Author Archives: Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes… Give carers a break, not a breakdown

By Paul Burstow | Thu 1st December 2011 - 4:52 pm

Whenever I meet a carer I am humbled by their dedication and touched by the love they show in the face of daily adversity. To be a carer you have to be a pretty special person. It is also likely that you feel your tireless efforts to care for a family member or friend generally go unnoticed.

But the Liberal Democrats want to make sure this silent army of carers is recognised. Every year unpaid carers save our national services an estimated £119 billion a year, which is why we included a manifesto pledge to provide guaranteed respite care for …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: The hidden potential of early diagnosis

By Paul Burstow | Wed 23rd November 2011 - 11:53 am

To be told that you or a loved one has cancer is likely to be one of the most gut-wrenching moments of anyone’s life. To be further informed that the chances of survival are low is devastating. But if more people knew they could live a fuller life for longer, we could ease the impact of that devastating time.

Last week I commissioned health officials to conduct a scoping exercise into early diagnosis across the health service. The plan is that research will help us to understand what, if any, evidence exists as to the extent of delayed diagnosis and its …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Getting better at waiting

By Paul Burstow | Mon 7th November 2011 - 12:53 pm

Most of us know what it feels like to sit in a hospital waiting room, and it is not often a pleasant experience. The time spent waiting can be worrying, stressful and uncomfortable. Indeed, waiting for any kind of treatment is never going to be easy – which is why the Liberal Democrats are committed to keeping waiting times low. We aim to do this while engaging in the difficult task, set in motion by the last Labour Government, to find £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015.

Last year I said that people needed to be seen and diagnosed …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Let’s end this silent scandal

By Paul Burstow | Wed 2nd November 2011 - 12:53 pm

1,800 people with dementia are dying every year having been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs, and I am determined to end this silent scandal.

For more than a decade I have been campaigning to reduce the number of people whose lives are cut short thanks to the routine long-term prescribing of drugs by GPs. These drugs have sedative effects which makes it easier to ‘manage’ dementia patients. But they are effectively a chemical cosh which have side effects and can have devastating consequences.

Last year, as minister for care services, I set an ambitious target to reduce the number of patients routinely given anti-psychotic …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Mental health – changing attitudes, tackling stigma

By Paul Burstow | Wed 19th October 2011 - 3:52 pm

Paul Burstow visits Duke McKenzie's

At our party conference in Birmingham, I was asked the question; “what issues can we campaign on at the next general election?” Given that this was during the health Bill Q&A session, I imagine most people in the audience expected me to focus on NHS reform. Instead I talked about mental health, and in particular our party’s long standing campaign for parity of esteem between mental and physical health. There are many obstacles to overcome but we are making progress …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Lifting of lifetime gay blood donation ban – progress, but not the final word

By Paul Burstow | Fri 9th September 2011 - 2:16 pm

The lifetime ban on men who have had sex with men (MSM) is an issue that our party has always felt uncomfortable with. Superficially it looks little more than a discriminatory throwback to the 1980s stereotypes associated with gay men and increased risk of sexual disease.

Yesterday the Government took a significant step in changing their position by announcing the lifting of the lifetime ban on MSM from giving blood. So let me give you the detail about how that decision was reached, and what it means for men wanting to donate blood.

The previous Government had also questioned the …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Keeping competition in its box

By Paul Burstow | Thu 14th July 2011 - 9:06 am

Mention the words “competition” and “the NHS”, and you will often get the same two responses. A misapprehension which confuses competition with privatisation. But also an instinctive desire to reject new providers in order to protect the NHS. We understand this reaction, and we understand why people are cautious about competition.

The creation of the NHS is a cherished part of the liberal story. It was a liberal, working in a Coalition, who first imagined the NHS and its values of healthcare available to all, free at point of delivery, based on clinical need, not ability to pay. That’s why Nick Clegg has consistently made it crystal clear that we will never privatise the NHS. And why you will never have to pay for your NHS care under our watch.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Social care’s little secret – it’s never been free

By Paul Burstow | Sat 2nd July 2011 - 2:43 pm

None of us know if we will need care in the future, or how much it might cost. But we do know that 1 in 4 of us will face care costs of more than £50,000. What’s more, 1 in 10 will be unlucky enough to face care costs of more than £100,000 in our older age. This is social care’s nasty little secret.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow MP writes: Continuing to support Cancer Networks

By Paul Burstow | Tue 31st May 2011 - 3:06 pm

Governments often pursue brave, bold new policies. But genuinely brave Government isn’t always about acting; it’s about listening, understanding and acting. And it’s also about admitting when you haven’t got it right. You’d have to have been living on another planet not to know that we have “paused” the Health and Social Care Bill. Our Sheffield conference made it perfectly clear that Liberal Democrats will not sign up to proposals without changes. We understand that this has to be much more than superficial tinkering. The message has been received loud and clear: only substantial changes will do. And that’s exactly what we intend to do. But there has also been another example of how this Government is prepared to listen and to act.

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes… Labour shouldn’t play party politics with the NHS

By Paul Burstow | Wed 16th March 2011 - 9:50 pm

On Saturday I gave a guarantee to every party member that I, along with other Liberal Democrat members of the Government would listen to every word that you had to say. I completely stand by that. If there are ways in which we can amend the Health and Social Care Bill then we will work to do it. But what we won’t do is to allow our Spring Conference to be hijacked and used as a political tool by Labour. And that’s exactly what they tried to do today.

Today was one of Labour’s designated days in Parliament when they are …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes: I will be listening to members on NHS at #ldconf

By Paul Burstow | Thu 10th March 2011 - 2:00 pm

This is the first spring conference since we entered Government. In all the years I’ve been a Liberal Democrat I’ve never known of such a potentially explosive spring conference. Or at least that’s what the media would have you believe. Debating policy is part of our DNA. And it shouldn’t change now that we’re in Government. This spring conference we’ll be debating the coalition’s proposals to update the NHS. And unlike in the media, it won’t be a case of who shouts loudest wins.

I understand why people are so concerned. Every time I meet party members …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes… A few facts about the NHS

By Paul Burstow | Thu 20th January 2011 - 10:25 am

The greatest enemy of truth is not the lie but the myth. This could have been written with our health proposals in mind. Let me start with the myth that our plans are ‘revolutionary’. The ‘revolutionary’ label embodies neatly what many people wrongly envisage to be untried and untested changes to the NHS. Swamped by all the myth, misunderstanding and mistruths, the facts have struggled to get heard. So let me give you a few of the facts.

Under the previous Labour Government healthcare spending increased significantly. But where Britain spent big, other countries spent better. That is why Britain has …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes… Healthy lives, healthy people

By Paul Burstow | Tue 30th November 2010 - 6:14 pm

Britain is now the most obese nation in Europe. We have among the worst rates of sexually transmitted infections on record. Rising levels of harm from alcohol, and over 80,000 lives lost every year because of smoking. These are the public health challenges the Coalition Government faces.

And what of Labour’s public health legacy? Under Labour inequalities in health and life expectancy between rich and poor got worse. As a result people in the poorest areas can expect to live up to 7 years less than people in richer areas.

Under Labour huge amounts of money was spent on public …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes… Our vision for social care

By Paul Burstow | Tue 16th November 2010 - 4:28 pm

Earlier today the government announced its social care plans. Paul Burstow explains the thinking behind them and what they will achieve:

Social care is essential for most people at some time in their life. It embraces the most intimate care for people, often at times of great distress. At its core, social care is about helping people to live their lives. It should enable people, and their carers, to live the independent life most of us take for granted. But this isn’t happening. Instead of a system that protects and enables the most vulnerable, we have an unsustainable and iniquitous …

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Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow writes… We are taking radical action to deliver better health and care

By Paul Burstow | Tue 9th November 2010 - 11:05 am

Much has been made of the tough choices Liberal Democrats have had to make since we entered government. But not enough has been made of the victories we’ve gained. Unlike the last Labour administration, this coalition is delivering on its promises to reform health and social care for the better.

Let’s start with social care. The funding of care and support is one of the most urgent of all social policy issues we face as a society. Make no mistake; the way we organise and pay for care for older and disabled people is a broken. That’s why we’re taking action …

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