The impact of poor housing will be explored in the inquiry into how to prevent ill-health. In tomorrow’s second session focusing on ‘healthy places’, MPs will question experts on the relationship between housing and health with questions expected to cover the costs of poor housing to the NHS, the quality of rental properties, indoor ventilation and noise pollution.
The inquiry is seeking evidence on how housing can be designed to improve people’s health.
The session is also likely to consider the extent to which UK Government plans to create more homes through housebuilding or the transformation of non-residential buildings will help to deliver healthy homes.
The role of ‘healthy places’ is the second theme to be explored by the Health and Social Care Committee in its major inquiry into how to prevent ill-health.
The Government must speed up the introduction of a promised licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures to prevent vulnerable people being exploited.
The Impact of body image on mental and physical health report identifies a rise in body image dissatisfaction as the driver behind a new market that to date has remained largely unregulated. The dangers posed by non-surgical cosmetic procedures in vulnerable groups were evident throughout the inquiry, say MPs.
The Government has new powers to introduce a licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures however a consultation on what that regime should look like is still awaited.
Legislation should require online commercial content to carry a logo to identify body images that have been digitally altered while the Government is urged to work with the industry and the ASA to discourage advertisers and influencers from doctoring their images.
The wide-ranging report also calls for a Government review of the growing use of anabolic steroids for cosmetic purposes and proposes a safety campaign for those at risk. Long-term use has been linked with cardiovascular disease and brain changes.
On obesity, MPs were disappointed by a Government decision to delay restrictions on buy-one-get-one-free deals and urge immediate action. The report also calls for further research on tackling obesity while eliminating weight stigma and discrimination.
Health and Social Care Committee Chair Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt said: “The government must act urgently to end the situation where anyone can carry out non-surgical cosmetic procedures, regardless of training or qualifications.
“We heard of some distressing experiences – a conveyor belt approach with procedures carried out with no questions asked, procedures that have gone wrong, the use of filthy premises.
“It was clear throughout our inquiry that some groups are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in this growing market that has gone largely unregulated. We need a timetable now for a licensing regime with patient safety at its centre to reduce those risks.
“We hope that ministers will listen to our recommendations and set about creating the safety standards that anyone seeking treatment has a right to expect.”
‘We now face the greatest workforce crisis in history in the NHS and in social care’
The NHS and social care face the greatest workforce crisis in their history, compounded by the absence of a credible government strategy to tackle the situation, say MPs in a new Health and Social Care Committee report.
In the NHS, persistent understaffing poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety in routine and emergency care.
The Workforce: recruitment, training and retention report outlines the scale of the workforce crisis: new research suggests the NHS in England is short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives; evidence on workforce projections say an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health and an extra 490,000 jobs in social care by the early part of the next decade; hospital waiting lists reached a record high of nearly 6.5 million in April.
The report finds the Government to have shown a marked reluctance to act decisively. The refusal to do proper workforce planning risked plans to tackle the Covid backlog – a key target for the NHS.
The number of full-time equivalent GPs fell by more than 700 over three years to March 2022, despite a pledge to deliver 6,000 more. Appearing before the inquiry, the then Secretary of State Sajid Javid admitted he was not on track to deliver them. The report describes a situation where NHS pension arrangements force senior doctors to reduce working hours as a “national scandal” and calls for swift action to remedy.
Maternity services are flagged as being under serious pressure with more than 500 midwives leaving in a single year. A year ago the Committee’s maternity safety inquiry concluded almost 2,000 more midwives were needed and almost 500 more obstetricians. The Secretary of State failed to give a deadline by when a shortfall in midwife numbers would be addressed.
Pay is a crucial factor in recruitment and retention in social care. Government analysis estimated more than 17,000 jobs in care paid below the minimum wage.
A separate report by the Committee’s panel of independent experts (Expert Panel) published today rates the government’s progress overall to meet key commitments it has made on workforce as “inadequate”.
Health and Social Care Committee Chair Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt said: “Persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety, a situation compounded by the absence of a long term plan by the government to tackle it.
“We now face the greatest workforce crisis in history in the NHS and in social care with still no idea of the number of additional doctors, nurses and other professionals we actually need. NHS professionals know there is no silver bullet to solve this problem but we should at least be giving them comfort that a plan is in place.
“This must be a top priority for the new Prime Minister.”
MPs publish Coronavirus: Lessons Learned To Date report
Covid vaccine programme “one of most effective initiatives in UK history” but delay to first lockdown a “serious error” that should have been challenged
The House of Commons and Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee have published their Report, Coronavirus: lessons learned to date, examining the initial UK response to the covid pandemic.
The 150-page Report contains 38 recommendations to the Government and public bodies, and draws on evidence from over 50 witnesses—including Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Professor Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick Vallance, Sir Simon Stevens, Dame Kate Bingham, Baroness Harding of Winscombe and Dominic Cummings—as well as over 400 written submissions.
The Report was agreed unanimously by members of both Select Committees, which consist of 22 MPs from three political parties—Conservative, Labour and SNP.
The joint inquiry, which began in October 2020, examined six key areas of the response to covid-19: the country’s preparedness for a pandemic; the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as border controls, social distancing and lockdowns to control the pandemic; the use of test, trace and isolate strategies; the impact of the pandemic on social care; the impact of the pandemic on specific communities; and the procurement and roll-out of covid-19 vaccines.
The inquiry concluded that some initiatives were examples of global best practice but others represented mistakes. Both must be reflected on to ensure that lessons are applied to better inform future responses to emergencies.
In particular:
The forward-planning, agility and decisive organisation of the vaccine development and deployment effort will save millions of lives globally and should be a guide to future Government practice;
The delays in establishing an adequate test, trace and isolate system hampered efforts to understand and contain the outbreak and it failed in its stated purpose to avoid lockdowns;
The initial decision to delay a comprehensive lockdown—despite practice elsewhere in the world—reflected a fatalism about the spread of covid that should have been robustly challenged at the time;
Social care was not given sufficient priority in the early stages of the pandemic;
The experience of the covid pandemic underlines the need for an urgent and long term strategy to tackle health inequalities; and
The UK’s preparedness for a pandemic had been widely acclaimed in advance, but performed less well than many other countries in practice.
The 38 recommendations made, if implemented by the Government and by public bodies such as the NHS, would ensure that during the remaining period of the pandemic and in any new emergency, the UK could perform better by having distilled lessons—positive and negative—from the UK’s initial response to covid.
In a joint statement on the publication of the Coronavirus: lessons learned to date Report, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, and Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said: “The UK response has combined some big achievements with some big mistakes. It is vital to learn from both to ensure that we perform as best as we possibly can during the remainder of the pandemic and in the future.
“Our vaccine programme was boldly planned and effectively executed. Our test and trace programme took too long to become effective. The Government took seriously scientific advice but there should have been more challenge from all to the early UK consensus that delayed a more comprehensive lockdown when countries like South Korea showed a different approach was possible.
“In responding to an emergency, when much is unknown, it is impossible to get everything right. We record our gratitude to all those—NHS and care workers, scientists, officials in national and local government, workers in our public services and in private businesses and millions of volunteers—who responded to the challenge with dedication, compassion and hard work to help the whole nation at one of our darkest times.”
The Report includes an Executive Summary with conclusions, recommendations and lessons learned at the end of each Chapter.
