Tag: Richard Holt

Below is the text of the speech made by Richard Holt, the then Conservative MP for Langbaurgh, in the House of Commons on 4 March 1986.

I welcome this opportunity to speak in an Adjournment debate at an early hour, because on the previous occasion it was at 4 am. My subject matter is much more serious tonight, because this is the last stop for an elected representative to try to redress the position of ambulance services in his constituency.

“Where is Langbaurgh?” is a kind of music hall joke. When I tell people that it is in Cleveland, they ask, “Where is Cleveland?” It is no joke to my constituents to find that the ambulance service which has served the heart of the constituency for many years has been altered by a decision by the area health authority. A couple of years ago the ambulance authorities decided that a report on ambulance services in east Cleveland would be prepared by the health operational research unit. HORU is a respectable and eminent body. It bases its researches on years of study in various parts of Britain. It puts all the information through a computer, which spews out answers at the end. As we all know, computers are capable of producing answers based only on the information put into them. If one fails to put in information about the topography, the weather or the disposition of the population, the answers are liable to be distorted, if they are based on a standard format.

The result of the action of the area health authority, acting on the recommendation of the local ambulance service managers, is that, to all intents and purposes, the Guisborough ambulance station has been closed. It is unusual in political life to find an issue on which all sectors of the community—religious, political and academic—are united. They all say in this case that the area health authority was wrong to make this change. Nobody can deny that the authority’s criteria met the specifications of the Department. Indeed, those criteria went beyond the rural and into the metropolitan, specifications. This is a domestic matter affecting the south Cleveland area.

It may be argued that monetary savings are involved and that that must be for the good of the community. In this case, not only is it questionable whether there will be any savings, but I could adduce evidence to show that what is proposed will be more expensive. Either way we need not spend time trying to put a monetary value on people’s lives.

The case that I make tonight is based on local knowledge of events in the last 12 months and the strong feeling of the local community that a wrong has been perpetrated. We have nobody but the Government to whom to turn to bring pressure on the area health authority, even at this late stage. to change its mind.

The initial recommendation was that the Guisborough ambulance station should close. That would have meant my constituents living near the north Yorkshire border being denied an important section of emergency ambulance provision. Bowing to public opinion, the local ambulance management had second thoughts and, instead of closing the Guisborough station, kept it open for 22 of every 24 hours by having on hand an ambulance and crew from Redcar.

The result is that there has been no cost saving, and a well-established station, its appliances and crews have been dispersed. Every day an ambulance crew travels half ​ an hour from Redcar to Guisborough. Later, it travels back to Redcar, and then another ambulance does the round journey. Thus, for two hours a day ambulances and crews are travelling between the two areas. For 22 hours a day, a strange crew from Redcar waits in Guisborough to answer emergency calls.

The logic of this has been lost on everyone, apart from the management and the area health authority. The service that is provided to my constituents has been diminished. That diminution goes beyond my constituency, into those of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir. M. Shaw), for the ambulance services go to many of the small and outpost villages in the north Yorkshire area that are frequently cut off by adverse weather conditions, when the roads are impassable. These are the people who are most likely to be at risk.

An analysis of accident statistics in the area shows that the vast majority of road accidents occur on the fast moors road between Guisborough and Whitby. By definition, it will take longer for an ambulance crew to arrive at the scene of an accident than has hitherto been the case. There can be no justification for this.

Worse still is an analysis of the actions of the area health authority. It produced a plan to close the station, NA 111C h it then amended. Although the area health authority was supposed to take into consideration the views of all the people in the area, it admitted to what it called “a word processing error.” The views of three of the parish and town councils adjacent to Guisborough were not presented at the meeting when the decision was taken. The voices of three important local community councils were not heard.

If there is a case for the alterations which have been made, it centres on a new ambulance station at Coulby Newham, at the western end of my constituency. This was commissioned and built at a time when the extrapolation of population growth was greater than that which has come about. The ambulance authorities were therefore faced with the embarrassment of a new building for which they had no use. They have justified its use by making it operational and by closing down, to all intents and purposes, the emergency service and cover in Guisborough.

Why is Guisborough so special? With a population of just under 20,000 it is the major town in my constituency. If one visited Guisborough, one would see, standing in a row in the same road, the police station, the fire station, the hospital, the Territorial Army barracks and the ambulance station, all within 200 yds of each other. What have the authorities done? They have closed the ambulance station. If there is an accident to which the fire engines and the police are called, they look around to see whether an ambulance will join them, or they hope that an ambulance will come to join them from Redcar or Carlin How. This cannot be right.

All my constituents have been to see me and have prevailed upon me to raise this matter in Parliament. It is their last hope that common sense and pressure can be brought to bear upon those who were responsible for making this decision. The shop stewards at the ambulance station are concerned. In case there are those who might suggest that this is a political intrigue, I must advise everyone that the ambulance service in Guisborough includes a Conservative councillor whose mother is also ​ a Conservative councillor for the town of Guisborough. In the political context, therefore, there is no divide. The new management of the ambulance authority is determined to make the change and to implement the health operational research unit recommendations, irrespective of the views and wishes of the populace.

Public meetings have been held, at the end of which no one was satisfied with the explanations given by the chief ambulance officer to justify the proposed changes. There have also been private meetings of the chambers of trade, Rotary and others concerned in the town. No one is in favour of the alteration, other than the management. Management admits that when it reached its conclusions it did not have all the evidence. It did not have the information which had been missed by the word processor and/or the computer. There is great strength of feeling that the very latest that could be done is for the Government to write to the area health authority asking it to reconsider the view that has prevailed so far.

Some may ask why I have not been supported in my endeavours by other hon. Members in the Cleveland area. They are not supporting me because all of them are getting a better deal out of what the area health authority is bringing into practice. Therefore, I do not blame them for not supporting me. If I were the Member of Parliament for an area that was getting improved ambulance cover I would be grateful. But when one is left on one’s own, one’s resolve and strength of feeling become greater. It would have been more honest if other hon. Members from the Cleveland area had had the courage to support me in my long and sustained battle over the past 12 months against the area health authority.

There is no element of cost saving or of a cutting exercise. All too frequently people claim erroneously that the reason for Government action is that cuts are being made. That is not the case with the ambulance services in east Cleveland. The alteration is intended to improve the service. For one third of the area that will be the case, but for two thirds of the area—the larger geographical but the smaller numerically—that will be far from true.

I hope my hon. Friend will accept that there is no criticism of the Government and no intention to make play of cost cutting. The decision is wrong. It was made on ill-founded theoretical grounds. I do not want to be responsible for anyone having to tell a newly bereaved widow or mother that her husband or child has died because the ambulance service they had enjoyed has been taken away. That is what we are facing in east Cleveland. There can be no solace in that for anybody.

It is all very well to say that one is arguing about a difference of seven, eight, 10 or 11 minutes, but one is also arguing about a lost camaraderie which had been engendered within the ambulance station. In the community sense, the ambulance service is responsible not only for emergency cover, but for transporting patients to and from hospitals and homes for the elderly. All of that has been dissipated for no justifiable and logical reason, but because of an administrative managerial change. It is incumbent upon the Government to write a very strong letter to the area health authority venting these views so that the authority can reconsider and alter its decision and restore the position that we had before the changes. If it is necessary to justify the opening of Coulby Newham on any other grounds, and if there is not the money for that, ​ the case should be argued for Coulby Newham, but not at the expense of the ambulance station at Guisborough and my constituents.

Below is the text of the speech made by Richard Holt, the then Conservative MP for Langbaurgh, in the House of Commons on 9 April 1984.

One thing that all hon. Members would agree, irrespective of politics, is that we wish each other long and healthy lives. In doing so, we always regard our responsibilities and duties to society.
There is today a slowly growing awareness of a disease called Alzheimer’s disease, which was first diagnosed in 1907 and which has taken 75 years to become the subject of comment in the House. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is incurable and irreversible. Dementia is a progressive decline in the ability to speak, to think, to remember and to learn, with an accompanying loss in the capacity for deliberate actions and movement. A once active and responsible adult will no longer remember his spouse and children, will not be able to maintain even a simple conversation, will become disoriented, even in the familiar surroundings of his home, and completely incontinent. In short, as an adult, he will revert to infancy.

Dementia is not a normal part of the ageing process. Rather, it is a disease with a variety of causes and a wide range of symptoms. The likelihood that an individual will be affected by a dementing disorder increases with age, but this does not mean that it is inevitable.

Alzheimer’s disease and stroke-associated or multi-infarct-dementia, which together account for 85 per cent. of all the incurable dementing illnesses, should be diagnosed only after the exclusion, by a series of tests, of other causes of the problem, such as poor nutrition, metabolic disorders, side effects of drugs, chronic alcohol abuse and so on. Diagnosis of AD, with all its catastrophic implications for both sufferer and family, is too often made without adequate investigation.

It is late and we have had a long day, but I would not be doing full justice to the sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease, and more importantly to those who will suffer in future, if I did not to some extent underline the problems by referring to case histories. It would, of course be wrong in any way to identify the affected people. In one instance a man aged 38 —Mr. D, a qualified architect with a large well-known company — contemplated group and individual suicide on learning that he had AD. His wife is totally unable to cope with the change in her family life. That is an unusual and rare case, because it affects someone in a younger age group. Normally, the disease is found in older people. Obviously, the greatest stress affects not only the sufferers but their loved ones.

I have a short letter that I wish to place on record. It states: I am very sorry but your wife has Alzheimer’s Disease. Unfortunately there is no cure. A lot of care will be needed. A simple statement. I had stopped work because I could not cope. My wife had shown a lack of interest in household affairs which was quite out of character. After a few months she lost the ability to carry out the most simple household tasks. Any attempt to teach anew was met with anger and tears. Dressing became very difficult, but when assistance was given, she replied with anger and not thanks. This was very perplexing after years of close relationship.

As the disease had progressed, toilet and bathing became a problem. The use of the toilet was forgotten, and I had to insist on regular visits. When assisting with the removal of clothing extreme anger was displayed. The problem is worse when a wife is required to deal with her husband; the stronger and aggressive male usually wins, making the toilet problem a nightmare. My efforts to see to my wife in the bath were frantically resisted. Hair washing was a particular problem, and rinsing off shampoo was rewarded with screams as the water flowed over her face. This was a very frightening experience and had to be handled with care. Toilet problems were at their worst when away from home. My wife quite often entered the conveniences and refused to allow anyone to help her to use the toilet, usually with disastrous results. Such events continue until finally the person ebbs away and dies. That report was written not by an emotional, unrealistic person, but by a senior police officer who had to retire from the police force to look after his wife in this sad and demented state.

The cause of this condition is not known. It is only after a person has died, when there is a post-mortem, that it can be shown absolutely for sure that he has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, but the likelihood is that when the symptoms manifest themselves, the person has begun on a course that ultimately results in death.

There is the mild period, followed by the moderate period, followed by the severe period. The average length of life after the disease has been diagnosed is about two and a half to five years. Some people have been known to live longer, but that means that the deteriorating period is more severe and, equally, that the strain on those responsible for the individual’s care is even greater.

In Cleveland, in my constituency, we have today a branch of the Alzheimer’s Disease Society which is working wonders in providing a form of adult creche to enable those suffering from the dementia to be brought in and looked after on a daily basis, thereby enabling the carers themselves to have time off, for surely when the disease strikes one member of the family it equally strikes another.

I have known of people who have suffered from dementia and have seen for myself how they have deteriorated and died in a most miserable way. Twelve months ago, before I came to this House, I had never heard of Alzheimer’s disease and did not know what it was. It has only recently been brought to my attention. During the past week, since my name appeared for an Adjournment debate on the subject, I have been spoken to by many colleagues, some with knowledge of relatives who have suffered and died from Alzheimer’s disease, and others who were totally unaware of what the disease was and what its manifestations caused. It is because of that latter group of people that I have taken the opportunity of an Adjournment debate to bring to a wider audience the need for an understanding of it.

Everyone in society today, I believe, understands what multiple sclerosis is and what the initials MS stand for, and can recognise symptoms in people and know the care that is required. Regrettably, there has been far too much confusion historically between the normal ageing process and Alzheimer’s disease, to such an extent that we as a society have failed so far to provide sufficient care, to obtain sufficient knowledge, or to do sufficient research into the subject.

I do not make a special plea for additional funds and resources for Alzheimer’s disease over and above the many other worthy causes which require as much funding as they can be given, but I urge upon the Government, upon all hon. Members of this House, and upon people beyond this House, a greater understanding and awareness of the problem. It is one which can and will affect as many as one in 10 of our population. We have an aging population. Therefore, the manifestations will become greater. It is an incurable disease as things stand at the moment. Research is being carried out and many people are now turning their attention to seeing whether there is any way in which there can be a diagnosis in the first instance and a cure in the second. But until such time as either of those things come to pass, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that all people become more widely aware of the problems of Alzheimer’s disease and the associated problems for the people who have to care for those who are suffering from that disease.