Podcasts about health select committee

Steve is joined by his brand new co-host, Dr Sarah Wollaston, for the first time. Sarah was an MP from 2010-2019 and, like Steve, is a former Chair of the Health Select Committee. The pair are joined by Professor Sir Simon Wessely to talk about the new Mental Health Bill going through Parliament and also cover President Trump and the WHO on World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day plus three of the biggest cancers. Oh and they compare puppies! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following last week's BBC documentary, Irresistible: Why We Can't Stop Eating by Chris Van Tulleken, Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation leads a panel discussion on ultra processed food and what we should do to tackle some of the problems arising from eating so much of it.The panel comprises Kimberley Wilson, chartered psychologist who's also qualified in nutrition and the author of Unprocessed. Maurice Cousins, head of campaigns at Public First on the political perspective, Food Foundation Adult Food Ambassador, Kathleen Kerridge and Beccy Cooper MP, Labour MP for Worthing West, public health doctor and who sits on the Health Select Committee.Click here for the Food Foundation Manifesto and here to sign up for the newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Health Select Committee has been digesting the Auditor-General's report on how well public organisations are working to meet the mental health needs of young people.

Show notes and Transcript Andrew Bridgen MP is one of those rare individuals in UK politics.  He is driven by convictions and critical thinking as opposed to fame and power which is the norm in Westminster (or on Capital Hill I assume).  He was an absolute Brexiteer and led part of that campaign for The UK to have freedom from the EU.  He joins Hearts of Oak to discuss how he fought for Brexit all through his political life, but his biggest battle has been against the Covid Tyranny imposed on us by the UK government.  Andrew spoke up for all who have been vaccine injured and for that he was thrown out of the Conservative party and vilified in the media.  But the Conservatives loss was the gain of The Reclaim Party as he now represents them as the MP for North West Leicestershire. His bravery and boldness is plain for all to see and as long as we have people like Andrew Bridgen in Parliament, we have a glimmer of hope in the UK. Andrew Bridgen was elected in 2010 after spending 25 years running his successful family business, AB Produce, based in the constituency at Measham. Prior to this Andrew attended local state schools and Nottingham University. He has also trained as an officer in the Royal Marines. During his time in Parliament, Andrew has been a prolific speaker and has campaigned on a variety of local and national issues in Parliament. Locally Andrew campaigned for grant funding to bring all of NW Leics District Council housing up to the Decent Homes Standards. Andrew has also campaigned for better transport infrastructure which led to the duelling of the A453 and the planned electrification of the midland mainline. He has also worked with business and community groups to bring down the rate of unemployment in the District, as well as holding a jobs fair. On a national level, Andrew led the successful campaigns to decriminalise non-payment of the TV Licence and to scrap Air Passenger Duty for Children. He has also used his business experience to serve on the Regulatory Reform Committee as well as the Deregulation and the Enterprise Bill committee. Connect with Andrew... X: https://x.com/ABridgen?s=20 The Reclaim Party: https://www.reclaimparty.co.uk/andrew-bridgen Interview recorded 22.9.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more... https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Support Hearts of Oak by purchasing one of our fancy T-Shirts.... https://heartsofoak.org/shop/ Please subscribe, like and share! Transcript (Hearts of Oak) Andrew Bridgen, it is wonderful to speak to you today. Thank you so much for your time. (Andrew Bridgen MP) Yeah, you're welcome.  Andrew Bridgen, of course you can find him @ABridgen on Twitter and he has served as Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire since 2010, re-elected 2015, 2017 and 2019 with a whopping 62% off the vote, one of the few MPs with anywhere near that. Obviously, thrown out of the Conservative Party, the whip removed, and then that was in April 2023 for raising concerns on the Covid jab, and Andrew now represents the Reclaim Party in Parliament as an MP. Andrew, may I ask you first, what got you into politics? You entered Parliament in 2010. What made you think it would be a good idea to get into politics? Frustration, Peter, and I've been running a business for 22 years, which would start it up the thousand pounds. So I've been I've been MD and chairman of the company and we built it up to 25 million turnover company employing 300 people by 2006. And I'd give, I'd been interested in politics. I joined the Conservatives in 1983 at Nottingham University. And I'd been chairman of the Institute of Directors and on the council of the IOD in Pall Mall, and through working during the Blair years with the East Midlands Regional Assembly as a business member. Obviously I'd met a lot of ministers and I can't say that I was impressed. Well, it was pretty clear they were going to bankrupt us. So a group of friends, most, they were all really sort of small and medium-sized business people and their wives, we used to meet in a pub locally and every Friday night it was sort of a groundhog day, so they always moaned about the state of the country. I'd given a reasonable donation to the Conservative Party in 2005 and I think we had a half a percent swing to the Conservatives so worked out at that rate we're never going to get rid of Tony Blair. And so they moaned every Friday night and it eventually it got to me but I mean by that time I was running a business that was making about three million pounds a year across the group. I've got a good management team and no debt whatsoever and one pint of Marston's Pedigree on a Friday night too many and I said to this group of collected individuals, that's it then. It's no good relying on anybody else. There's only us. So in North West Leicestershire was supposed to be a rock solid Labour seat. The council I don't think had ever been conservative controlled properly. I think they may have had control for about three months once out of 40 years after a by-election. So I said well you all stand for the council, the district council, I'll stand for MP, we'll take over and we'll get it sorted and to a man and a woman every single one of them agreed. And so I put most of the money up for the, I put the money up for the campaign and I got the nomination. Nobody really wanted to be the MP for North West Leicestershire, well the candidate for North West Leicestershire because no one, the Conservatives told me we can't win North West Leicestershire, 83rd target seat. They also said they weren't giving me any money but I said that's fine, I've got my own money and my factory was in the, in the, so I actually did have a payroll vote. So 300 people plus their families in the constituency and the District Council elections came round first in 2007 and I was already selected as the parliamentary candidate. I ran those elections and put the money up and it was the first time the Conservatives had put a full slate up in the seat and they said I was running them too thin but I always thought basically if you didn't put a candidate up at an election it's very difficult to see how how they're going to vote for somebody aren't they? So we put a full slate of candidates up and took Labour down to five councils out of 38 in one night, the biggest swing in the country in the District Council elections in 2007. We took control of the council obviously, and I had the second biggest swing in against Labour in 2010, so I turned a rock-solid four and a half thousand Labour majority with a much loved Labour MP, who sadly died, into seven and a half thousand Conservatives at one, so that's like a 12.5% swing. The seat's my home and, you know, I'm very comfortable in North West Leicestershire. And we moved it to, in 2015, it went up to 11,200 majority. And despite Theresa May's best efforts in 17 with her manifesto, which was appalling, I moved it up to 13,300 majority. Then in 19, I led the leave campaign in the referendum for the East Midlands. I told my seat that if they didn't back me I would have to resign as their MP because we didn't agree on the big issues but to be honest Peter I was fairly sure they would. So the East Midlands voted 59-41 to leave and my own seat voted 61 39 and I'm actually the MP who persuaded Boris Johnson to back leave. He was no way that he was a natural Brexiteer and also if you look back on YouTube you'll find that on the eve of the referendum Boris Johnson came to my seat and we went round Ashby de la Zouch. That's when I told him we were going to win and you should have seen his face when I told him we were going to win. I don't think that that wasn't actually part of the plan Peter and in fact he tried to talk me out of it he said no no it's going to be close but we're not going to win. I said no no we're going to win tomorrow. No, it's going to be close. I said, well, maybe I said, but certainly not around here, not around here. It's not going to be close. You know, the bit we're running. So, and then in 19, on the get Brexit done election, which now seems so much happened since 19. It feels like a very long time ago, more than four years away. And I got a 20,400 majority, it was 62.8% of the vote. And the BBC, I had no sleep that night, the next morning the BBC interviewed me and they said, Mr Bridgen, you must be delighted, this is your fourth election victory, each time you've increased your vote, you've increased your majority, your percentage of the vote, you must be delighted. I said, no, it's terrible actually. They said, why is it terrible? I said, well, I've, you know, it's nine years since I was first elected as the MP, I've delivered the highest economic growth in the country. We've taken the poorest constituency in Leicestershire and made it the richest, the only part of Leicestershire with above-average UK salaries and wages. We've got the happiest place to live in the Midlands now, Colville, which was the most deprived town in Leicestershire. I said one in three of the electorate are still not voting for me. I'm gonna have to work much much harder.  Tell me about that whole Brexit battle. I mean my time was UKIP and UKIP was easy because 100% of Kippers were on board. The Conservative Party have always had that tension and division over Europe. What was that like actually in the Conservative Party pushing something that wasn't necessarily what the Conservatives wanted?  Well it wasn't what the establishment wanted, all the established parties were backing Remain. I think it was interesting that the Conservative Party was like, a very civilized internal war, and there were probably only a quarter to 30 percent of conservative MPs who were for leave, so still the majority were, remain, or indifferent, and some of them maintaining indifference, which I mean, I don't know what you're into politics for. If a big question like whether we should remain or leave the European Union, they say, I don't want to get involved in this. I'll just sit down and see what my people say. I mean, that's not exactly leadership, is it? I mean, I think that should be pretty much automatic deselection, if you can't make your mind up on that sort of issue. And what comes back to mind is that the Conservative Party, we used to, when I was in the Conservative Party, before they threw me out, well, first I'll tell you this, Conservatives have never been encouraged in the Conservative Party, they're only ever tolerated. And the Conservative Party, Parliamentary Party, had something called an away day every two years, and they pay for them in advance to get a good deal. So despite the fact that there was this internal schism over the referendum that was coming, the party had paid for an away weekend in Oxfordshire at this basically hotel that's like a Bond villain's hideout, with an underground lecture theatre, which is a very weird place, and because we paid for it, we were told we'd all got to go there, and this is only sort of three months before the referendum, and we had a very civilised weekend of talking about policy, but no one mentioned the EU and no one mentioned the referendum over the whole two and a half days and the dinner, but I do remember that Craig Oliver sat with me at the final dinner he sat next to me on my table at the final dinner and I told him, I said have you got yourself another job lined up for when you lose, and he said to me he said that's fine he said if we win by one vote that's it settled and that's that's it done. I said well I'll be honest I'll take though I'll take that on as as it cuts both ways, you know, if we win by one. And I knew we were going to win, Peter, because, I'd been around the East Midlands and I could tell we were definitely going to win. But it's about driving the vote up because it wasn't just winning by a seat, all the votes were cumulative, so every vote counted. And what I'd sussed out is in my seat and in the East Midlands is that people who didn't normally vote were going to come out and vote. They weren't, those people who didn't normally engage with politics, they weren't coming out to, they weren't coming out to vote for the status quo, they were voting for change. So I concentrated my campaigning efforts the last six weeks. And did a lot of campaigning and also I was running a load of field operatives who were, 90% of it, they were UKIP. The Remain campaign had nobody on the ground willing to deliver leaflets, hardly at all, for them. We were destroying them on the ground battle. Obviously, in the air campaign we could only be responsive because they got all the media, they got all the established parties, and we were the insurgents. So that was more of a struggle, but on the ground we were doing very, very well. And what I'd sussed out was that people were going to come out and vote who didn't normally vote and every time I saw the polls I was not disappointed because I knew that we were probably, we probably got five or six percent better than the polls were saying because these people who were going to come out and vote and they told me they were and I believe they were, They're not engaged in politics, they're not on YouGov's polling panel, and when Com Res or somebody else rang them up and they said, oh, I'm going to vote to leave the European Union, they'd say, well, did you vote in the last general election? No. Did you vote in the local? No. Did you vote in the one before? No. Have you ever voted? No. And they'd put them down as zero chance of voting. Well, I knew as long as we got those people out, it was all going to come as a bit of a surprise to the Remain campaign. In North West Leicestershire, and we counted our votes, so I know it's fine, I know exactly what the vote was in North West Leicestershire, but you could terminate my seat of North West Leicestershire until the next boundary changes. I think it was a sort of 70-75% turnout to get me in in 2010, important election. And then ever since then, as my majority had gone up, the turnout had gone down and it dropped to sort of 68.5% or something in 19. But I mean, it was a stonking massive majority. And obviously the referendum, I was very encouraged when it was nearly 80%. And I'd spent all my time in Northwest Leicestershire and across the East Midlands. In my villages, I mean, it's a general election, they turn out 85 percent anyway. I'm not going to squeeze much more out of those people. You know, it's very hard to squeeze that they're on the second, third pressings of the pips. So I went to all the areas that normally turn out 50, 55, 60 percent because there was plenty of low-hanging fruit and you know it was that turnout in North West Leicestershire and across the East Midlands some people who didn't normally vote and that's why we won and that's why the polling was so wrong and that's what people like David Cameron who'd come to my seat in 2008 when he was leader of the opposition and he really upset me Peter so I'm a a candidate. We've just taken the council with the biggest swing in the country for the first time in living memory and Cameron told me in front of constituents that my seat was a dump and it should never be conservative. And they weren't giving me any money and I said I don't need your money and to be honest David if that's your view, never ever come to my constituency again and I will with it. And to be honest, David Cameron is a man of his word, he never came, he never came again. So that's fine. And I think now my majority is bigger than Whitney, so I mean what a dump the Cotswolds must be. North West Leicestershire. And we've gentrified. So people used to say Coalville was a very poor place and it didn't have a chance and now it's Coalville and proud. In fact I'm speaking to you from Coalville today.  I want to get on to the COVID discussion situation, but just you, you talked at the beginning about having a business and I guess part of your reason for getting into politics was you wanted the government to butt out, you want local businesses to be able to get on, to have, not to have restrictions on them actually doing well, making money, employing people. What kind of other kind of interests or passions? Well, I've actually cut my teeth in politics when I was chair of the Institute of Directors, which they didn't like particularly because they were fairly pro-EU, is that I got involved as a businessman in the,business for sterling in the no campaign to keep the pound so 25 years ago and thank goodness we didn't join the euro otherwise I mean it'd be much much more difficult to extract ourselves. Yes and Simon Wolfson the chairman of Next we used to meet at Enderby in his boardroom and plot business for Sterling in the No campaign. So I suppose that's where I got involved. And a chap called Chris Eaton Harris, who's gone on to great things, apparently, he was an MEP. And his father had a fruit and vegetable wholesale pitch in Covent Garden Market. And since I was into washing, packing, and distributing vegetables, mostly potatoes, nothing sexy. Chris was one of my customers. I used to buy from Mark Potatoes from Mark Spencer. And Philip Dunn as well. They're farmers. So we had the whole supply chain between us, do you know what I mean? But I made most of the money.  Which is just as well because they're not in parliament. Just as well. So yeah, I wanted to put something back and yeah, that's where we ended up. Obviously being a Brexiteer, there was backlash in the media, there was probably some pushback within the party itself. But I guess none of that even prepared you for the backlash whenever you addressed COVID tyranny. Is that a fair assessment?  Well I know that the two years under Theresa May were purgatory quite honestly. I mean I was a Spartan so I voted three times against Theresa May's deal which you know it wasn't, you know, some colleagues were conflicted and there was Steve Baker crying his eyes out. Well I mean there's nothing to cry about because I've already voted against it twice, it hasn't got any better and once you've come to the conclusion, which was the correct conclusion, that Theresa May's deal was constitutionally and democratically worse than being in the European Union. I mean at least if you're in the European Union you have a chance of leaving whereas Theresa May's deal we would be in vassalage forever and there's no way of leaving. Well I mean that's not a deal, not in my name and that vote on the third time Theresa May's deal came up before the Commons I was pretty convinced that there were probably going to be 28 Conservatives in the no lobby. The rest of Parliament would vote yes and that we would have been slung out of the Conservative Party within a few days. That was where I thought we were. Thank goodness. I mean we always criticise Jeremy Corbyn but he is a man of principle and he is secretly a Brexiteer really I think and he marched the Labour Party in behind us and the rest, as they say, is history. But I mean, a politically savvy Keir Starmer would never, would have taken Theresa May's deal and consigned us to EU vassalage. So thank goodness it was Jeremy Corbyn. But he did win the Conservatives the 19th election. That wasn't, down to Boris, it was pure fear of Jeremy Corbyn.  Yeah, no, it was, you don't want Corbyn, 100% I remember that well.  Well, I actually had two, during that 19 election, I can remember when I was going around the doorsteps, two members, two paid-up locally members of the Labour Party came to me and said I'll be voting Conservative, I can't vote for Jeremy Corbyn.  And they actually told me they were paid up members of the Labour Party locally. Well I mean if you, I mean that is your core, ultra core vote. They weren't even voting for him. Wow. On to the COVID. I've never seen anything and I mean I've loved politics, forever with Northern Ireland parties, the DUP and we've had Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson on before and then conservatives then over to UKIP, but nothing has divided people like what we've had in the last three years with the COVID tyranny. But you spoke a step, it wasn't just on the restrictions that we had, that civil liberty, but you also saw what was happening with harms and went on that. Tell us about that, how you worked that out, because that was a big step and that was an unacceptable step.  I think there's an element of destiny about all of this Peter. When I was 18 and I'm the only member of my family that's been to university, I had a foreground because my parents weren't very wealthy, they were poor. So about two and a half percent of people went to University when I went in the 80s and I went to Nottingham locally but I studied biological sciences with biochemistry specializing in genetics, virology and behaviour. Oh dear! And I don't know why, just they were things I found quite fascinating so I've tried to keep my knowledge up so I mean in February when we'd had the 19 election and then we had a sort of six weeks period and then we had then we had COVID and everything changed. Well in the February I was sent and I looked through the scientific papers for the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, its effectiveness against coronaviruses and it was compelling. They were scientific papers and because I've got, my degree a very long time ago in those subjects I mean I can read them and I can understand the papers and I sent the papers to Mark Spencer, Chief Whip, and said the government need to look at this urgently, this could be could be very useful and also sent them to Jeremy Hunt who was at the time, Chair of the Health Select Committee, and I didn't get anything back from Spencer. And I also told Spencer, I said, you realise that I've got qualifications in all the areas that'll be useful, if you want some help in the number 10, with someone who can actually read the papers and understand it and put it across politically, I'll be quite happy to help. They never, Mr Stewart never asked me to help, and I rang up Jeremy Hunt a week later, and this shocked me, Peter and it will shock your listeners. So I rang him Hunt up and said Jeremy I sent you these papers, have you have you looked at them? And he said Andrew he said don't send me scientific papers he said I don't understand them and I said but Jeremy you're chairman of the health select committee and you were health secretary for seven years. I said what? You don't understand scientific papers, and what you have no access to anyone who does understand them he could actually explain them to you and he put the phone down and that was it and so my suspicion, so I hadn't got a great deal of confidence I did support the first lockdown because I don't think anybody knew, well somebody knew what was going on it certainly wasn't me, you know was it three weeks to flatten the curve. Anyway, so, and I was, from then on, things just didn't seem to stack up. The masks, I couldn't see the sense behind the masks. I mean, those paper masks, they are to stop saliva from the doctors and nurses going on to the patient's wounds and to stop blood and other bodily fluids squirting into the medic's mouths, which they don't really like, they don't like that. That's what they're there for. So not to stop viruses and the gaps around the edges And I was briefly in the military. And if you had a full nuclear biological chemical suit, you've only got an 80% chance of keeping a virus out. Well, I mean, that's not what these paper masks are. And I guess, I hated putting them on anyway. They're horrible. So I was on that. And then the continuous lockdowns, and Northwest Leicestershire was chucked in with Leicester. And so we were locked down as much as anywhere in the country. It was completely unprecedented and unwarranted. I also really objected to the schools being closed. And I objected. I mean, they were making the children wear masks. And even some schools were making the children wear masks when it wasn't mandated. And none of this seemed right. And there are some, speaking to some scientists who were speaking out about their concerns, And the fact that they were silenced, and they said all the science is all settled, I mean we've heard that one before several times, I'm sure we'll hear it again, but I mean science is never settled. It's a bit like politics, there's always another view, and if you can't defend your position, then there's something wrong. You know, every scientific thesis is open to challenge, or should be able to challenge, and most of them, I mean half of everything that doctors are taught in medical school within 10 years will be proved to be completely wrong. That's a fact, I mean that's just a fact. So, you know, the only constant is the evolution of science and new theories to supersede old ones and saying that, you know, we're not having any debate about this and cancelling eminent scientists. Then my concerns grew and grew and grew but I didn't want to believe the worst of the government. I actually am double vaccinated. They will call me an anti-vaxxer so which is difficult when I'm vaxxed. I'm more the sort of concerned vaxxed and I had two shots of AstraZeneca, I wish I had none, and I had a bad reaction after the second jab, which really, really hurt me. So I'd bitten my tongue, that also uncovered a lot of corruption around PPE. My whistle-blower was sacked. We uncovered £860 million worth of PCR tests that had disappeared from stock at Kuehne & Nagel were the distributor. We traced some of the unique barcodes and they turned up in Berlin. They'd been resold. So nearly a billion pounds. And my whistle-blower could only go back 12 months on his computer. And he was only in one of the three channels. He was in the channel to do with bulk. So it was only sort of prisons, schools, hospitals, things like that. But 860 million pounds worth of PCR tests had gone missing the taxpayer paid for. We took it to the government and the civil service. My whistle-blowers computer was switched off on the day and he was sacked within seven days, no investigation. I was pretty annoyed. And I mean, the corruption of the Boris Johnson regime was the first one I'd, and he was the he'd been the first Prime Minister I'd actually voted for and I was feeling very betrayed. So I hadn't voted for David Cameron, obviously, I voted for David Davies, and Cameron got in and I didn't vote for Theresa May. She got in. And so then Boris turned out to be as crooked as all the rest of them. So that wasn't good. And then my pretty view on the vaccines and the mRNA technology, the messenger ribonucleic acid technology. I was working behind the scenes and obviously Matt Hancock had to go and we had, Sajid Javid became health secretary. But there are about five Conservative MPs who are qualified doctors. Well Matt Hancock, not a good man, but he had said in the House of Commons that these vaccines were for adults, they weren't for children, so no one under 18 was going to have them. I know that every one of the doctors, qualified doctors, went to see Sajid Javid and told him not to use the experimental vaccines on under-18s and he listened to all of them and then approved it. It's interesting that these two health secretaries are both leaving the Commons at the next election, isn't it? I wonder where they'll land, you know what I mean? I suspect Peter, there'll be earning a lot more money than MPs get paid, let's just put it that way.  And then when the MHRA came out in November last year and wanted to extend the experimental vaccines to babies, down to six months of age, and I'll declare an interest, I've got a five-year-old and I thought now, I've got to speak out and I knew there'd be a huge backlash from the party, politically and I knew the vested interests that were involved in it but I also knew that it was probably going to cost me my position in the Conservative Party because they were so committed, but that I could win, that I'm pretty sure I thought, well there's no point doing it for nothing, you've got to win and I was pretty sure that I could put the science over that there were no healthy child of that age had died anywhere in the world of COVID-19 so there was minimal, minuscule risk from the virus but there was a risk from the vaccine. I thought even the most pro-vaccine person I could persuade that since the manufacturers still had immunity from prosecution that there had to be a risk. But there was no risk for those children. I thought I could get that message across and we could actually do some good and so I'd spoken out in a Westminster Hall debate, in I think it was October and then on November 13th I secured an adjournment debate and and blew the lid off the childhood vaccines, vaccination with the experimental mRNA. And that night, my life changed. I was basically immediately cancelled by the mainstream media. And from that moment onwards, I had hundreds of thousands of emails from around the world from people who were telling me about the vaccine harms and the vaccine deaths that they were seeing and that was it really. So after that, although the government will say that I'm a conspiracy theorist and anti-science, anti-vax, and all the people who call me anti-science and everything, I mean they haven't got any science degrees between them and the fact is that the government, our government was never able to approve those vaccines for healthy under fives, whereas all the other countries around the world did. So despite the fact that they said that I was talking absolute rubbish, they never bought the policy and every other country did. And then we got round to sort of January and the infamous tweet, which was actually, I mean, yes, so I retweeted, I actually didn't do it, but it was retweeted on my Twitter, a tweet from Dr. Josh Guetzkow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and it's fair to say that Mr. Guetzkow is a Jewish gentleman, that he'd been told by a top cardiologist that the rollout of the vaccine was the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust, and the party seized on that, the Conservative Party seized on that, to say I was an anti-Semite, and suspended me immediately from the party. I had a meeting at that time with a Conservative Party grandee who'd clearly been briefed by the party. We had an hour together in his office and I told him all of my concerns around the vaccine harms, the midazolam and morphine, the creation of the first wave of deaths by moving people out of care homes and then putting them onto the death pathway, putting them down, treating them with respiratory suppressants to give them the symptoms of COVID-19 which will appear on their on their death certificate and they were pretty much all cremated very shortly afterwards so there was no autopsies and we had an hour of that. I also knew that the person I was meeting with, because I'd done my research and I've got plenty of informers, he knew full well all of my concerns because he'd been told them. I also know that his sister had had to go into hospital after the second Pfizer jab with chest pains, but I didn't tell him any of this. And at the end of the meeting this grandee turned around to me, obviously with the party line, I've been suspended and said that there is currently no political appetite for your views on the vaccine, Andrew. They may well be in 20 years time and you're probably going to be proved right but in the meantime you need to bear in mind you're taking on the most powerful vested interest in the world with all the personal risk for you which that will entail, and at that point I said well the meeting's over then isn't it? I'm not, don't ever threaten me and I don't like being threatened by public school boys. You know, as a comprehensive school boy, if they had been at my school, they'd have spent most of their time with their head down the toilet. It was a very comprehensive education.  So we basically called it a day at that and then they just fast-tracked the investigation and found me guilty and permanently expelled me from the Conservative Party, which is interesting because in their investigation what they didn't discover is I never put the tweet out myself anyway. I've never ever had the codes to my own Twitter. It was actually posted by my association chairman who remains in the Conservative Party.  Can I ask you about... I need to ask you about the conversations with colleagues and obviously not breaking confidentiality of that, but working with Lord Pearson I'm always amazed people come to him after a debate and says well done. I could never say that but well done you said that. Did you have any kind of similar?  Yes, it's coming up to a year since I first spoke out so yeah I've probably had 20, I probably had 30 backbenchers have come up to me and said you're definitely onto something with these vaccine harms, keep going but that's a million miles from standing in the chamber and saying anything. I've had senior members of the Conservative Party have come to me and said that they're going to speak out. I've had a very senior MP came to me before summer recess and said he'd been approached by a constituent representing 1,100 vaccine-harmed people and he'd have to speak out, but he hasn't, and I had a very senior minister who came to me and said that they're, I mean this is all in private in parliament, no witnesses, so I mean they can deny it if they want to, but you have my word it's the truth, and come to me and said you do realize that my sister's just taken the Moderna booster and now she's paralyzed from the neck down. And I said well that's that's that's terrible news but clearly you're going to have to speak out now aren't you? and they said no, well she doesn't want any publicity and they think they're going to get her to walk again. I said well you don't have to name names I mean you know, you've got to speak out you know and the minister said I'm not speaking out and walked off. And I don't know what to go, I mean, we're supposed to speak without fear or favour, you know, I think the job of an MP is to, certainly I see the job as being to represent, the people, start with my people in North West Leicestershire, against the government and the establishment. And now what we seem to have is a lot of MPs who represent the government and the establishment against the people. That's an inversion of the job of a Member of Parliament. They said to me, you know, why are you willing to die on the hill of vaccine harms, you know, of an issue? And I said, well, because that's the hill you're killing my people on. No completely. I want to add two things to finish. One, you're in the Reclaim Party because that seemed to be the only option. Course you could do as an independent, that doesn't really happen in the UK, but also you're continually asking the government questions. One of the latest questions is did the MHRA inform the Minister of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine had been switched? Tell us about Reclaim and I'm assuming you're yet to receive an answer to that government question.  Well Reclaim are a political party, they didn't have any MPs but they're well funded and they've got some lovely premises and they've got great people and they're also aligned with something called the Bad Law Project, so I have access to lawyers and solicitors and so I'm taking Matt Hancock to court for defamation and we have a very strong case. I'm probably going to take the Conservative Party to court for the way they handled my dismissal from the party, which is unbelievable. I'm on my fifth subject access request to the Cabinet Office. I mean, Peter, I've put in for all the information they're holding on me, and even when I'm over four, this is the fifth one going in now, I keep cutting down the number of keywords and compressing the time, and every time they come back and say, I mean, they must have a library on me. They haven't got a black book, they've got a whole library on me. And every time they come back and say, it's too much work. I mean, the last one was about 10 key words. And I said, it's only from 1st of January, 2017. I'll publish all the papers one day and it'll be fascinating, but goodness knows what they're hiding. They're certainly not willing to release any documentation. So I think we're going to have a massive, massive, massive bust up with the government over that. And if they're doing it to me, it won't be just me, will it? There'll be. Yeah, I mean, if there is any mitigation of my colleagues, and I'm not thinking of any any mitigation at all for their inactivity when so many of them, I mean, what you've got to understand, Peter, is people say to me, So there was a lovely female Conservative MP who will remain nameless, but she was elected in 19. And she came up to me a few months ago and said, Andrew, I'm really worried about you. You speak in the chamber on your own. You have all your meals on your own. You sit on your own table in the tea room and the dining room. No one talks to you. You seem really isolated. I'm really worried about you. I said, well, that's very touching. I said, but you've got to remember, 4,000 real people work in Parliament. The cooks, the cleaners, the waiters, the security guards, the police, I said, and they all come to me and 80% of those agree with me. So I'm not really isolated at all, am I? I said, actually, you're isolated, you just don't realise it. So it's not been that bad in Parliament. As far as the Pfizer data, it was again Dr. Josh Guetzkow sent me some from the Hebrew University, sent me some evidence and he's not a scientist, he's a criminologist but he's a specialist in fraud and he went through the Pfizer papers and discovered how they'd switched the vaccines. There were two batches in the initial batch, one that they basically made a Rolls-Royce vaccine up which they gave to 22,000 individuals and they had 22,000 in the placebo group who got a saline shot and that's what they got approval for with the MHRA and every other regulator around the world. But that wasn't the vaccine, that wasn't the Pfizer vaccine that was rolled out. And the smoking gun for the switch of the vaccines is the fact that the MHRA changed the protocols on day two of the mass rollout of the vaccination in the UK, and said that everyone got to stay at the vaccine centre for 15 minutes after day two because of the risk of anaphylactic shock and you only get anaphylaxis if there's endotoxins in the vaccines and you only get endotoxins in the vaccines if they're cultured up in bacteria such as Escherichia coli and the MHRA hadn't expected anaphylaxis because that is not how the vaccine that was given approval for was manufactured, it wasn't manufactured in bacteria with all the contaminants that would go with it. Now, you can't, to get approval for a drug, you have to use the same mechanism of production. You can't change anything because then you've got a different drug with different side effects. So basically, what my allegation is, supported by 44 pages of evidence supplied to me by a doctor of criminology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the government will not answer or even acknowledge, is that the vaccine that was rolled out in the UK and around the world was effectively completely untested and it also explains why the, I mean that the harms from the Pfizer trials of the very best vaccine they could make in in a very small, basically a bespoke vaccine that they made for 22,000 doses, I mean that was horrific enough and that should never have had approval but it was nothing like the harm profile we've seen in actuality through the VAERS system and the yellow card system and the fact that the vaccine is a different vaccine basically explains that as well. If they were doing that with Pfizer, I mean I have no doubt that Moderna and the same and of course I had the AstraZeneca vaccine which which was actually that bad. It was just quietly withdrawn, wasn't it? And it's interesting that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is the AstraZeneca vaccine is not a messenger RNA. It's a DNA strand in an adenovirus vector. So it's different technology to the Pfizer and the Moderna. It's because obviously the DNA then will code for the messenger RNA. And so it's one step further back. It's interesting also that the, I asked for an urgent question in Parliament a few months ago because the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was withdrawn in America and I saw the FDA, the Federal Drugs Agency guidelines and it said stop basically, stop injecting the Johnson and Johnson and all stocks are to be destroyed. And the Johnson and Johnson that was also, a DNA strand not a messenger RNA strand and also in an adenovirus vector to get it into the into the cell. So it's interesting that basically both the vaccines, experimental vaccines were using the DNA adenovirus vector method, they were, both withdrawn and destroyed. But it is interesting that India are still producing effectively AstraZeneca under license. They call it Covishield in India. And of course they didn't stop the Australian version of the AstraZeneca vaccine until only a couple of months ago, so there's going to be a big kickoff there as well. So that's it. I sent it to the Attorney General because one of the questions I did ask was did the MHRA tell the Minister that they'd switched the vaccines, in which case if they didn't then the MHRA are guilty of potentially a crime which is I think it's a two-year prison sent us an unlimited fine, but if they did tell the minister, then how could the minister go out and say they're safe, effective, and tested when they knew that they weren't? I don't understand why the prime minister doesn't want to come back to me. I'm afraid the letter I sent him was a bit of a, do you still beat your wife question. There isn't a good answer, because either I'm going to nail the MHRA, or I'm going to nail the ministers. And it's also interesting, I think, you know, so many health ministers are deciding to not stand at the next general election. No, 100%. Andrew, I've watched your many speeches in the Commons and followed those written questions and I think for our UK viewers and listeners who are very frustrated at UK politics, I think as long as there remains someone like you speaking this truth, then there is hope. So thank you for what you do and thank you for your time today. Thank you very much for having me on. I'm sure we'll speak again in the future.

As the Government unveils its long-awaited NHS workforce plan George Parker of The Financial Times is joined by the chairman of the Health Select Committee, Steve Brine MP, and Labour peer and former NHS clinician, Robert Winston. After the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful, George speaks to Conservative MP Sally-Ann Hart, who represents the south coast seat of Hastings and Rye, and Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of the human rights group Liberty. The Conservative peer Andrew Tyrie, who formerly led the Competition and Markets Authority, discusses whether industry regulators are up to the job after the Chancellor met various regulators this week to discuss the cost of living crisis. And, following reports that many Conservative MPs are absent from Westminster as they try to defend marginal seats and campaign in the upcoming by-elections, Conservative MP Lucy Allan and former Conservative strategist Andrew Cooper, now a non-affiliated peer, discuss Tory chances at the next general election.

Parliament's Health Select Committee has heard from people petitioning for Tourette Syndrome to be recognised by the Ministry of Health as a disability in its own right in this country.

The Health Select Committee has given the go-ahead to the Smokefree Bill this week. The report makes additional recommendations such as limiting the number of tobacco retailers to no more than 600. Yesterday, Action for Smokefree 2025 (ASH) released their Year 10 survey, which gave some insight into smoking amongst adolescents. The survey showed that smoking rates were declining, however, vaping rates were increasing. In addition, the survey a larger rise for Māori teens using tobacco. Joe speaks to Professor Janet Hoek from the University of Otago, Wellington, on the matter.  

We walk through the summary of this report published on 20/10/22 by the House of Commons Health Select Committee on the future of general practice.This provides a very different perspective from recent government messaging and is much more realistic about the challenges facing general practice and how they can be solved.Jeremy Hunt is now (currently) the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so will this more realistic lin become government policy?Link to the report: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhealth/113/report.html Video explaining Select Committees and their role:: https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/committees/select/ Pulse Article: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/regulation/gmc-plans-to-enable-10000-or-more-sas-doctors-to-enter-general-practice/20221022 Join the GP5T team for our fourth virtual conference offering amazing and unique content to support you as a GP trainerRegister now: https://bit.ly/GP5T4 Join the Medics Money New To GP partnership course for the leaders in finance, wellbeing, workload management, and your peers on the same journey to become a safe, effective, healthy GP partner. Join at medicsmoney.co.uk/gpcourse and reference eGPlearning

A disabled woman is worried those who rely on in-home care could suffer or even die because the help is inconsistent and they are often left to fend for themselves. Matty Angel asked the Health Select Committee for an inquiry into the in-home care model that relies on companies who want to make a profit. Rosie Gordon reports.

With the first reading of a new bill in parliament today, Aotearoa New Zealand's plan to be smokefree by 2025 takes another tangible step forward. The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill will go to the Health Select Committee for submissions and review, and return to the House in late 2022 to be passed into law. Assuming the final legislation looks similar to what is being proposed, it will mean Aotearoa New Zealand leapfrogs all other countries to be at the vanguard of tobacco control.  Dr Hester Wilson, from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, told Gareth Parker on 6PR Breakfast the policy settings aimed at getting smoking prevalence beneath 5 per cent of the adult population within years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Covid-19 Response Minsiter Chris Hipkins says he has always felt uncomfortable about the extraordinary powers given to government under the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act. He told the Health Select Committee that the Act was only ever intended to be a temporary piece of legislation. Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis spoke to Susie Ferguson about the future of the Act.

Tangi Utikere is the MP for Palmerston North and he joins us in the studio to discuss his new appointment as the Chair of the Health Select Committee. We also discuss the potential fragility of the economy as the plight of our logisitics infrastructure, the health system and the cost of living crisis all come to bear. We also talk about the actions of the American political system empowering vocal minorities, and what implications the potential overturning of Roe v Wade might mean. And more!

The Auditor-General is to launch an inquiry into how mental health and addiction services are working for young people.It comes after National's mental health spokesman Matt Doocey wrote to the Auditor-General, Parliament's independent spending watchdog, to look at the $1.9 billion for mental health allocated in the 2019 Budget.The Auditor-General normally looks at whether laws might have been broken around the spending of public money, not the merits of individual spending decisions.In a letter published today, John Ryan said he believed there was already sufficient oversight of that Government investment, through reviews by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet's Implementation Unit, and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, which recently reported that investment had not seen improvements "materialise" as hoped.Rather than duplicate the processes, Ryan said his office would focus on the effectiveness of mental health and addiction services for young people "a group with an increasing need for mental health support".National's mental health spokesman Matt Doocey. Photo / SuppliedHe would also closely monitor mental health and addiction services through the current health reforms.Doocey said he was satisfied with the response, especially with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission recently reporting alongside an increase in young people accessing mental health services they faced longer wait times.In 2020/21 just 65 per cent of people aged under 19 were seen in the first three weeks of their referral - below the 80 per cent target, and 87 per cent within eight weeks - below 95 per cent target.He was also pleased to see a focus on the health reforms, with the Commission and Mental Health Foundation recently raising concerns.After Doocey first wrote the letter, Health Minister Andrew Little said the spending had already been reviewed six times across a range of reviews.He described the call for yet another review as a "meaningless stunt from a party that left our mental health services in an appalling state, handing us with the task of a major rebuild".Little made similar comments today, calling it "simply another cheap stunt by Matt Doocey and the National Party"."All this shows is they're not serious about building a better mental health system."Doocey said it was justified given the Auditor-General previously asking questions about the investment in a report.Doocey said he had also been blocked three times by Labour when he tried to get the Health Select Committee to look into various mental health issues, including the concerns raised about spending.The Government's 2019 budget boost was in response to the Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction (He Ara Oranga), which estimated the annual cost of serious mental illness, including addiction, at $12 billion.Health Minister Andrew Little. Photo / Mark MitchellLittle himself has voiced frustration about the slow pace with which parts of the $1.9b mental health package announced in 2019 was being rolled out – in particular the $235m set aside for building new mental health and addiction facilities, and lack of new spaces being added. After that, steps were put in place to try to fast-track some of those measures.Doocey said new information he'd received showed poor recruitment efforts in the sector."In the last four years, the Government has only added the equivalent of fewer than two fulltime psychiatrists and 13 fulltime psychologists to the workforce."He said despite 234 new mental health nurses, 452 left last year."This is devastating for those trapped on ballooning waitlists and their families."The Government needs a plan for growing the workforce and addressing our urgent mental health challenges."- by Michael Neilson, NZ Herald

It seems like we're seeing a bit of a trend when it comes to the government refusing briefings to MPs.  Government MPs at the Health Select Committee voted down a request from National, Act and the Greens for a briefing by the Mental Health Commission.  A couple of weeks ago the Justice Select Committee voted down an opposition request to question the Police Commissioner on the protest.  At another select committee, MPs weren't allowed to call in transport officials to ask about Transmission Gully and Auckland light rail.  National's mental health spokesperson Matt Doocey joined Andrew Dickens. LISTEN ABOVE 

In this episode Laura speaks to Jeremy Hunt, former Foreign Secretary, Health Secretary and runner up in the last Conservative Party Leadership Election. He currently chairs the Health Select Committee in the House of Commons. They discuss a wide range of issues, including the COVID-19 situation we find ourselves in and what lessons we should takeaway, the debate around face masks, and maternity health, an issue Jeremy was particularly passionate about whilst Secretary of State for Health, and still is. They also discuss the situation in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the drop in the aid budget, as well as the direction the Conservative Party is and should be going. Jeremy shares a number of funny anecdotes. You'll finally know that NHS Chief Simon Stevens gave Jeremy Hunt a bone of a Hadrosaur, and why... This episode is supported by WaterAid who are working to bring clean water, good hygiene and decent sanitation (WASH) to everyone everywhere by 2030. *This conversation was recorded a few weeks ago and therefore the grave and horrific situation in Afghanistan is not mentioned.

National MP Matt Doocey is pushing for the Health Select Committee to open an Inquiry into the 15 new Inpatient Mental Health Facilities and upgrade projects under development. He's is urging his fellow select committee members to vote in favour of his motion at today's meeting. The call follows reports of overflowing facilities, in terrible condition. Even the Health Minister Andrew Little expressed frustration at the time taken to get shovels in the ground. The latest update from the Minister is that out of the $438 million set aside for facilities in Budget 2018 and 2019, only $24.9 million dollars has been spent. Doocey told political reporter Charlie Dreaver that the current state of mental health inpatient facilities is unacceptable.

National MP Matt Doocey is pushing for the Health Select Committee to open an Inquiry into the 15 new Inpatient Mental Health Facilities and upgrade projects under development. He's is urging his fellow select committee members to vote in favour of his motion at today's meeting. The call follows reports of overflowing facilities, in terrible condition. Even the Health Minister Andrew Little expressed frustration at the time taken to get shovels in the ground. The latest update from the Minister is that out of the $438 million set aside for facilities in Budget 2018 and 2019, only $24.9 million dollars has been spent. Doocey told political reporter Charlie Dreaver that the current state of mental health inpatient facilities is unacceptable.

We talk to Paloma Faith about her music, her films, being a mother of two daughters, and harassment towards women and girls. She's got a new single out called Monster which is about her relationship with her career. We hear from two nurses who tell us how the past year and a half has been for them. In the light of a report published earlier this week by the Health Select Committee we discuss burn-out and how health staff are so tired because of the pandemic that many are quitting and morale is at an all time low. Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists and has spent 30 years providing therapy in secure hospitals and prisons. She worked extensively with violent women. Her book, The Devil You Know, co-authored with Eileen Horne, is a collection of 11 stories about men and women who've committed acts of terrible violence. And we have bring you the breaking news that Maya Forstater has won her Appeal against an employment tribunal. Maya Forstater went to a tribunal in 2019 when her employment contract wasn't renewed after she posted tweets about gender recognition. She lost that case, but this morning - having taken it further - she's won the Appeal.

If it hadn't been for the pandemic, the past year would have likely been dominated by a familiar topic - Brexit. The decision to leave, we're told, presents the UK with endless opportunity in a variety of sectors, including healthcare and life sciences. But it hasn't been the easiest year, with supply chains and the Northern Ireland Protocol already under strain. So what are the opportunities to boost Britain's healthcare now that it has left the EU, and where are the pitfalls?Kate Andrews is joined by Antonis Papasolomontos, Director of External Affairs at Abbvie, Sarah Neville, Global Health Editor at the FT, and Jeremy Hunt, Chair of the Health Select Committee.Sponsored by Abbvie.

A review of the Government's drug buyer Pharmac will focus on the timeliness and transparency of its decisions.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced the independent review's terms of reference at Parliament today.The Pharmac review will focus on two areas:how well Pharmac performs against its current objectives and whether this could be improvedwhether Pharmac's current objectives maximise its potential to improve health outcomes for all New Zealanders as part of the wider health system and whether these objectives should be changed.It will also consider factors including:the timeliness of Pharmac's decision makingthe transparency and accessibility of its decision makingequity - including access to medicines and devices for Māori and Pacific peoples.The independent review panel will be chaired by the former Consumer chief executive Sue Chetwin and will include corporate governance consultant Frank McLaughlin, experienced health and governance expert Heather Simpson, pharmacist prescriber Leanne Te Karu, preventative and social medicine professor Sue Crengle and disability advocate Dr Tristram Ingham.The review is intended to run until the end of the year with an interim report in August and a final report in December."I expect that the review committee will decide its own consultation process but that it will include at a minimum the appropriate input from consumers, Māori, Pacific peoples, clinicians and industry," Little said.The budget for the review is expected to be between $1.5 and $2 million.Ardern said the review would help New Zealanders have confidence in the system.Ardern said broadly the Pharmac model worked well but they'd heard concerns about the model and the Government believed there was scope to improve it."Pharmac is a model that's critically important to the health sector and viewed as world leading - but let's make it better if we can."Little said concerns raised about the drug-buying agency included access to new medicines, timeliness of decision making and its priorities."In addition there have been concerns about the safety of substituting medicines due to cost and availability, and access to products that are funded in other countries but not here in New Zealand."Nearly 4 million New Zealanders received medicines procured by the drug agency.The review was committed to by Ardern during an election debate with National leader Judith Collins who also promised to review the agency if elected.Ardern said when asked if Labour would commit to a review, she said: "If it gives people faith in our system, then yes."Newsroom reported this morning the review will investigate how the government drug-buying agency can better respond to specific government health priorities relating to emerging drugs and more.In 2019 the Health Select Committee voted against a politician-led inquiry into the agency. The National Party said it appeared Labour only committed to the independent review when it was "politically palatable".Little confirmed the Government was planning an independent inquiry into Pharmac and that Labour just didn't support it being led by politicians on the Health Select Committee.Little said they wanted it to be independent and considered it "inappropriate" for MPs to do it."It needs to be at arm's length from politicians. It's not right for politicians making political judgments about Pharmac and its decisions."There are high-level policy decisions but it is better that they are reviewed at arm's length and independently," he said last year.He said work is under way to establish terms of reference and an appropriate review body. 

Trigger warning: mentions of teenage suicide. Green Paper (the one with the good bits): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/664855/Transforming_children_and_young_people_s_mental_health_provision.pdf White Paper (watered down, not good enough): https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-the-mental-health-act/reforming-the-mental-health-act Email address for submissions: mhaconsultation2021@dhsc.gov.uk Also forward your response to: Rt. Hon. Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at mb-sofs@dhsc.gov.uk copy in any political contacts you have, and also copy in the following: Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt MP (Chair of the Health Select Committee) huntj@parliament.uk Robert Halfon MP (Chair of the Education Select Committee) halfon4harlow@roberthalfon.com Rt. Hon Gavin Williamson (Secretary of State for Education) sec-of-state.ps@education.gov.uk Vicky Ford MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families) ford.ps@education.gov.uk Children's Commissioner for England https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/about-us/contact/Nadine Dorries MP (Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) psmsp@dhsc.gov.uk Mental health training for school staff: https://www.place2be.org.uk/our-services/services-for-schools/mental-health-champions-foundation-programme/

The NHS is facing an impending staffing crisis owing to a shortage of doctors.This situation would be problematic enough under normal circumstances, but when considering the gargantuan backlog of patients awaiting treatment, plus the heightened demand caused by the pandemic, it could be disastrous.Mark Tovey, the recent author of an IEA report on the issue, thinks that the NHS may well be “sleepwalking into a perfect storm” and offers three simple solutions to this looming crisis. Will this be enough, or is more system-wide reform needed? Originally recorded as a Zoom Webinar Emma Revell, IEA Head of Public Affairs, is joined by Mark Tovey, author of “Is there a doctor in the house?”, Paul Bristow MP, Conservative MP for Peterborough and member of the Health Select Committee, and Dr Kristian Niemietz, IEA Head of Political Economy and author of “Universal Healthcare Without the NHS” to discuss the topic.

The National Party wants Parliament's Health Select Committee to be reconvened saying Dr Ashley Bloomfield has questions to answer. Dr Shane Reti - the party's health spokesperson - has written to the Chair of the Committee Louisa Wall making the case to recall the committee as parliament has not been dissolved. He argues the second wave of Covid-19 is a serious event that requires a measured and well-thought-out response. Dr Reti speaks to Corin Dann.

Joining Iain Dale in the studio, as part of LBC's election coverage, is the Liberal Democrat Candidate, former Conservative who formerly Chaired the Health Select Committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston.

The Government is investing almost $30 million into maternity services.Minister of Health David Clark has made the announcement at a Health Select Committee meeting .The $29.7 million package is part of Budget 2019 and its wider four billion dollar health package.Clark says it will continue the investment into community midwives.It comes as amid growing criticism aimed at the government over the closure of the Lumsden maternity centre, which has led to numerous reports of women having to give birth in less than ideal circumstances.Earlier today, the New Zealand Herald reported that 90 per cent of maternity wards in New Zealand hospitals have no senior doctors or consultants on site at night.A midwife and a Lumsden local whose wife had two difficult births shared their takes on these latest developments with Andrew Dickens.  

This event marked the launch of the fifth annual Whitehall Monitor, our flagship publication which analyses the size, shape and performance of government and the civil service. Addressing how government can get things done in the year ahead, Whitehall Monitor 2018 examines: -how political decisions affect the day-to-day running of government; -how the civil service is changing the Government’s record on transparency. Gavin Freeguard, report author and Head of Data and Transparency at the Institute for Government, presented the key findings. This was followed by a response from Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Chair of the Health Select Committee. The event was chaired by Bronwen Maddox, Director of the Institute for Government. #IFGWhitehallMonitor

A special debate on the current state of the NHS. Recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre London. The last few months have seen the service creaking under unprecedented demand, and there is likely to be worse to come. Something needs to give. Is it simply a matter of more resources, or do we also need to change our expectations of what the NHS provides? Is rationalisation and rationing the way forward? Dr Mark Porter discusses the issues with a panel including Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, David Haslam, chair of NICE, Prof Sir Nick Black, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and regular contributor Margaret McCartney GP. Issues discussed include whether the NHS should continue to be free at the point of use. Is there too much bureaucracy with too many bosses? Was the internal market evidence based, has it worked and was it fair? Rationing of treatments. And can the NHS be taken out of politics? Inside Health listeners set the agenda by emailing the programme - some of whom joined the audience - so thank you for all your input. Margaret McCartney writes: The NHS is never far from the headlines, but the last few months have depicted a service in crisis. It's been made clear that there will be no more money from central government - so what needs to give? Clare Marx, explained the angst of her members who wanted to operate on people but had been forbidden to. Nick Black, discussed the types of surgery that were now being placed off limits - like hip replacement surgery - even though they were very cost effective. Because of the way hospitals are funded, it is these useful operations that are being stopped rather than the much less cost effective prescription of some very expensive cancer drugs. Chris Hopson described tensions between the expectations being placed on the NHS to provide excellent care despite the funding gap to actually provide it. And David Haslam, chief executive of NICE, expressed his disquiet that patients could no longer expect a consistent service across the NHS. Instead, different Clinical Commissioning Groups decided themselves how many rounds of IVF to fund, for example. The result was a patchwork of provision, and was inherently unfair. Is rationing therefore the way forward? Some listeners had emailed in suggesting that the NHS shouldn't fund treatments for 'smokers, drinkers and the obese'. Others that people should pay for hospital meals, or there should be a charge made for GP consultations. We already have charges for some things - for example, prescriptions in England, or dental check ups for many people - but as Clare Marx pointed out, removal of teeth is the commonest childhood operation, so can we really say this policy has been successful? I don't believe that we have the evidence to show this is safe: the bureaucracy would be sizeable - I had to sign 12 bits of paper for a routine check when my kids and I last went to the dentist - and then there are unintended consequences. Paying for appointments turns us in to consumers - would doctors feel obliged to give us treatments that people want, even when they don't work well, aren't cost effective or do net harm? Listeners wanted to know if the NHS was over managed - and had strong opinions on how much could be saved if we got rid of middle managers in particular. But Chris Hopson pointed out that we spend less than the very efficient Germany on hospital managers, and Clare Marx said that hospitals are highly complex places needing a huge amount of organisation to run smoothly. For me it is a question of what managers are doing - is it of value to patients, or is it a waste of time? Nick Black argued that there was a great deal of waste still in the NHS - and suggested that the internal NHS market may have had some advantages to start off with, but now, the 4.5 billion a year estimated to be spent on it could be better used elsewhere. There is no doubt that the process of bidding and judging for commissioning costs time and money, but how to stop the problem of bad and wasteful policy in the first place? Could politics be taken out of the NHS? I was on my own, arguing that party politics had done avoidable harm to the NHS and that cross party working - as we see in the Health Select Committee and the National Audit Office - was possible. My fellow panellists argued that since the budget of the NHS was such a large amount of money it would be impossible to disentangle it from politics: but Chris Hopson pointed out that defence spending, for example, was ring fenced. The audience overwhelmingly voted to be taxed more to pay for the NHS. If we were sure that extra money would go on human level care, and not wasteful, non evidence based policy making, I would support it completely. But we are not, as a population, being given that option.

John McGowan, Anne Cooke, Angela Gilchrist and Rachel Terry discuss recent developments in suicide prevention policy and Theresa May’s major speech on mental health. In this edition we focus on the Prime Minister’s speech making mental health policy and improved suicide prevention priorities for the UK Government. We discuss a recent House of Commons Health Select Committee report on suicide prevention policy and the Department of Health’s updating of their Suicide Prevention Strategy (referenced in Theresa May’s speech). John also interviews Ian Marsh from our own University. Ian has written extensively about the way we treat suicide and the policy implications that result. The best way follow the podcast is to subscribe to our feed. You can do this by looking up Discussions in Tunbridge Wells in iTunes, SoundCloud or wherever else you get your podcasts from. Or you can paste the following link into your podcatcher of choice http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:56544633/sounds.rss We’ve put the podcasts and links to what we've discussed on our main site blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/discursive/. As well as that you can follow us on Twitter @CCCUApppsy and on Facebook if you search for Canterbury Christ Church University Applied Psychology. You can follow Angela on Twitter @cyberwhispers, Anne @AnneCooke14 and Rachel @rterrypsy. Ian Marsh is also on Twitter @ianwmarsh Links to things we talked about on this show: The text of the Prime Minister’s speech to the Charity Commission on the 9th of January 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-shared-society-prime-ministers-speech-at-the-charity-commission-annual-meeting The updating of the Department of Health’s Suicide Prevention Strategy. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-prevention-third-annual-report The original DOH Suicide Prevention Strategy from 2012. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-prevention-strategy-for-england Also the recent Health Select Committee report.  https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/suicide-prevention-inquiry/ Anne and Ian’s blog post looking at the Health Select Committee report. https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/discursive/the-politics-of-suicide/# Two research projects by recent graduates from our training scheme. Both look at health staff working with the risk of suicide: Nalletamby, Lucie (2015) The discursive construction of 'suicide' and the effects for clinical practice. D.Clin.Psych. thesis, Canterbury Christ Church University. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/13820/ Crowley, Sarah (2015) Recognising and responding to suicide risk in a community mental health setting. D.Clin.Psych. thesis, Canterbury Christ Church University. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/13930/ A recent paper from the British Journal of Psychiatry considering the degree to which suicides can be predicted.  http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/pbrcpsych/early/2016/12/16/pb.bp.116.054940.full.pdf If you are feeling suicidal you can contact The Samaritans here. We’d welcome your suggestions of further reading in the comments below. Producer: John McGowan Music: http://www.bensound.com/

The UK Parliament's Health Select Committee's recent report on childhood obesity says 1 in 5 children are obese by the time they leave school. The committee calls for legislation to turn the tide by taxing sugary drinks, a pre-watershed ban on junk food advertising, and investment in public health. We joined Sarah Wollaston, conservative MP for Totnes, and chair of the committee for lunch (thai chicken soup) to discuss their recommendations.

Philippa Tolley investigates Health Select Committee recommendations to improve immunisation rates.