitment for 50 million more general practice appointments per year, with nearly 370 million appointments booked across the last 18 months.”
“Friend the Member for Witham for raising the closure of St Peter’s in a Westminster Hall debate earlier; my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon raised it in oral questions the other day. I am glad to hear that the NHS will consider the results of a survey undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, and that those views will be fed into any decision. The local NHS is giving people more time to come forward, and this week it announced an extension to the consultation by an additional two weeks. Mid and South Essex is already one of the best parts of the country for the NHS getting patients back home and to appropriate care settings to recover from a stay in hospital. That strong performance has been supported by Government investment.”
“I have been assured that the local NHS is engaging and seeking to understand the views of residents before making any final decision. When that decision is made, the ICB must clearly set out how a decision will benefit the constituents of my right hon. Friends and people in the wider area. I understand that my right hon. Friends are concerned about the adequacy of local consultation on the proposed changes. I am assured by the local NHS that multiple events are being held to discuss the proposals, and at least three have already taken place in Maldon. As we heard earlier, public meetings have already been held, involving my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham. Almost 3,000 people have already completed the online survey since 25 January. I thank my right hon.”
“It is crucial that the ICB gets a full understanding of how these proposals will affect local people—of whether expected standards are met, not only of care, but of access. People usually understand that they may need to travel to get to a more specialised service, but it is essential that the services that people need are accessible. As well as considering patients, the ICB must consider families, carers, who need to be able to visit, and of course staff. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham emphasised the size and scale of Essex, and both she and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon spoke of house building and the growing population in the area, which clearly needs to be taken into account by the ICB.”
“I am sure that my right hon. Friends’ constituents want services not only on the doorstep, but to be staffed to provide the best possible care. That will be crucial, be it for mothers giving birth and their new babies, or for patients recovering from a stroke, for whom getting the right rehabilitation can make a huge difference to future quality of life. That is why ways to treat and care for patients and better equip facilities with the right level of specialist staff are being considered by the integrated care board. I understand that other locations in and around Maldon are being considered by the ICB for the other patient services provided at St Peter’s; this will keep services such as out-patient appointments close to the current location.”
“The cost of getting the facility up to the standard needed is estimated at more than £18 million. The St Peter’s site has also struggled to staff services properly, despite the increase in the NHS workforce in the past few years. When the birthing unit was at St Peter’s, it had to be periodically closed due to staff shortages, and there were also clinical safety concerns about the isolation of the unit; there were no other 24-hour services in the building. I heard my right hon. Friend explain that in the past there had been more than 300 births a year in the maternity unit, and I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham had her baby there. I understand that stroke rehabilitation services in Essex community hospitals are not currently staffed in line with national best practice for specialist stroke units.”
“Friends that the Government believe that NHS reconfigurations should be locally led, and based on clinically evidenced decisions. Any decision about St Peter’s will reflect our commitment to investing in health and care services for Maldon and Mid and South Essex. Let me start by reiterating that no decision has been made on the future of St Peter’s, and that a local consultation will run until 4 April 2024. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon is aware, the local NHS is concerned that the hospital does not meet the required standards for services because of issues with the age, condition and suitability of its buildings. Indeed, he spoke about that a moment ago. St Peter’s was built as a Victorian workhouse and has deteriorated in recent years. That makes the building costly to maintain and it would be expensive to refurbish.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for securing this important debate about the future of NHS services for his constituents. I know that St Peter’s Hospital, which has a long history of delivering local NHS services, is close to his heart and those of many people in his area. He spoke of the dedication of the staff who have worked there over the years and of many debates about the future. I welcome his sustained efforts to bring together stakeholders and ensure that his constituents’ voices are heard. We also heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel); she, too, made sure that her constituents’ voices are heard in this place. It is not the first time that she has raised this matter with me. I want to assure both my right hon.”
“Another thing my right hon. Friend spoke about was faster discharge. I am very alert to the risk of patients deconditioning in hospital, particularly patients with dementia. That is why over the past year or so, we have worked hard with the NHS to get better at identifying patients at greater risk of deconditioning, in particular those with dementia, on their admission to hospital. We have done earlier discharge planning and have been getting care transfer hubs established all across the country, which will do the work on more complex discharges. Often someone with dementia may need more access to social care. We may need to increase the access to, availability and supply of social care, so that it is there for those who will need it when they leave hospital. We have made some real progress on that over the past year.”
“Having been involved in some of the decisions about social care visiting restrictions during the pandemic and knowing how hard those decisions were—weighing up the infection control concerns and ensuring people could spend time with loved ones—we have been putting in place changes to Care Quality Commission regulation to make visiting a fundamental right, a fundamental part of care and a fundamental standard of care to ensure better access for loved ones to their family members in care homes and in hospitals. I know in particular how important that is for people with dementia, among others. The CQC is consulting on the implementation of the regulatory change, which will be live shortly. [Official Report, 12 March 2024, Vol. 747, c. 6MC.] (Correction) I believe we have taken a significant step to address concerns expressed about visiting.”
“I will raise the points that she made about secondary care with my colleague, the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, so that we can work together on ensuring that care is right in hospitals. He also has oversight of workforce, and we should focus on whether the training that I know is available is being taken up by enough staff, considering the number of people in hospital with dementia. On visiting, my right hon. Friend spoke about a subject that is close to my heart.”
“First, on the challenge of caring for people with dementia when in hospital, many hospitals have worked hard to do better for patients with dementia, for example creating dementia-friendly environments by changing the colour and lay-out, ensuring that staff are trained in dementia, and having dementia leads and dementia-lead nurses, as well as having training for volunteers. Standard training in caring for people with dementia is available through NHS England for staff and volunteers. Clearly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet described examples where care fell short. I have no doubt that across the NHS, with the work already taking place, we can go further.”
“She also talked about medication being stopped, and she talked particularly about somebody whose partner had early onset dementia, and had been coping fairly well at home. He walked into A&E, and that was very sadly the last time he walked. That emphasises the challenge of keeping people moving and maintaining their ability to be mobile during a hospital stay. She also described the fight to visit outside visiting hours. I very much hear my right hon. Friend’s asks on visitor access, volunteers being trained in dementia care, as well as staff training, and avoiding discharge delays, among other things. I will pick up on some of those.”
“Friend talked about one person who had been screaming all night, as described by the staff. Actually, the family member who knew them understood that they were calling for help, as they needed to go to the toilet. That brings to life how difficult it can be when somebody has dementia and is not necessarily able to articulate their needs and what they want. Those who know them well will often know what they are trying to say or communicate, but that can be difficult in hospital when they may be being looked after by staff who simply do not know them well enough to know what they mean. My right hon. Friend talked about food being left uneaten. If somebody is not eating in hospital, clearly they are likely to lose weight and their condition may deteriorate.”
“Friend talked about the time Lisa’s mother spent in hospital, and how, for instance, Lisa knew what her mother needed but felt that she was not listened to, and that it may have contributed to her mother’s death. My right hon. Friend also talked about the visiting restrictions during the pandemic. I will talk about those in a moment. My right hon. Friend talked about another constituent, whose wife was in hospital. She rightly talked about the importance of mobilising somebody with dementia, and how her constituent’s wife was nearly given the wrong medication, which could have been fatal. She spoke about the importance of his intervention. She also spoke about a constituent who was a carer for their father, and the importance of mobilisation, and some of the communication challenges for somebody with dementia. My right hon.”