Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for initiating this debate. As always, her contribution is timely, and grounded in compelling personal testimony. I have been a long-time admirer of the nursing profession, and my report, Neighbourhood Nursing, published 20 years ago, first mooted the idea of nurse prescribing, a concept which, to their credit, successive Governments...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, according tothe European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System, most of Europe is managing MRSA better than we are. Does the Minister not think it shameful that we are rated alongside Greece and just above Portugal, Malta and Cyprus? Does he agree with Professor Gemmell, an expert in this field, that we need lower bed occupancy rates and a higher ratio of staff to patients?...
Baroness Cumberlege: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy towards community hospitals and maternity units. My Lords, I start by thanking noble Lords for taking part in this short debate and the Minister for answering it. He is after all, according to the Health Service Journal, the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, so I am sure he will be able to answer my questions, of which I have...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, how many prosecutions have been brought and how many have been successful?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of Cancer Research UK. It is the biggest cancer charity in the world and it employs more than 3,000 scientists, doctors and nurses, mostly in this country but also abroad. I was very interested in some of the points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that in fact doctors are not always right. Of course, that is absolutely true. I do,...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to begin with a quote from Woody Allen, who said: "I am not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens". I share that view because dying is not for wimps. In the opening lines of her very charming novel, Miss Garnet's Angel, Salley Vickers wrote: "Death is outside of life, but it alters it. It leaves a hole in the fabric of things which those who are...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, in the light of the reorganisations that are going on in the National Health Service, will the noble Lord assure us that the NPSA will continue at least for the life of this Parliament?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I have a few minutes before the next debate; I know that this is a timed debate. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. It has been a wise, wonderful and, on occasion, very humorous debate. I would like to reflect what my noble friend Lord Selsdon said—that seldom in this House do we sit through a debate without learning a lot, and today has been one of those occasions on...
Baroness Cumberlege: rose to call attention to Her Majesty's Government's plans for the National Health Service; and to move for Papers. My Lords, I start by declaring an interest: I chair St George's, University of London; I am a senior associate of the King's Fund; and I have other connections with the National Health Service. For most of my life, the health service has been my life. I grew up in it and, like...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I declare an interest: I chair St George's, University of London, I am a trustee of Cancer Research UK, and am involved in a number of health-related organisations and charities through my company, Cumberlege Connections. I start by thanking the Minister for his very clear exposition of this Bill. It is a complicated Bill. He described it as "diverse", and I agree. It has something...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate for initiating the debate and for his clear introduction of the subject. I give him my full support in his quest for charitable remainder trusts. Like so many Members of your Lordships' House, I am engaged in several charities. Charities deliver a huge number of services and on the whole deliver them very efficiently. Taking...
Baroness Cumberlege: asked Her Majesty's Government: What impact the new financial system of payment by results is having on the National Health Service.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but is not payment by results a misnomer as it is payment by activity, regardless of quality? Hospitals whose reference costs are below the national tariff increase their income by admitting and treating patients. Does the Minister share my deep concern at the 50 per cent rise during the past 10 years in Caesarean section rates? What financial...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, for initiating the debate. Given his remarkable, distinguished contribution to education, medicine, science and public health, I could spend seven minutes talking about the noble Lord, but that is not the purpose today. However, there could be nobody better fitted to introduce this debate. I declare an interest: I chair St George's University...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, in the past, medicine was simple, relatively ineffective and safe. Today it is very complicated, effective and potentially dangerous. We have moved from the time when the family doctor, with great kindness, prepared us for the inevitable. Today, for many, the attitude is quite simply negligent. Curing what was thought to be incurable, successfully operating on the inoperable and...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I should like to start by declaring two interests: first, I chair St George's Hospital Medical School and, secondly, I am a trustee of Cancer Research UK. I should also like to join those of your Lordships who joined up to the lay brigade. I seek some advice from the Minister. It used to be a House convention that to be allowed to contribute to other parts of a Bill one had to speak...
Baroness Cumberlege: asked Her Majesty's Government: What progress they are making in reducing hospital-acquired infections.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, I think that the Government have been extraordinarily complacent on this issue. Is it not true that very little progress has been made? In fact, in its report, the National Audit Office says that over the past three years the situation has got worse. If we had a rail crash, killing 100 people, there would be a massive inquiry and heads...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I appreciate that there will be a pilot scheme and that one has to see the results of that, but there has been a lot of concern that this scheme is open to fraud. Can the Minister say what measures are being taken to prevent that? Further, there is concern that children who need this formula milk will be denied it at a time when they are developing and when it is particularly...
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, is the Minister aware that at birth centres and midwife-led units there are waiting lists for midwives who want to work there because they can give a quality of care that they cannot give elsewhere? As a result, there are fewer interventions and there is less anguish for mothers and less morbidity for babies. Is the Minister further aware that those units are under threat of closure...