Speeches by Beales.

“That is welcome. I hope that the Government will provide some guidance to public sector organisations to enable staff to have the time to do that. Last, I have a slightly different question about data; it is about the quality of data. I recently met an organisation to discuss people in the health and mental health syst…”

“That is really welcome, Minister. I have met with Samaritans, who highlighted that many frontline workers and emergency services workers do not have mandatory training around suicide prevention and dealing with suicide. I have met paramedics and Metropolitan police staff who have had no training in how to deal with sui…”

“Digital and data will be a key part of that evaluation piece, in terms of the pilots and the associate sites.”

“Would you say that you are confident that the pilots will be able to show a way forward for digital integration and interoperability for the roll-out? Are you confident that the learnings from the pilot will quite clearly demonstrate how, on roll-out, we will solve these problems?”

“Definitely. Localism is important, but there is also efficiency—I think that was the word I just heard. If you find ways that work, you do not necessarily need to see 100 ways of working around the digital barriers that might be present, particularly when you are piloting something that demonstrates to the system the w…”

“We have heard that, as you touched on regarding the local authority having a separate system, the voluntary sector will also have a separate IT system that is potentially quite underdeveloped and under-resourced. It will not have any permissions or ability to access NHS data because of those guardian-based issues. If t…”

“Is that looking at the voluntary sector as well? You talked about the local authority in terms of honorary contracts, but we have heard about the voluntary sector, which—as you have touched on already—is a crucial element in Somerset. Even in Somerset, this issue has come up as a major challenge. Open Mental Health in …”

“There is no funding or guidance centrally to enable that for community mental health services.”

“Some of this is quite basic. We have heard about the multidisciplinary nature of mental health work. What you envisage from the community mental health hubs is going to be quite multidisciplinary. You have touched on some of that already. We have heard, for example, that 70% of social workers have basic, poor IT; there…”

“Good morning. Digital integration, digital interoperability and the sharing of patient data have been key challenges that we have heard about in our inquiry, and something that you have touched on already in terms of issues and learnings from some of the pilots. I want to press further on some of the specifics of what …”

“Those Pathway teams have a major impact, but one of the challenges in the health system is that there just is not consistent recording of whether individuals in settings are homeless or not.”

“Despite some of the heat in the debate, the misquoting of things that have been said and the unfortunate politicisation of this important local issue, about which there is general agreement among Members of all parties and in the community, the consensus that I hear is that people want more accessible services, more lo…”

“My constituency neighbour perfectly describes the very difficult situation in Hillingdon inherited by the trust leadership and this Government, such as the hotels opened under the Conservatives putting pressure on the local system. I am pleased that the Government have committed to close hotels across the country and d…”

“Ideally, it would be an issue for the Department of Health and Social Care.”

“I am just conscious of time. There is a lot of downward pressure on ICBs and trusts. You said you wanted to get back in the black. That is the key direction. I just want to be assured on this point. How do you know that that is not coming at the expense of investment in longer‑term transformation? I think about the sta…”

“You have been monitoring that. Could you share with the Committee examples of interventions that you have taken where you have seen that happen?”

“That is slightly off the track of my question.”

“Are you referring to the NHS productivity plan?”

“I am not terribly clear on the answer to that. We want to ensure that there is genuine transformation and productivity and it is not just the capping of activity or demand that is pushing down that financial pressure, as can often be the case, and that longer-term investment budgets are not being raided, as has often b…”

“How confident are you that it will be achieved? I hear the opportunity, the context and the challenge. I hear the issues that the NHS has been grappling with and continues to. Sitting here, leading the organisation, are you confident that those productivity savings will be achieved?”