Graeme Downie

If Rory has already told my hon. Friend a little bit about the Parky charter, she is about to get a repeat. On World Parkinson’s Day, the Movers and Shakers group brought hundreds of people with Parkinson’s together in Old Palace Yard. Those people sang with one voice, in a reworked version of “I Will Survive”, their demands to have the Parky charter adopted. I will spare the House my singing voice, but that charter is a bold five-point plan backed by the three major Parkinson’s charities in the UK. It is not a wish list; it is a road map to dignity, and I will take some time to outline those five demands. The first demand is for speedy specialists; people referred for a possible Parkinson’s diagnosis should see a consultant within 18 weeks and have annual reviews thereafter. The second is instant information; a Parkinson’s diagnosis should be accompanied by immediate, clear and accessible information. The third is the Parkinson’s passport, a tool to communicate patients’ needs across all healthcare touchpoints. The fourth is comprehensive care; every person with Parkinson’s should have full access to a multidisciplinary team of specialist nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational and speech therapists. The fifth is the quest for a cure—a determined and funded national commitment to support Parkinson’s research. These are not unattainable dreams; they are basic standards of decency, fairness and evidence-based healthcare. I will start with the first two demands, which are diagnosis and information. Currently, neurology services in England are seeing only about half of patients within the 18-week target, and the waiting list for neurology services now exceeds 230,000. The situation in Scotland and Wales follows a similar pattern of long waiting lists. In my constituency, NHS Fife has a median wait for a first neurology appointment of 31 weeks, and nine out of 10 people are seen within 87 weeks. In contrast, next door in Forth Valley—which is also part of my constituency —nine out of 10 people are seen within just nine weeks. There are currently 1,836 people waiting to see a neurologist in Fife, and 403 in Forth Valley. It can never be acceptable for a person’s postcode to dictate the quality of care they receive. As part of my preparation for today’s debate, I heard from someone who has been diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of just 47, just a few years older than me. He told me that when his GP identified symptoms, he was referred to his neurology service urgently—I underline the word urgently—and that the expectation from his GP was that “urgent” meant that he would be “seen within days”. When he had not heard from the hospital five days later, he called to check that it had received his referral, and was told that the person at the top of the waiting list had been waiting for 39 weeks so far—39 weeks so far for an urgent appointment.