Dr Peter Prinsley
MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket · Labour · United Kingdom
“Q And you would like to see that written into the Bill? Steve Gooding: It is very hard to write it into the Bill. However, there is absolutely the need to keep the pressure up.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q I am the MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket in Suffolk, where we have a lot of problems with our roads and no motorways. I think the general public are anxious about the price and what it is going to cost for them to take their vehicles through this new tunnel.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the anxiety that people quite rightly feel at the moment when looking at the cost of the lower Thames crossing, there must be a question whether it has to cost quite that much. Whatever further pressure can be applied, everything is going to flow from that initial estimate.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If you do some back-of-the-envelope calculations, on a 120-year concession, that would bring in £15.6 billion. It is estimated that the scheme might cost £11 billion now. People accept that the £3.50 and it is affordable. I think it should be based on that figure with limits built in, whether linked to inflation or something else.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this important debate. Sheffield is my university.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government’s decision to increase tuition fee caps in line with inflation rather than allowing their value to erode makes sense. I also welcome the return of maintenance grants. Those are important steps towards supporting universities and students, but we must recognise that there is a difficult balance at the heart of this debate.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“They are leaving the profession, retiring too soon and emigrating. Who is looking after our doctors? I come to this place as a surgeon. I am one of the very few surgeons ever elected to Parliament. My dad was an RAF medic, who served in Aden in world war two before joining the newly invented NHS in 1948. He became a consultant physician in Teesside, where I grew up, and then a professor of geriatric medicine in Melbourne. He wrote an excellent account of his life called “New Ideas for Old Concerns”, which is full of fascinating accounts of his medical experiences during the war and later in the new NHS. It was a time of such hope and optimism, and I sincerely wish that we will be able to recreate that hope today.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the welfare of doctors. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. Our NHS is described as “broken”. Gigantic waiting lists; ambulance delays; collapsed confidence that the NHS is there when we need it; poor access to general practice, dentistry and pharmacy; and, disgracefully, falling life expectancy in some places—these are all failures of the last Government, who could not look after the NHS despite record funding. Labour must mend the NHS; we have no choice. We invented the NHS. We fixed it before and we will fix it again. In this debate, I speak about the people who work in the NHS. There are nearly 1.5 million of them, all contributing in their own way, but let me speak specifically about our doctors. Doctors in this country are in crisis.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Young doctors are left immediately responsible for life-and-death decisions, sometimes with insufficient support. They are left scrabbling at the very last minute for somewhere to live—the on-call accommodation that my generation remembers has disappeared—and I have known several of them to sleep in their cars. It has not escaped my notice that the new name for junior doctors is “resident doctors”. Resident doctors? That is the very last thing they are. If they are lucky, there is a place for them to rest, but many a time I have arrived to find a young doctor fast asleep from exhaustion at an office desk.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will speak of general practice shortly. My son is an A&E doctor here in London, and I am therefore one of three generations of doctors who have served the NHS continuously since it began; the welfare of doctors is personal for me. This Government have already done much for doctors, who are on the frontline and not the picket line for the first time in several years, but burnout, fatigue and stress are still very real problems that threaten to undermine the efficacy of our NHS. Today’s new doctors graduate into the profession with debts of nearly £100,000. They immediately enter a lottery to be appointed to their first jobs as pre-registration doctors, sometimes ending up miles away from family and friends in places they have never visited before. Now that reminds me of another job that I just started.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Progression in a chosen career depends on a multitude of competitive interviews and hugely costly professional exams. There is no security of employment. In a survey called “Fight Fatigue” conducted by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, 50% of respondents said that they had had an accident or a near miss when driving home after a night shift—I recall fatalities like this in my own hospital; 84% were too tired to drive home after a night shift; and only 64% had access to any rest facilities. What would we say if the same were true of airline pilots, to whom anaesthetists are sometimes compared?”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The doctors’ mess used to be a place where young doctors could find a sort of surrogate family in an unfamiliar place, but that is now sadly a thing of the past. According to research from the British Medical Association, fewer than 10% of UK trusts or health boards offer hot food after 11 o’clock at night. The demands of the job affect relationships. Many young doctors are in relationships with fellow doctors, but lucky indeed are the couple who can work and live in the same place, or even contemplate raising a young family together. Sadly, relationship difficulties and breakdowns are commonplace. Holidays must be taken at odd times, and rotas are inflexible. Doctors are left unable to take a day off to attend a wife’s graduation, a sister’s wedding or even their own wedding—all true.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my hon. Friend, as he will see. There are odd shifts, night duties without hot food, and days and weeks that go by without an opportunity to meet supervising consultants. Short clinical attachments mean that the relationships previously created with senior mentors are rare. Just last week, I received an email from a surgeon who was my consultant in 1986. He had noticed in a surgical journal that I had become an MP, and I remembered him as the brilliant surgeon that he was. These are the relationships that make people feel as if they belong within a wider profession, but I doubt whether the young trainees of today would have the chance to make such lasting connections. There is little security of employment, because doctors are obliged to apply every year or two for another post, probably in another place.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Too often they are discouraged from continuing in practice by a bureaucratic and costly appraisal and revalidation process, and they simply throw in the towel. Their experience is a vital asset to the NHS, and we must think carefully about how we retain them or return them to the workforce. One solution will be to create simple routes for experienced doctors to practise flexibly.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with exactly what the hon. Gentleman said. In a recent survey, 29% of hospital doctors said they were unable to take any breaks at all during the working day; for GPs, the figure rose to 40%. That is simply not safe, for either doctors or patients. In a 2023 survey conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons, half of respondents cited poor working conditions as the main challenge in their job. It is no wonder that so many colleagues are retiring too soon. The average age for a radiologist to leave the NHS is now 56, yet we are desperately short of these vital specialists. This is happening across many specialties. Just in 2023, 23,000 English doctors left the profession prematurely. We cannot afford to lose our most experienced doctors.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree completely with the hon. Member, which will be no surprise. The training of doctors is under threat. I spoke in the House about how cash-strapped universities are issuing redundancy notices to clinical professors, with no real plan on how to teach the increasing number of medical students or to continue the vital medical research for which our country has such a strong reputation. There was a 31% decline in the number of clinical academics in the country between 2004 and 2022. Something must be done about that. Our GPs are under pressure as never before. Who is looking out for them? They face massive lists of patients and huge demands. We know that we must support them, for they are the front door of our NHS.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree that we must put resources into general practices to deal with the Government’s plan to move care from the hospital out into the community. I am sure that needs to be addressed. The partnership model, which has served us so well, is now surely threatened as fewer young GPs are prepared to take on the responsibility or the financial risk of general practice.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do agree. I believe that the Government intend to do something about the somewhat terrible state of GP premises; the Health Secretary confirmed that only yesterday. There are serious questions about the support that individual GPs receive, especially for mental health. At present, GPs rely on the NHS practitioner health service for addiction and mental health support.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They include to provide identified mentors, not simply people called educational supervisors; simplified contracts, transferable across trusts and between hospitals; clear, early information for doctors about what they will be paid and their rotas, timetables and holidays; hot food at night, and places to rest and sleep; to cover exam fees and make examinations fair and achievable; and to provide parking at the hospital and, crucially, a GP for every doctor and simple access to mental health support. Medicine is a brilliant career—satisfying, interesting and rewarding. Let us look after the doctors who look after us.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last week, I informed the House of my former student who described the terrible flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder of the young clinical intensive therapy unit staff who witnessed 40 or 50 covid admissions die at a hospital in Yorkshire, and the complete lack of support they received. Many are reluctant to seek help and do not know where to turn. Itinerant junior doctors not registered with GPs are known to self-medicate. We simply cannot leave them on their own. In conclusion, I will respectfully make some suggestions, which have little or no cost implications. In making them, I am thinking especially of our resident doctors.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was not aware that the practitioner health service was not available in Northern Ireland; I certainly agree that it ought to be. The practitioner health service was designed to be used by only 0.5% of GPs, but in fact it is accessed by 10 times that number. Ensuring that such services are fully funded will be important. There is alcohol and drug abuse, loneliness, depression, insomnia, anxiety and, sadly, suicide—including two of those who I graduated with from Sheffield, both in their very first year of medicine; and two doctors, a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon, from my own road in Norwich. One of my own trainees was rescued at the last minute from a very serious attempt. All doctors know of this problem, but few speak of it.”
House of Commons21 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I feel doubly blessed this afternoon because the West Suffolk hospital in my constituency is to be rebuilt and the James Paget hospital where I have worked for 30 years is to be rebuilt. Does the Secretary of State agree that our primary care estate is in a terrible situation and that we must also invest in general practice facilities?”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us use the power of Government to legislate: warnings on food packets, breakfast clubs in schools, which we have already introduced, advertising bans, tax incentives, cooking education and an end to the dependence on the cheap, unhealthy food that blights the lives of so many of our citizens. We have no choice.”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Nor must we forget that it is our poor citizens who are most affected—those who are cash-poor, time-poor and at high risk of a poor diet. We cannot continue like this. The Government must act to change food habits. This is not the nanny state; this is simply good government. “Smoking kills,” it says on cigarette packets. Some food kills, too, so how about “The food in this packet will kill you if it is not part of a healthy, mixed diet”? Obesity is a massive issue for surgeons, increasing morbidity and mortality. Although we can staple stomachs or inject up to 3.5 million people with anti-obesity drugs, we all know that that is not the answer.”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A bariatric bed is a special big, strong bed used in hospitals for extremely obese people. When I was a medical student, there was no such thing as a bariatric bed—not invented, not needed. But then, hospitals did not have food banks for their staff either. So how have we got our relationship with food into such a mess? The epidemic of obesity is a public health emergency costing billions. Millions of our citizens are dying early. The Government simply must act. This cannot be left to the market. We did it with smoking, and now we will do it with obesity. We have no choice. We know that at the heart of the matter is high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, factory-produced food that is often ultra-processed, cheap, convenient, tasty and very profitable for a few very large food businesses.”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend’s intervention was not really an intervention, because I had reached the end of what I wished to say. Nevertheless, I thank him sincerely.”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Winter pressures have caused the cancellation of thousands of operations, including many of my own lists. Does the Secretary of State agree that the opening of the dedicated Clare Marx surgical centre in Colchester, serving patients in Essex and Suffolk, is an extremely welcome development?”
House of Commons15 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While welcoming rail renationalisation, may I ask what can be done to expedite investment in crucial rail infrastructure developments, such as the Haughley junction in my constituency, taking traffic off the A14 and possibly facilitating Bury St Edmunds to London trains? Was the previous Prime Minister’s promise to redeploy funds from the cancelled HS2 realistic?”
House of Commons9 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have just been visited by my former medical student, a young doctor in Yorkshire working in an intensive therapy unit, who told me that 40 of the 50 patients who were admitted with covid died. Many healthcare workers are suffering from flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder. What measures will the Government take to look after the mental health of the healthcare workers who so bravely helped us during the covid pandemic?”
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A constituent of mine lost her son, Alan, in a dreadful accident on the A14 in September 2023. He died in a collision with a lorry that was stationary on a live lane. The lorry driver was disqualified from driving, and had no MOT on his trailer and no insurance. Despite the driver committing road safety offences, the Crown Prosecution Service determined that the driver did not cause the death under current legislation, and he was only charged with disqualified driving. Will the Minister commit to examining the Road Traffic Act 1988 with a view to introducing an offence focused on presence, rather than causing? I would suggest this wording: “A person being disqualified from driving—””
House of Commons7 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are very worrying reports of cash-strapped universities reducing the numbers of clinical academics; indeed, some are being made redundant at a time when there is increased demand for doctors. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is an extremely concerning development?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My son, who is an A&E doctor, describes trollies of elderly, incontinent patients two abreast in corridors, and in car parks. He is unable to admit his patients, and that is right here in London. We know that we must rebuild our hospitals, and we will start with those that are actually falling down. My constituents were so pleased to hear both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor promise here in Parliament to replace West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some of them are dying. We are short of all manner of specialists, including crucial diagnostic radiologists and pathologists. Delays in diagnostic imaging and reporting are very problematic—there are more than 1.5 million people on the waiting list to receive a diagnosis—but the Labour Government will deal with the massive NHS backlogs because we did it before. Between’97 and 2010, we abolished the waiting list, but in the period from 2010 to 2023, waiting lists reached record levels. Now we see access to GPs, dentistry and all routine surgery as the political emergencies that they are. We all hear terrible accounts of the consequences of such delays from our constituents. We know of them first hand from our own families.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I had expected to tell the House that I had come straight to Parliament from my operating theatre in Norfolk, where I had been dealing with ear, nose and throat surgery backlogs this morning, but late last night I received a call telling me that my operating list was cancelled because there are no beds in the day unit that was purpose-built to avoid that issue, and which opened only a few years ago. Every surgeon in the country will be familiar with that situation, and in every hospital, surgical teams are sitting idle waiting for beds. It is like a fog-bound airport where nothing can take off. There are enormous backlogs across almost all of surgery, especially in gynaecology and orthopaedics. We are short of theatres, short of anaesthetists and short of scanners. Our patients are suffering and deteriorating in front of our eyes.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We really can manage most clinical problems in the community, and investing in our brilliant GPs is truly the key to the crisis. Community hubs with diagnostic capabilities for larger populations would send to hospital only people who need to go to hospital. We must do something about productivity. I started my career with four workers in the theatre operating on eight children, only to reach a situation today of operating on four children with eight workers. As we reform and rebuild our NHS, let us bring the 1.5 million staff members with us on this great journey, for it is on them that we and the NHS depend. The measures announced today will surely help, but only if we find enough staff and invest in training. Let us look after those who look after us, with fair pay, fair conditions and a great deal of respect. That must be our mission.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I carry on, as I have very little time? I am glad that the Prime Minister has made general practice and care in the community a central part of his plan. General practice is the front door to the NHS. Patients who have a genuine connection with one or two GPs are less ill and live longer. There is an illuminating article entitled “Closer to home” in this month’s Fabian Review by my Suffolk GP colleagues Drs Reed and Havard, who reimagine GP as a comprehensive community health service close to the patient, with multiprofessional teams of health workers and with mental health services and district nursing all in one place. Patients know who their doctors are and know that the community health centre is the place to go. Let us call them Bevan community health centres.”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Previously in this Parliament, I said that amount was about the same as an F-35 jet, and we have 75 or so of those. As I said then, I ask whether some of us might agree that the vital soft power of the World Service is equivalent to at least one of our jets.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Abuse and state malfunction are called out, and the powerful are held to account. There are 318 million listeners every week. In 2022, the World Service announced 382 job losses and the complete loss of the Persian radio broadcast, which was so important in its coverage of the protests against the Government in Tehran. In Lebanon, Russian state-backed media are now using the frequency suspended by BBC Arabic. There is news and there is fake news, as we have all learned. While we debate the funding of the BBC, let us therefore remember the World Service, which Kofi Annan described as “Britain’s greatest gift to the world”. Presently, about three quarters of World Service funding comes from the licence fee and about one quarter—about £100 million—comes from the Foreign Office.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I, too, would like to speak up for the BBC World Service and the brilliant people who work there. The World Service describes itself as the world’s radio station. That is right: we are lucky to have it and must do whatever we can to support it. It offers 42 language services and is a beacon for democracy around the world. We know the truth when we hear it from the BBC. In a world of endless rolling information and disinformation, it is surely significant that the Arabic service alone saw a 9% audience growth to 35 million a week just last year. There are places in the world, especially where internet connections are restricted and local journalists are fearful, where conventional radio remains crucial.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q13. We have in our NHS many brilliant émigré and refugee surgeons from the greatly troubled middle east, and I have been privileged to work alongside some of them from Iran, Iraq and from Syria, which we think especially now. What practical measures can the UK take to help ensure that Syria now has the best chance of becoming an open society and the second functional democracy in the region?”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us not ignore deafness when we talk about disability. I read about a young person with hearing loss who said: “One of the worst things is when people say something I miss…they say ‘oh it doesn’t matter’. It probably didn’t matter to them at the time, but it makes me feel I don’t matter.” I think that matters to all of us.”
House of Commons12 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The charity has mobile services for rural locations and can provide ear care in residential settings with one-stop provision of wax removal, audiology and hearing aids, keeping people communicating, connected and able to work. I also commend the work of many excellent larger charities set up to help people with hearing loss, some of which were here in Parliament this week. The RNID estimates that the cost of hearing loss to the economy is £30 billion a year due to loss of earnings, reduced quality of life and increased social care costs. The solution to much of the problem is obvious: hearing aids must be just about the most useful disability aid ever invented. Let us do what we can in this Parliament to support our NHS audiology and hearing aid services. After all, most of us will need them one day.”
House of Commons12 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many deaf people do not work because the adjustments that could and should be made for them are not made. Deaf awareness among employers is insufficient. I will talk a little about earwax. Occluding earwax, which causes hearing loss and is also caused by hearing aid moulds, is a huge issue for deaf people. The services in this country to remove it are very patchy. Before I became an MP, I was the chair of a deaf association in East Anglia, a charity that helped thousands of deaf people and had contracts from the NHS to provide ear care and hearing aids. I believe that charity is a model of community-based, not-for-profit NHS ear care to the population that could be widely copied.”
House of Commons12 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. As many people know, I am an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, with a special interest in hearing loss and ear diseases. That has been my life’s work, so I declare a big interest in this subject. Deafness and hearing loss are invisible disabilities, but they are common—very common. They affect 70% of people over the age of 70, and 40% of people over the age of 40. Hearing aids are free on the NHS, but millions of people who could benefit from them do not have one, and many people who do have one simply do not use it—perhaps up to 5 million people. Perhaps a million of our fellow citizens cannot hear conversational speech, with many unable to contact their GP or use health services.”
House of Commons12 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Member agree that the absolute early priority must be to sort out emergency dentistry? Everybody must be able to contact an NHS emergency dentist for terrible toothache or dental emergencies, and that will prevent so many children from being admitted to hospital for their abscesses to be drained, which I have had to do as an ear, nose and throat surgeon.”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am speaking here of people who are dying, not people living well who have chronic or terminal diseases. We are talking about people at the end of their lives wishing to choose the time and place to die. This is not some slippery slope. We are shortening death, not life, for our patients. This is not life or death; this is death or death. Coercion and manipulation have been spoken about and are no doubt feared, but the danger of no change to the law is a greater fear for those who are dying and wish to have choice. The very real fear of loss of dignity and control are at the heart of it. Do not underestimate that. There are strict safeguards in this tightly written Bill, and I fervently hope there will be the opportunity to refine them as it progresses.”
House of Commons29 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I asked the ear, nose and throat nurse I have worked with for 20 years about assisted dying, and she said it is an essential change. There is no doubt in her mind. Like me, she has seen the unbearable distress that some head and neck cancers cause, and she knows of the very difficult deaths of some of our patients, despite excellent palliative care. It is this experience that has changed my mind. When I was a young doctor, I thought it unconscionable, but now I am an old doctor and I feel sure it is the right change. I have seen uncontrollable pain, choking and, I am sorry to say, the frightful sight of a man bleeding to death while conscious, as a cancer had eaten away at the carotid artery. It is called a carotid blowout. I know the terrifying loss of dignity and control in the last days of life.”
House of Commons29 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for that timely intervention. Some may say that we do not have the resources to introduce this change, and many may say that we must invest in palliative care, which of course we must. But I see assisted dying as complementary to, not an alternative to, palliative care.”
House of Commons29 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I respect my hon. Friend’s report of the statistics, about which I have no further information. Colleagues know the gravity of the law that we are discussing and might feel that the moral weight of such a change is simply too great to bear; they may fear that our wisdom is insufficient. But I urge us to be brave today and allow the Bill to progress in this new Parliament. Finally, a prison chaplain told me only this week of a gentle old man he met in prison, serving life for agreeing against every instinct in a last act of love to suffocate his wife, who was dying in uncontrollable agony. We are a compassionate people and we can do much better than that.”
House of Commons29 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As an ear, nose and throat surgeon, I can attest to the absolutely desperate trouble that cigarettes have caused over many generations. Implementing this measure is one of the best things that this Parliament could possibly do, and I expect that the measure will be widely supported all over the House. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for introducing it.”
House of Commons26 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Emily is a British citizen who, as the Minister has said, has been held hostage ever since the attacks. Would the Minister explain what measures the Government are taking to make contact with those holding the hostages so that we can bring Emily home?”
House of Commons25 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Secretary of State explain what plans he has—if any—to limit the scope of practice of anaesthetic associates and physician associates, about whom there has been such publicity lately?”
House of Commons19 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that the support that we will put in place for general practice and, in particular, the community health hubs that were recently announced, will be crucial to the improvement in the health service that we urgently need?”
House of Commons14 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will save millions of pounds and preserve NHS eye surgery services. As my ophthalmic colleague informed me, we can treat dental problems with false teeth, but false eyes do not work very well.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The generous tariffs for the provision of cataract surgery means that private cataract clinics, often owned and run by the same surgeons, are springing up everywhere. The number of cataract operations has shot up, and a relatively minor cataract, which is a cause of correctable visual difficulties, can be operated on within a few weeks by a choice of private clinics, generating annual profits of well over £100 million. Meanwhile, NHS eye surgery departments which are treating serious causes of irreversible blindness such as glaucoma and macular degeneration are in trouble, with long waiting lists. They cannot recruit surgeons and are struggling to survive. This is the next dentistry crisis. Just as in dentistry, a reform of the contracting system is now urgent, and I urge the Government to do that.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government have rightly emphasized the need for investment in the NHS to be accompanied by reform. With reform must come value for money. I would like to bring a serious matter to attention of the House: an example of a reform which, while at first sight appears to be of benefit, is neither value for money nor the right thing to have done. I am sorry that so few of the previous team are here to listen. NHS eye surgery services are in difficulty, and I am informed that we are in danger of creating ophthalmic deserts, just like the dental deserts familiar to us in the east of England. The last Government took their eye off the ball as cataract services were outsourced to private providers, taking with them the very same NHS surgeons and staff who were providing the service in the hospitals.”
House of Commons5 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗