The Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West has met local teenagers helping a community farm as part of their National Citizen Service (NCS) experience.

Visiting the young people at Page Pastures Farm, Sunderland, on Tuesday 30 July, Sharon Hodgson MP saw first-hand how NCS participants are supporting local communities during the school holidays. The team of young people opted to help the farm as an important community space which is also used to train young people on apprenticeships.

Sharon visited the group as they ended their final week of the NCS programme by weeding the farm and helping with the animals.

Sharon Hodgson MP, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West said:

“It was great to meet young people participating in the NCS programme at Page Pastures Farm, and to hear all about their time on the programme.

“The NCS summer programme is a great initiative giving young people the opportunity to experience various different activities, develop key skills and can really make a difference to their confidence. I wish them all the best of luck in the future.”

The parliamentarian also heard first-hand how NCS - the fastest growing youth movement in our country for a century - is helping to develop participants’ life skills, resilience and wellbeing while boosting community engagement.

Anna Ingram, 16, from Washington, said:

“Our team loved meeting Sharon Hodgson, it was a good opportunity to demonstrate just some of the work we've done in the community through NCS.

“Sharon visited on our last day of social action to see us convey all of our new skills such as confidence as well as our teamwork and leadership. I've made friends for life! I would totally recommend this programme for anyone and without a doubt would do it again.”

NCS is a flagship government initiative that provides young people aged 15-17 the chance to take on new challenges, experience exciting activities, make long-lasting friendships and develop vital skills that will support them later in life.

Maxine Tennet, Director of Operations for vInspired, which delivers NCS in the North East in partnership with NYA, said:

“It was brilliant that Sharon Hodgson MP made the time to visit NCS again. The young people really appreciate her support for their work in the community.

“In Sharon’s constituency this summer, nearly 300 teenagers have signed up to do NCS – collectively, that’s over 8,300 hours devoted to helping local causes. Empowering young people to give back to their communities is just one of the things that makes NCS such a life-changing experience for participants.”

Over 400,000 young people have completed the NCS programme to date, giving up an incredible 11.7 million hours to social action projects since NCS started.

There are still places available for 15-17 years to take part in this once in a lifetime opportunity, with the few remaining places now available for just £35 when young people use the code NCS35 when booking via NCSNORTHEAST.co.uk or by calling 0191 247 4020.

Click on the image to view Sharon's letter.

Sharon Hodgson, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West, recently visited St Mary’s RC Primary School in Jarrow to see children getting involved in a range of fun activities at one of Sainsbury’s Active Kids Holiday Clubs.

(Picture Credit: Richard Booth, NCJ Media)

On the day (Wednesday 25^th July 2018), Sharon met with representatives from UKActive, Sainsbury’s and Premier Sport, who are running the clubs, to discuss their work to get more children active in a fun and engaging way.

St Mary’s is one of 25 Sainsbury’s Active Kids holiday clubs that will be delivered in schools and academic institutions across the UK over the course of the six-week summer holiday in 2018.

The holiday clubs offer children a range of activities tailored by age group, including sports, games and performing arts classes, and also provide children with a nutritious lunch and healthy snacks.

Research undertaken by ukactive and Premier Sport has found that children’s cardiovascular fitness levels drop considerably over the summer months. This study found that the lack of structured support over the summer months played a significant role in the health and well-being of children. It also found that the hardest hit were children from deprived communities, who saw their fitness levels drop by as much as 80%.

Based on these findings Sainsbury’s decided to shift their focus from providing kit and equipment to schools and into providing experiences to help kids between the ages of 5-15 years old stay active during the summer months.

During the visit, Sharon said:

“It is a pleasure to be here to see the children taking part in a wide variety of activities, and join them in the fun and games!

“Our children today are the most inactive generation ever, so I welcome any initiative that can help us get more kids moving – this is a great example of one doing just that.

“The school holidays can be a very difficult time for some families, so I’m pleased that this initiative is offering families a service that will help them, as well as encouraging their children to be fit and healthy over the school holiday.”

ENDS

Sharon has again written to Rolton Kilbride for answers to constituents' questions.

Read Sharon's latest Sunderland Echo column below or by going to the Sunderland Echo.

Last week the NHS celebrated its 70th birthday. Our NHS remains one of Britain’s greatest institutions, and it is a Labour Government that proudly introduced it in 1948.

The NHS was founded on three core principles: that it meet the needs of everyone; that it be free at the point of delivery; and that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

As a local Labour MP, and Shadow Minister for Public Health, I am committed to defending these founding principles, so that our NHS is available for many, many more decades to come.

Sadly, the future of our NHS is under threat by this Tory Government.

Not only have they starved it of the funding it so desperately needs, but they have also failed to commit sufficient funding to public health and social care.

This comes at a time when demand on NHS services is growing.

A&Es are over-stretched and overcrowded; increasing numbers of people are waiting too long for operations; and key performance targets are being missed month after month.

This demand is coupled with a NHS workforce crisis. We should all show our appreciation for the thousands of people who work tirelessly to provide people with health care every single day.

Whether that’s the nurses and doctors in A&E, the porters and cleaners who keep our hospitals clean, or the cancer surgeons who perform ground-breaking operations, I know that we have all had reason to be thankful in one way or another.

But the truth is that the workforce is in crisis. Across the NHS there are more than 100,000 staff vacancies, including 40,000 nurses and 11,000 doctors.

Eight years of austerity have left their mark on the ability of the NHS to carry out its intended aims.

As of May this year, around 4.2 million people were waiting for non-urgent hospital treatment in England, and over the winter the rate of people being seen in A&E within four hours fell below 80% in some months. The target (set at 95%) has not been met since July 2015, a shocking indictment of this Government’s record.

We must not underestimate the extent of the long-lasting damage that the intentional under-funding of the NHS has already had.

NHS staff and patients deserve so much more from a Government that puts the health and wellbeing of everyone first.

It is no longer good enough for the Government to provide piecemeal increases, whilst people wait for the care they need.

A Labour Government founded the NHS 70 years ago, and it will only be a Labour Government that will continue to fight for it and give our NHS the funding it rightly deserves.

Sunderland Echo website

Today (7th July), Sharon Hodgson MP, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West and Shadow Minister for Public Health, visited Sunderland Royal Hospital to mark the 70th birthday of the NHS.

Photo Caption: (left to right) Midwife Michelle, baby Hayden, Alex and Sharon Hodgson MP

Sharon received a tour from Carol Harries, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Affairs and Andrea Hetherington, Deputy Head of Corporate Affairs.

During the tour of Sunderland Royal, Sharon visited the new emergency department and the maternity department to meet some of the newest arrivals.

In the maternity ward, Sharon met with new mum Alex and baby Hayden who was wearing a special NHS 70 baby grow.

At Sunderland Royal Hospital, Sharon said:

“It was great to visit Sunderland Royal Hospital today to mark the 70 th birthday of our NHS and see the amazing work the staff do here every single day, despite the huge pressures on them with funding cuts and increasing demand.

“The NHS was established by a Labour Government, and it is only a Labour Government that will properly fund our NHS to ensure that it can continue for many more years to come.

“It was lovely to meet Hayden and see him in his NHS 70 baby grow. I will continue to campaign for our NHS to be free at the point of use for everyone, so that when Hayden grows up, he can benefit from it too.”

Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Jonathan Ashworth MP joins local residents at Bunny Hill to help campaign against the CCG's plans to close Urgent Care Centres in Bunny Hill, Washington and Houghton.

Sharon Hodgson MP's report Jun-Jul 2018 number 106

Click on the picture above to read Sharon Hodgson MP's report - News from Westminster - Jun-Jul 2018 number 106

As Shadow Minister for Public Health, Sharon responded to a Westminster Hall debate on ME treatment and research. During her speech, Sharon raised the issue of limited funding for research on ME and delays in diagnosis. 

You can read the full debate here

You can watch Sharon's speech here

You can read Sharon's speech below

Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes.

I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for her excellent speech setting the scene today and for securing this important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting ​the time for it. I also thank all hon. Members who contributed. A great number of them did so: the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), the hon. Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), and my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Dr Drew), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) all made excellent and moving speeches. I thank the many other Members who made excellent interventions. The packed Public Gallery and the number of Members attending and speaking in the debate on a Thursday afternoon shows the strength of feeling on the subject not only in Parliament but in the nation as a whole—more should be done to help people with ME. They should get the help, recognition, support and treatment that they deserve and need.

I thank MEAction, Action for ME, the ME Association and the ME Trust for the detailed brief that they sent me, and ME North East and especially the Sunderland and South Tyneside ME support group including Professor Malcolm Hooper—I first met him way back in 2010 on this very issue—for all the work that they do to campaign for better care, support and recognition for people living with ME. We have heard today in great and moving detail from numerous Members sharing tragic and very personal stories from their constituents, whom we thank for allowing their stories to be told.

ME is a neurological disease, or a disease of the central nervous system, but that does not begin to explain how devastating it can be to have to live with it—or die from it, as happened so tragically to 21-year-old Merryn Crofts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton, who was her MP, and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West for sharing her story with us in some detail—I especially thank her family for allowing that—and helping to make the case so strongly in the debate.

ME affects an estimated 250,000 adults and children in the UK and about 17 million people worldwide. Despite the fact that so many people are affected by ME, it is little understood in the medical world, leaving patients feeling dismissed, neglected and stigmatised further by their condition. That can be no surprise, as no significant research has been done into the condition, as we have heard. ME receives far less research funding than other neurological conditions of similar prevalence or disease burden. The answer to a written question from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West revealed that the average research spend per person living with ME is only about £1 a year, as she said. Also, the majority of that research spending does not even come from Government; it comes from the charity sector.

Does the Minister think that research into this condition should be left entirely up to the charity sector? The ME charity sector in the UK does a fantastic job of researching the condition. For example, the UK ME/CFS Biobank is a vital part of the ME research infrastructure and has achieved an international reputation. All the start-up costs for the ME Biobank were funded by the charity ​sector, and ongoing costs are met by the ME Association’s Ramsay Research Fund. Do the Government have any plans to contribute to that research?

Patients with ME feel that they have been let down time and again as research such as the PACE trial—which, sensibly, we heard about—have been found to be seriously flawed. In fact, Jonathan Edwards, emeritus professor of medicine, said that the PACE trial would be a great example

“in an undergraduate textbook as an object lesson in how not to design a trial”.

In addition, a petition signed by more than 12,000 individuals —mostly patients, but also more than 90 scientists and clinicians—and more than 50 patient groups worldwide have demanded a retraction of the results of that trial. Does the Minister agree that ME patients deserve a trial that they can trust not to dismiss their condition or recommend treatments that could make it worse? Do the Government have any plans to fund a proactive and co-ordinated piece of research on ME that patients can trust?

Given the lack of medical research into ME, healthcare professionals are, unsurprisingly, not sufficiently trained in diagnosing the condition, as hon. Members have told us today. According to several ME charities, coverage of ME in many medical textbooks remains inadequate and can be misleading or even non-existent. The chief medical officer’s report and the NICE guidelines on ME set out clear timeline markers for making an early and accurate diagnosis. Both recommend that adults should normally have had the diagnosis confirmed within four months of onset of symptoms, or within three months for children and young people. However, standard medical tests often find nothing wrong, which leads many doctors initially to dismiss ME as psychological.

In 2016 a patient survey by the ME Association indicated that only a small number of patients were receiving a positive diagnosis within six months of onset. Further experiences from the charity sector suggest that a majority of patients have to wait for more than a year, and a significant number for many years, before they receive a diagnosis. That means that patients are being dismissed and stigmatised further and, more importantly, are not then receiving the care and support that they need. Does the Minister have any plans to create a care pathway for people with ME to ensure that patients are given access to the care and treatment they require in a timely manner?

In addition, has the Minister made any assessment of the effects that ME, and the delay in diagnosis of it, have on women in particular? I find it incredibly illuminating that 75% of patients with ME are women. That leads me to believe that there is an issue of women’s pain being dismissed and not taken seriously by healthcare professionals. Will the Minister consider that issue in his response?

It is therefore clear that more training is required, not only for healthcare professionals but for welfare assessors. A survey by Action for ME found that 79% of survey respondents disagreed with the statement that their assessor had sufficient expertise of their condition to conduct an assessment effectively and appropriately. Symptoms of ME can fluctuate so much and are often invisible, as we have heard, so the condition is difficult to manage for patients and, it has to be said, difficult for welfare assessors to detect.​

A patient may perform well during a welfare assessment, but an assessor will not see how long patients rested in order to perform tasks during the assessment, or how long it took for them to recover afterwards. As we know, the onerous and ill-conceived assessment process can result in not only an inaccurate award, but an exacerbation of ME symptoms, which can result in a long-term deterioration of the individual’s health. Has the Minister had any conversations with his ministerial colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions on that matter?

From this excellent debate, it is clear that the majority of issues that arise from ME do so because the condition is so little understood. The Government should consider funding research into ME to further our understanding of the condition. The hope is that that would, in time, improve perceptions of ME and improve the routes to diagnosis, care and treatment.

Read Sharon's latest Sunderland Echo column below or by going to the Sunderland Echo. 

This week (June 15 to 25, 2018) marks Royal Life Saving Society UK’s (RLSS UK) Drowning Prevention Week.

In partnership with the RNLI and Swim England, RLSS UK aim to reduce the number of drowning and near-drowning incidents that occur in the UK every year, by showing people how to be safe and have fun near water.

Sadly, drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death in children in the UK, and over 700 people drown in the UK and Ireland every year – equivalent to one person drowning every 20 hours.

As summer quickly approaches, it is important that children and adults are taught about the dangers of the water, especially open water, and cold water shock.

Whilst jumping in the river on a hot summer’s day might seem an attractive way to cool off, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

As the vice-chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water Safety and Drowning Prevention and as a local MP, I have heard many stories of lives being tragically lost in the water; including Chloe Fowler, 14, and Tonibeth Purvis, 15, in July 2013 and Ross Irwin, a 22-year-old, who sadly drowned in the River Wear at Fatfield two days before Christmas in 2016.

A water safety throwline board was unveiled last month, close to the spot where Ross drowned at Fatfield Riverside.

It was unveiled by his father, David Irwin, of the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, Northumbria Police, Sunderland City Council and RLSS.

This was the first throwline board unveiled in the North East, and I hope there will be many more boards alongside our open waterways in Washington and Sunderland and across the region very soon.

I will continue my work with the APPG on Water Safety and Drowning to urge the Government to increase water safety education in schools, and encourage them to install initiatives such as throwline boards, so that we can soon see the number of people, especially young people, drowning in the UK decline.