Liam Fox: ...-tier system and there were advantages to fundholding, would it not have been logical to move everyone up to the top tier, not to drag everyone downwards by restricting freedom, as primary care groups have done?
Susan Deacon: On a small point of clarification, the Oxford group's scientific advice will be available in November. The CMO for Scotland has suggested that a further review may be conducted in January 2000. It is not unreasonable for me to say that it is not for me to comment on the basis on which Professor Donaldson, the English CMO—or, indeed, the Scottish CMO—has reached his view. It is for the...
Liam Fox: ...list initiative but that of his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), and of the Prime Minister. The initiative has been condemned by almost every health care group, including the British Medical Association—that reactionary force which the Secretary of State loathes so much—the Royal College of Nursing, another reactionary group; the Royal...
Liam Fox: ...lack of national health service beds. Those reports will have been met with horror and disbelief inside the House and beyond. Given that they have come from eminent consultants and from patients' groups, there needs to be a full inquiry. Should not the Secretary of State for Health ask to make a statement on that matter, and could not time be made available for it during today's...
John Hutton: ...to them. In the White Paper "Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation", the Government announced their intention to set up an expert patients task force, led by the chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson. Its task is to develop a programme to help people with chronic conditions to maintain their health and improve their quality of life by supporting them to take an "expert" role in...
Liam Fox: The director of the Cancer Research Campaign's education group says that the Government's cancer initiative has led to a waste of resources and a waste of specialist time. The professor of cancer medicine at Imperial college says that the whole approach is flawed. He also said that we have a shortage of more than 500 cancer specialists, a £1.2 billion backlog in radiotherapy equipment, and...
Alan Milburn: ...symptoms stood at 40 per 100,000 of population. Today, I can tell the House that the latest provisional figure has more than quadrupled to 197 per 100,000. The chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has advised me that the official figures reflect only the people who have consulted their doctor and undoubtedly understate the true size of the outbreak. That is because heavy usage...
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: ...-like symptoms stood at 40 per 100,000 population. Today I can tell the House that the latest provisional figure had more than quadrupled to 197 per 100,000. "The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has advised that the official figures only reflect the people who have consulted their doctor and undoubtedly understate the true size of the outbreak. That is because heavy usage...
Liam Fox: ...for all children in care so that the best and most specific type of prospective adoptive or foster parents can be found. All children in care should be allowed by law to have contact with outside groups—whether charities, Churches or families—to give them a full range of cultural experiences, not only those offered by social services.
Mrs Marion Roe: ...as the Government who destroyed NHS morale and snatched from patients the confidence that is so necessary to ensure that the patient-doctor relationship is effective and successful. Primary care groups in general practice have disrupted the delivery of medical services to patients. Over a year ago, I warned the Government that the requirement that doctors should be involved in the...
Quentin Davies: The Prime Minister finds time to see a very strange group of people, from Bernie Ecclestone to Liam Gallagher. How come he could not find time to receive an all-party delegation from both Houses, including several Privy Councillors, who were seriously concerned that there may have been a breach of natural justice in this case?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: ...Complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia are more common in people with these underlying diseases, especially if they are also elderly, and deaths due to flu are almost entirely in these groups. In long-stay residential accommodation influenza infection can spread very rapidly. This year, around 11 million doses of flu vaccine are available, compared to 7.8 million doses last year....
Liam Fox: ...with the Secretary of State or with the Government—it has everything to do with everyone else whom they normally blame, but nothing to do with them. In all my political life, I have never known a group of people take so little responsibility for their own actions. They are happy to take the salaries, but not any of the responsibility. The Labour Government's failure to deliver on the...
Liam Fox: ...for strong policing and strong legislation, and it would have been better to lay out those factors in primary legislation. On the argument about the origin of cells, there are clearly three groups in the House. There are those who believe that embryonic cells should not be used for experimentation or treatment. They believe that it is a moral issue purely about respecting the right to...
Liam Fox: ...assumption seems to be that a large number of personality disorders are based on an underlying condition that can be treated, but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, that will apply only to a small group of people. Was he speaking about treatment or management? The terms must be clearly delineated. I have three specific points for the right hon. Gentleman. He spoke about the single point...
Liam Fox: ...we welcome, but will he consider making another provision for which we asked when we considered that Bill? Will he provide access to some mechanism to ensure that children maintain contact with groups outside the care environment before they start out on the process of adoption? As the right hon. Gentleman says, the adoption process is difficult and time-consuming for the children...
Liam Fox: ...for those at the front line in the national health service. The Bill perpetuates the myth of a one-size-fits-all structure for health care. There is no single blueprint. Forcing primary care groups to become primary care trusts, and then forging them into being care trusts implies that some magical Whitehall blueprint can work in all parts of the country. It will not. We must allow...
Liam Fox: ...give their views, to express their worries, and sometimes to give their support to parts of the Bill. The Bill will inevitably evolve, as changes to one part will affect another part. Those outside groups are not being given a chance to see how the Bill develops. Instead, the Government are telling them that only their views at the outset are valid, and anything after that is irrelevant....
Liam Fox: ...tobacco consumption and yet they entail a serious restriction of freedom of expression; it contains no provisions to combat the increase in the prevalence of smoking amongst vulnerable population groups which is due to the growth in importation and sale of illegal tobacco products; nor does it address the difficulties of those sports which stand to lose financial support as a result of its...
Baroness Williams of Crosby: ...so far. I can go back even further than the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, because I was the Secretary of State for Education and Science who set up the so-called Genetic Manipulation Advisory Group, which produced its first report in May 1978. Even then, looking at recombinant DNA, it began to talk about the immense potential of genetics and all that was going to flow from it. I speak in...