Zubir Ahmed MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Mar 2026 · Disability Equipment Provision · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. He always channels personal experience in such a productive way and he is a credit to this House in the way he conducts himself. I remember his maiden speech with great fondness in that regard. I do agree, and I will come later in my speech to how we can maintain quality more persistently across the whole system. Access to temporary wheelchair provision to support hospital discharge is also determined locally by ICBs. We recognise that elements of the NHS—despite it being on the road to recovery—are functioning below par and that many people are waiting too long to access equipment such as wheelchairs. During the pandemic, some wheelchair services experienced lower referral rates, which led to a surge in referrals post pandemic. Because of that, providers not only reduced their services but now, of course, face a backlog of referrals. That has meant unacceptable waiting times for both adults and—sadly—children, and those have fluctuated as services work to recover. However, action is being taken to address waiting times in England. In October 2025, we published the NHS medium-term planning framework, requiring all ICBs and community health services to actively manage and reduce waits above 18 weeks and to develop a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits. The community health services situation report will be used to monitor ICB performance against waiting-time targets in 2026-27, and it currently monitors waiting times for children, young people and adults under “Wheelchair, orthotics, prosthetics and equipment”. These targets will guide the system to reduce the longest waits first.

• 20 Jan 2026 · ADHD Diagnosis · Hansard source

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  At present, the hon. Gentleman will have to ask my colleague the mental health Minister about the specifics, but my understanding is that the prevalence review will be a wider piece of work that will be partly informed by the ADHD taskforce report. It would be better to respond to them as a combination rather than as individual reports. The House will know that on 4 December 2025 the Secretary of State announced the launch of the independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism. It will bring together the most respected researchers, clinicians and voluntary organisations in the country, alongside, crucially, people with lived experience, who will be directly engaged to scrutinise the evidence and support the development of recommendations. Part of that will be about how we address and label reporting, and I would expect that we come up with a better definition and a better way of reporting than we have at the moment. The Government’s 10-year plan sets out the core principle of early intervention and support, and will make the NHS fit for the future. Through the NHS medium-term planning framework, published in October 2025, NHS England has set an expectation that local ICBs and trusts improve access, experience and outcomes for ADHD services over the next three years. I heard the call from hon. Members for much more integration between community mental health services, GPs and other healthcare bodies. It is our expectation that through the NHS reform Bill and the disbanding of NHS England, as well the production of independent health authorities and strategic commissioning, the health service will be better able to serve the needs of children requiring assessment for mental health conditions and ADHD. We will end up having a helicopter view, which is currently not possible.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Hughes Report · Hansard source

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  We are carefully considering the work undertaken by the Patient Safety Commissioner, which sets out various potential options for redress. I am both a clinician and a Minister who has recently taken on this area, and my hon. Friend will know that this is highly complex work, but it is a complexity that I am willing to step into. It requires input and planning across Government, which takes time. I am certainly committed to taking this issue seriously, and I will return to update my hon. Friend and the House in due course.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Clive Treacey Safety Checklist · Hansard source

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  It is a very positive development that a number of integrated health boards in the midlands, the north-west, the north-east and Yorkshire have carried out detailed appraisals to identify any weaknesses in their services. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield raises an important point about how we can go further, including how annual health checks can significantly reduce the chance of premature death in people with a learning disability who have epilepsy. NHS England has developed a quality framework to set expectations for annual health checks for people with a learning disability and accompanying health action plans, which are vital to identifying needs early, providing the right support and mitigating the risk of sudden death. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on epilepsies in children, young people and adults recommends that people with a learning disability should have monitoring reviews at least annually. The NICE guidance on epilepsies also includes a number of recommendations on how information should be tailored and adapted for patients with epilepsy who have a learning disability. It sets out that patients with a learning disability should have access to specialist care and should receive co-ordinated care using a multidisciplinary approach. For young people with a learning disability who are transitioning to adult epilepsy services, transition planning should begin early. This Government expect commissioners and service providers to take NICE guidelines fully into account when making decisions about how to best meet the needs of their local communities. We are rolling out mandatory training on learning disability and autism to health and adult social care staff. Support for people with a learning disability is also a key area of focus for the NHS RightCare epilepsy toolkit. The toolkit includes a number of actions that systems should take to support people with epilepsy who have a learning disability, such as ensuring that specialist epilepsy services are upskilled and make reasonable adjustments to support the needs of people with a learning disability, including working in partnership with staff trained in how to manage learning disability. The toolkit also sets out that services should ensure that community specialist nurses in learning disabilities have the right training in the management of epilepsy. I recognise the important work of organisations such as Epilepsy Action and SUDEP Action. Epilepsy Action has produced the “Step Together” toolkit, which describes what good-quality integrated services for people with a learning disability and epilepsy should look like. SUDEP Action has developed an epilepsy self-monitoring app, which is a digital tool designed to help patients understand their own personal risk of seizures and to track that risk. SUDEP Action has played a key role in the development of the Clive Treacey safety checklist. Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield for securing this important debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his contribution. It goes without saying that Clive’s death must not be in vain and that we must learn the lessons to ensure that this does not happen again. I believe we also need to commit further that no longer in our national health service should a tragedy be the only way to make things better for the patients and citizens we serve and to save their lives. Finally, the patient voice must be our guiding star when designing services and safety checklists and keeping patients safe in the community and in hospital. I believe that through the actions we have taken in our 10-year health plan and the actions that I have taken as the Minister responsible for patient safety, we can undertake today to Members of this House that that shall be the case going forward in this Government’s approach to patient safety. Question put and agreed to .

• 30 Oct 2025 · Ageing and End-of-life Care · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing forward this debate. The range of topics about which he is knowledgeable never ceases to surprise me. We are grateful for his contribution to this House, and I wish his mother well. I am also grateful for the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon). She is too modest to say so, but she is indeed an expert in social care and ageing, and her calls for a national strategy for end-of-life care and ageing have been heard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) for sharing her powerful story about her mother—that cannot have been easy, so I am grateful for her bravery. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge), I pay tribute to the hospice in Weston and the dedicated team there. I will be happy to pass on any correspondence required regarding the issues that the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) highlighted about the 111 service. The planning, funding and delivery of health services are devolved matters, but I am delighted to answer on behalf of the Government on what we are doing to improve palliative care and end-of-life care in England. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who work and volunteer in palliative care, both in the NHS and in our hospice sector, for the support they provide to patients, families and loved ones. It would be remiss of me not to mention the Prince & Princess of Wales hospice in my own constituency, which recently took such good care of my cousin as she passed away from breast cancer. This Government want a society in which every person receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of their lives, irrespective of their age, condition or geographical region. As the hon. Member for Strangford has adumbrated, end-of-life care and palliative care is much more than cancer care; it is about ageing and ageing well. We recognise that there are currently a high number of hospital admissions and bed days at the end of people’s lives, and the last year of people’s lives accounts for 15% of emergency admissions and approximately a third of all bed days.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Mental Health and Hoarding · Hansard source

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  The impact of hoarding can be severe. The clutter can compromise hygiene, strain relationships and pose safety risks, so let me be clear: these people deserve compassion and support from this Government and from every corner of society. My hon. Friend asks whether the Government will introduce a national hoarding strategy. There are no plans for a specific strategy, but we absolutely recognise that people who hoard must have access to the right support. At the moment, that requires more co-ordination than is currently in place. As she knows better than anyone as a district nurse and an independent lay manager, mental health services have been decimated over the last 14 years. This Government are doing the hard yards of rebuilding those services while transforming our mental health system, so people can access the right support at the right time and indeed the right place. Through our 10-year health plan, we have set long-term reforms to make mental health a core priority of the NHS and to move from crisis care to prevention and early intervention. This transformation will include: investing up to £120 million to expand the number of mental health emergency departments to 85 across England; a modern service framework for severe mental illness to support consistent high-quality and high-value care; and, as my hon. Friend mentioned, recruiting 8,500 new mental health workers across the NHS to increase capacity and make sure help is available where and when needed. We are already piloting six 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, which will bring together a range of professionals and imbibe that holistic concept—professionals such as psychologists, peer support workers, housing specialists and employment advisers. The pilots are testing out mechanisms that will enable that whole-team approach to capture people who otherwise remain hidden, including collaborative planning of care and treatment, communication and engagement, single patient records and shared outcome measures. This joined-up approach presents an opportunity for people, including those with hoarding disorder, to be identified and to get holistic support and treatment, and then to better join up between social services and mental health support. We know, too, that there are people in contact with social care right now who have a suspected hoarding disorder. Digital social care records, which have been implemented by 80% of Care Quality Commission providers, are already improving that quality and safety, and that personalisation of care. We are also investing in the development of a national infrastructure for social care, which will lay the foundations for ensuring greater interoperability and integration between care and health services, so that, again, fewer people slip through the net, as is often the case with hoarding disorders. People who hoard may be isolated, may not recognise their behaviour as a problem and may be reluctant to engage with services. That is why safeguarding plays such an important role. The Care Act 2014 and its statutory guidance make clear that self-neglect, which explicitly includes hoarding, is a safeguarding concern. Where a local authority has cause to suspect that an adult appears to be at risk of self-neglect and is unable to protect themselves as a result, that authority must carry out a safeguarding inquiry. The purpose of that inquiry is to establish what action is required and by whom, and to keep that person safe and ultimately get them the support they need. The guidance also advises that each case of self-neglect should be assessed on an individualised case-by-case basis. Professionals, whether social workers, carers, housing officers, emergency services or clinicians, have a responsibility to spot the signs, raise concerns, and support people and direct them towards help. One of the most effective treatments of hoarding disorder is cognitive behavioural therapy, otherwise known as CBT. CBT is a form of talking therapy that helps individuals to understand the thoughts and feelings that influence their behaviour and supports them gradually to make practical changes to their living environment. Through NHS talking therapies, people with a hoarding disorder can access evidence-based psychological interventions such as CBT. This Government are expanding access to talking therapies this year and have committed to continuing this expansion over the coming years. We aim to increase the number of people completing a course of talking therapy by 384,000 by the end of this Parliament and to increase the number of sessions someone can access, meaning that more people will be able to access timely and high-quality mental health support in their local area, and that these services can be accessed not only through their GP, but through self-referral. We know, however, that accessing these services can be difficult for those who feel isolated or who feel shame about their condition. As advised by national charities, therefore, during National Hoarding Awareness Week, we encourage friends and family members of people suspected of having a hoarding disorder to gently encourage them to speak to their GP, who can help to assess their needs and refer them to the appropriate mental health and community support. No one should face this condition alone. Of course, hoarding can also be associated with serious mental illnesses, including severe depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, which can require more specialist or intensive forms of support. That is why the Government are transforming services for people living with severe mental illnesses by investing in new models of integrated community care, expanding priceless support and increasing access to physical health checks and tailored interventions. At its heart, this debate is about dignity and compassion. We are talking about members of our own communities who deserve the same compassion, care and support as anyone else with any other illness. The Vice-Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington, deserves real credit for her work on this issue. We will continue to work with her, mental health professionals, voluntary organisations and people with lived experience to smash the stigma while improving access to care.