John Hemming's Web Log

Gas Industry To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he has taken besides his efforts to liberalise the European gas market to ensure security of supply within the UK gas market.(John Hemming) A: holding answer 21 November 2006 The recent review of the UK's energy policy confirmed the Government's view that security of supply is best ensured by a competitive and liberalised market-based system. Coupled with a light touch regulatory framework, this facilitates the short-term balancing of supply and demand, and provides the price signals and incentives to encourage investment for the longer term in diverse supplies. Two outcomes from the Energy Review address security of gas supply: DTI is working to streamline consent regimes for gas supply infrastructure projects, and is also consulting on possible ways to further improve the effectiveness of the current UK gas security of supply arrangements. (Malcolm Wicks, Minister for energy, Department of Trade and ...

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the estimated income to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency from fees for providing replacement registration certificates (V5C) was in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07. (John Hemming) A: The income, which is derived from fees for providing replacement registration certificates (V5C) for 2005-06 was £14.7 million and the forecasted income for 2006-07 is £13.5 million. (Stephen Ladyman, Minister of State, Department for Transport)

What has happened recently is that there have been two judgements in Clayton v Clayton and in NCC v Webster that have both reinterpreted and clarified the situation in terms of proceedings in the Family Courts. I would emphasise that I am not legally qualified and if people wish to check out specific details then they should check them with people who are legally qualified. Firstly, however, any proceedings held in private before a judge remain confidential. That includes any of the papers and reports that are part of those proceedings and prepared for those proceedings. This includes the judgement whether it is anonymised or not. Secondly, whilst proceedings continue noone can publish the identity of a child or material intended or likely to identify a child in such proceedings. Thirdly, however, when the proceedings have come to an end there is no statutory protection of the identity of the child. It is, therefore, at that point open to people to publish details. Quoting from Mum...

I always thought Birmingham needed a big river. The rivers Rea and Cole are relatively small although I have seen a nice old picture of the River Cole today. We have, however, had our own tailored version of Baywatch uploaded on Youtube.

I have been reading an interesting report by National Statistics into the Mental Health of young people looked after by local authorities in England. It points out for example that for 5-10 years olds 42% of the children (looked after by local authorities) are thought to have a "mental disorder" as opposed to 8% of "private household children". There is a question as to why. Clearly there are two potential sources of cause. One is the experiences of the child before becoming formally "looked after". The other the the effect of being "taken into care". The only way of checking out this situation and finding out what are the key drivers is to have controls. The only available controls are other countries. It is clear that a substantial number of children are taken into care who should not be. What is not clear is what proportion of those taken into care fall into that category. Another useful piece of information is that which looks at the pre...

Afghanistan is, from an anthropological perspective, a segmented society. The primary patterns of political loyalty are to families, clans and ethnic groups. Fundamentalist secularists tend to see religion as a cause of problems. It is in fact human nature that is a cause of problems religion tends to temper the worst aspects of human nature. It is important to remember that religion tends to follow a segmented identity. When the UK was primarily segmented a thousand years ago Christianity followed the conversion of clan chieftans. The division between Sunni and Shi'a Islam started out as a political division and became from that an ideological division. To understand what is happening in societies it helps to deemphasise religion and look at the tribal loyalties. The word Afghanistan is pronounced as if all the first three consonants are swallowed up and elided together. The languages spoken are those which tend to ignore the constancy of vowels and focus on the consonants. H...

It should not be really "news", because the Birmingham MPs should work together in the interests of the city. However, this is working quite well as far as New Street Station is concerned. 5 MPs (3 Labour, 1 Tory and 1 Lib Dem) took part in an event to highlight the petition cards. Then Gisela Stuart and I took the petition (along with various other people inc Steve Dyson, Carl Chinn and Paul Tilsley) to the Department for Transport.

Youtube being as it is the 12 or so minutes of the speech is divided into two parts. (note that it starts with the end of someone else's speech) First part being Second part being

NHS Trusts Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what the maximum amount each NHS trust may spend on marketing their services to general practitioners under patient choice and payment by results is; and what definition of marketing she uses; (2) what the maximum amount each NHS trust may spend on marketing their services to patients and members of the public under patient choice and payment by results is; (3) how much each NHS trust has budgeted for marketing their services to (a) patients and (b) general practitioners under patient choice and payment by results. (John Hemming) A: Information on NHS trust budgets for marketing is not held centrally. In the "Operating Framework for 2006-07" the Department set out its expectation that providers would not want to spend excessively, on advertising and marketing and its preference for a self-regulatory approach. The Department will launch a "Code of Practice for Advertising and Promotion of National Health Services...

Prime Ministers Question time starts up again today. I wonder sometimes if PMQ's style of questioning drives and/or responds to the style of politics in the UK. It is more about entertainment than good government. There are important issues which need proper consideration. That will not generally happen through PMQ, however. For example the Quality and Outcomes Framework in the NHS is costing a lot of money. Is it value for money? Given the contract with GPs is it possible to reduce the costs? I am told of one single handed GP with a gross income of £450,000 as a result of QoF with a patient list of 6,500. That probably gives him a profit after staffing costs of about £300,000. The question is whether the improvement in health of his patients is worth the increased costs. I am not sure that it is.

The national survey of patients into patient choice of hospital has been released. Unsurprisingly 57% of people (79,000) think that the location is an important issue. 22% were concerned about the waiting times, 18% about the hospital's "reputation", 17% about the quality of care, 15% about cleanliness, 8% about quality of staff and 6% about car parking. The reputation of the consultation for a specialism was less important than car parking. There were a number of other minor issues as well. In Eastern Birmingham 26% of patients remembered being offered a choice. This figure was 18% for Heart of Birmingham, 37% for North Birmingham and 19% for South Birmingham. Everyone was supposed to have been offered a choice from Jan 2006.

This conference included an interesting abstract: CARDIORESPIRATORY RECORDINGS DURING SUDDEN INFANT DEATH (SID) The pathomechanisms leading to SID are still unknown. One way to gain more insights into these is an analysis of memory monitor downloads. There are now a number of recordings from cardiorespiratory monitors which were obtained during SID. In an analysis of 9 recordings of chest wall impedance and heart rate obtained during SID, gasping was the predominant pattern, being already present at the time of the monitor alarm in 3 infants and occurring within 3 min. after it in a further 4. One infant only began to gasp 13 min. after the first monitor alarm. The duration of gasping ranged from 3 s to 11 min. Primary trigger for the monitor alarm had been bradycardia in all but two infants, but there was no indication of heart block or ventricular tachycardia. Prolonged apnea (>20 s) began only up to 13.7 min. (median 2.7) after this alarm in 5 infants and 7 to 20 s before it in 3...

There has been some debate about Medical Ethics. Since Nuremberg there has been the Nuremberg Code . In essence in non-therapeutic research doctors are not allowed to Harm human beings to find out what happens. It is more permissible when the research is supposed to benefit the patients. The Bolam Test (see link) is a test for medical negligence. If a doctor harms a patient when trying to cure the patient then this is OK as long as it is something seen as a reasonable thing by other reasonable doctors. So, in other words, a doctor can avoid a charge of medical negligence by finding another independent doctor who says that it was OK. This, however, is not the same for harming patients as part of research where the actions taken were never anything like to benefit the patients. The goes to the nub of the arguments about the research managed by Dr David Southall (it turns out he is no longer a professor). The evidence is from published work as well as secret reports such as the Hull repo...

I managed to get into the Queens Speech debate about Public Family law and Medical Ethics yesterday. See link for Hansard.

The complex debate relating to family court secrecy and medical ethics has now kicked off in the British Medical Journal (see link). (see the rapid responses) I spoke on these issues during the Queens Speech debate today. I will post a link to this tomorrow.

Dental Budgets Q: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the gross dental budget is in each primary care trust in 2006-07; how much has been budgeted for in charges in each trust; what the expected outturn against budget is; and if she will make a statement. (John Hemming) A: A table listing the primary dental service resource allocations for 2006-07 for all primary care trusts (PCTs) in England as at 31 July 2006 is available in the Library. This sets out gross budgets for each PCT, the level of patient charge income that it was reasonable to expect for the level of gross expenditure for each PCT, and the net allocations awarded to PCTs. The actual level of charge income will depend on a range of variables including the service levels, ie the annual units of dental activity, agreed for each local contract with dentists and the relative proportions of chargeable and non-chargeable treatments carried out during the year. The in-year management and monitoring of those allocations ...

Some day the government will start concentrating on enforcing the laws that exist rather than creating new ones.

There are 5 families in front of the GMC. I know who all 5 families are, but am not going to identify family M because Mrs M is in Australia and I have not been able to contact her. The other families are A - Janet and Lawrence Alexander - see Lawrence's Web page see Lawrence's Web page B - Sharon and Hannah Bozier D - Janet Davies H - Davina and Ben McLean

The idea that Tony Blair will be cross examined by the US Iraq Study group, but not an equivalent Inquiry in the UK is not good for the UK.

Being in London for the meeting tonight having come down early because of meeting Ofgem I attended the GMC FPC hearing earlier today. There are a number of odd things about this particular GMC process. The first is that they seem to concentrate on relatively minor issues rather than the major issue of doing harm to patients (particularly babies) through dangerous research. Secondly, they are appear to be trying to gag the patients and their parents. There is no reason for the parents to be anonymous. Lawrence Alexander (one of the patients) is now 20 he has done loads of interviews with the media and published his story on the web. The theory of anonymity is to protect the children. The reality is that it only protects the professionals who make errors (intentionally or otherwise). I had referred the research to the GMC to ensure that it has been formally referred. I have now referred the absence of action to the Council for Regulatory Healthcare Excellence which is the watchdog...