Speeches by Beales.

“Last week was the seven-year anniversary of the death of one of my constituents’ sons, Kieran Patel. Unfortunately, the House has not given me time to do justice to his story. His mother Manjo was in touch with me last week and shared the horrific experience of the loss of her much-loved and talented son, who was a med…”

“I am just a bit confused. The hon. Member suggests that drop-off charges are the responsibility of this Government. At Heathrow, the charge is £7, but it was £6 during the 14 years of the last Government, so proportionally—following his argument—90%, or whatever the maths says it is, of the cost came from the last Gove…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for securing this important debate for airport communities. Residents in my constituency know very well the impacts of airports, with Heathrow on our doorstep. The recent decision to i…”

“Good morning. The independent expert panel’s report emphasised that one in four people in the UK die without the services they need at the end of life. That is particularly the case for certain population groups, and there is disproportionate unmet need among groups that have experienced disadvantage throughout their l…”

“The children’s sector reports—at least in what I have seen from Shooting Star—that they have to have separate conversations with all the different ICBs that are making separate decisions about palliative care for children and young people, which makes it very hard to plan workforces and facilities. Also, young people a…”

“I guess we are talking about some services hypothetically. I want to get a sense of whether we are talking about children and young people’s palliative care or not—which would be fine, but I’d want to understand what the timeline might be for considering whether children and young people’s palliative care should be com…”

“Okay. Is it in train for children and young people’s palliative care?”

“The challenge at the moment is that there isn’t co-ordination, so the sector has pointed quite strongly to measures like this. Joint boards of ICBs, requirements on joint commissioning and even national commissioning have been suggested. I want to push on this because we often hear positive ideas, but is there any time…”

“There will obviously be a move of specialised services on that basis, but this is an existing ICB-commissioned service at the moment.”

“Okay, so it is not yet in train for children and young people’s palliative care?”

“Can you provide information to the Committee about when that pan-ICB arrangement will be established for children and young people’s palliative care?”

“Lastly, on children and young people’s services, as I mentioned, the service I met covered three ICB areas. We have already heard about the challenges of ICB commissioning, but this is particularly acute in the children’s sector because they are dealing with multiple ICBs and usually have different commissioning arrang…”

“Would a similar arrangement be suitable for children?”

“Would that be something picked up in the MSF?”

“On transition, which you briefly mentioned, the sector reports that is an increasing issue as medicine advances. Children are living longer with life-ending conditions, and they are transitioning into adult services from children’s palliative care. Going from a children’s service to an adult palliative care service is …”

“Not to push you, but the words were slightly loose: will there be specific sections, specific metrics and a specific mention in the MSF, rather than just “paying attention to” it?”

“Will there be a specific section, or specific expectations and standards, for that sector within the MSF, so that there is not just a generic set of measures for all palliative care, but specific reference to the issues of children and young people?”

“Turning specifically to children’s palliative care, this is one of the areas where inequalities exist, as we heard about in the report. I recently visited the Shooting Star hospice that serves children and families in Hillingdon. Like many children and young people’s hospices, it serves quite a large footprint because …”

“Will the MSF be setting very clear metrics?”

“Where in that system is the failure, then? With the level of inequalities that we see, and the standards that are not being met in palliative care, it feels like there are ICBs that are not currently fulfilling their responsibilities. I do not know whether you agree that that is a fair assessment, but if that is the ca…”