I echo other Members in congratulating the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on securing this important debate. We all know what a passionate and—most importantly—effective campaigner he has been in supporting people with Down syndrome and their families. His Down Syndrome Act, which Opposition Members were proud to support, represents an important opportunity for us to make progress on delivering the support that people with Down syndrome deserve, so that they can lead as full and equal a life as everyone else.
Let me say as an aside that I think what the right hon. Gentleman is trying to do has important implications for wider public sector reform. There are many issues and problems that people have talked about for years; the question is, how do we make change? The right hon. Gentleman’s mechanism in this instance is to use a specific Act providing for named individuals who are held accountable, and for guidance that actually secures change. However, there are other methods of securing changes in public services—for instance, through legal rights—and I am a strong champion of direct payments and personal budgets, which give people and their families the power to change those services. We need to focus on making a difference and putting the users of services
and their families at the heart of the system, making them equal partners in care. We will never get healthcare, education and work support right unless we do it in partnership with people.
I am a long-standing champion of the vision pioneered by the group Social Care Future, which consists of people who use services and their families: that we all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things we love, in communities where we look out for one another and where we can contribute, doing the things that matter the most to us—not what somebody else tells us we want to do or should do, but what we ourselves want to do. That is the vision that Opposition Members are championing. In the 21st century, and in what, despite all our problems, is still one of the richest countries in the world, it should not be seen as extraordinary, but the truth is, I am afraid, that for too many of the 47,000 people in the UK living with Down syndrome, it remains far from reality.
Members have rightly spoken of the progress that has been made, but I think it is also important to use this debate to demonstrate how much further there is to go. The first issue I want to raise is that of health and health inequalities, to which many Members have referred. We know that people with Down syndrome are more likely to experience problems with their hearts, bowels, hearing and vision, and have an increased risk of infections. I think it disgraceful that so often the outcomes are so poor for people with Down syndrome because of what is known as diagnostic overshadowing, when symptoms are ignored and put down to Down syndrome rather than being diagnosed properly and addressed.
There are two issues on which I think we should focus. The first is the need to ensure that children with Down syndrome have the regular check-ups they need with paediatricians and GPs. We know that too many families find those services too hard to access, and the current number of vacancies in the NHS—133,000—as well as all the other problems that people are experiencing when trying to see GPs and other doctors are having an impact on that. When she responds to the debate, will the Minister tell us when we will finally see the Government’s workforce plan for the NHS? May I also cheekily ask her once again whether she will adopt Labour’s plan to bring about the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in its history, which we would pay for by scrapping the non-dom tax status? Members will understand that I want to put forward practical solutions today and to be realistic about the challenges, and that is what I intend to do.