Department of Health and Social Care

We are committed to reforming the adult social care system, including the provision of affordable personalised care and will bring forward proposals in 2021.

It is not possible to make a conclusive assessment of the average pay differential between health and care staff as roles are not directly comparable. The vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers who set their pay, independent of central Government, which differs from national collectively agreed terms and conditions on which most staff are employed within the National Health Service.

We are engaging with frontline staff, sector leaders and our partners on how we can best support those who work in social care through professionalisation, wellbeing and recognition.

The Department is working with the social care sector to improve employee satisfaction through supporting wellbeing and increasing recognition for staff. To support the wellbeing of social care workers, we have worked alongside the National Health Service and other organisations to provide a package of emotional, psychological and practical resources for the workforce. This includes support helplines, guidance, bereavement resources and a bespoke package of support for registered managers.

We have also identified carers, paid and unpaid, as essential workers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to give them much-needed acknowledgment of their critical role in keeping people safe and supported.

HSA4 Abortion Notification Forms received by the Department show that of the 117,584 abortions where one or both medications were taken at home in 2020, 26 were taken at 10 weeks gestation or later.

The Department does not hold information on the number of abortions for women who have taken early medical abortion pills at home, who are not registered with the National Health Service.

We intend to publish the Government’s response after the summer recess.

The first meeting of the Ministerial Oversight Group has now taken place and the Group has set out their commitment to driving forward improvements. A summary of the meeting has been shared with interested stakeholders. The membership, workings and decisions of the Ministerial Oversight Group were published on 23 July.

No specific assessment has been made.

The information requested is shown in the following table.

No specific comparative assessment has been made on the number of men and women receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

The ‘UK COVID-19 vaccine uptake plan’ published in February sets out the Government’s approach to ensure that all groups have the opportunity to receive the vaccine. The plan is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-uptake-plan/uk-covid-19-vaccine-uptake-plan

We expect that the Office for Health Promotion (OHP) will draw on external expertise and advice from a range of sources. We will present more detail on our plans, ambitions and governance arrangements for the OHP in due course.

The Office for Health Promotion (OHP) will work with teams across the Department, the health system and wider partners to support action on physical activity. We will present more detail on our plans and ambitions for the OHP in due course.

Ministers have had no recent engagement with trial participants.

Under the terms of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, European Union legislation will apply in the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland. Regulation 1925/2006 on the Addition of Vitamins and Minerals to Foods is included the Northern Ireland Protocol. Consideration is therefore necessary in discussion with the devolved administrations to ensure the consultation response and any proposed fortification policy takes into account the Northern Ireland Protocol.

There are no current plans to further consult scientists on flour fortification. We are finalising agreement of a four-nation response to the United Kingdom-wide consultation on the proposed mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid which ran from 13 June to 9 September 2019. The next steps will be laid out in the Government’s response.

No specific assessment has been made. Information on the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine following a supported conversation is not collected as part of the vaccine record.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) will be National Health Service bodies, bringing in representatives from a range of other bodies including NHS commissioners and providers. The Board will, as a minimum, include a Chair, Chief Executive and representatives from NHS trusts, general practice and local authorities.

Local areas will have the flexibility to determine any further representation on their board. This would be subject to local agreement and approval by NHS England. We do not expect independent providers to have seats on the ICB.

Every patient, including those over 75 years old, can request to see a specific general practitioner (GP), including their named accountable GP. Under the terms of the 2015/16 National Health Service General Medical Services Contract practices must endeavour to comply with all reasonable requests made by patients to see a particular practitioner and authorised family members have the same rights.

Every patient, including those over 75 years old, can request to see a specific general practitioner (GP), including their named accountable GP. Under the terms of the 2015/16 National Health Service General Medical Services Contract practices must endeavour to comply with all reasonable requests made by patients to see a particular practitioner and authorised family members have the same rights.

These meetings were included in the relevant transparency return. However, the omission was caused by a formatting error during the merger of individual returns into a master document. This has now been corrected with the full list of meetings now available.

Following the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England commissioned Sir Professor Mike Richards to review diagnostic services, which was completed in October 2020. The review recommended that there should be an expansion in the imaging workforce with an additional 2,000 radiologists and 4,000 radiographers over the next five years. NHS England and NHS Improvement are planning how to implement the report’s recommendations.

In 2020/2021, Health Education England’s Cancer Workforce Plan committed to training 300 reporting radiographers and the NHS People Plan committed to training a further 150. Further workforce requirements will be considered as part of the upcoming Spending Review.

The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR has invested over £10 million in motor neurone disease (MND) research over the last five years. This includes research on potential treatments to improve survival rate, function and quality of life for people with MND. The NIHR has spent £2.4 million on research to investigate drug combinations for the treatment of MND. The NIHR is also funding research on drug combinations to treat MND through NIHR research infrastructure, although the information requested is not available at individual study level.

We have worked jointly with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the investment security community across Government as contributors to the investment screening regime. The Department has also consulted with agencies and partner organisations to provide input for the development of National Security and Investment Act 2021.

The location of all overseas suppliers with which the Department currently holds contracts could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Information is not held on whether a contract is held with a Chinese-financed company.

NHS England and NHS Improvement do not collect this information centrally.

Work on rebalancing the intensive care unit (ICU) consumables stockpile is focussed on preserving and realising the value of stock under management through usage, sales and appropriate donations. Product currently identified as inappropriate for sale or donation is scheduled to be disposed of through recycling and energy recovery.

This currently represents one million items or 0.11% of the total number of products held in the ICU consumables COVID-19 stockpile.

The information is not held in the format requested. Contractual arrangements made with providers at clinical commissioning group and National Health Service trust level are not held centrally.

The information is not held in the format requested. Contractual arrangements made with providers at clinical commissioning group and National Health Service trust level are not held centrally.

The information is not held in the format requested. Contractual arrangements made with providers at clinical commissioning group and National Health Service trust level are not held centrally.

The information is not held in the format requested. Contractual arrangements made with providers at clinical commissioning group and National Health Service trust level are not held centrally.

The information requested is shown in the following table.

Note:

*Data to 21 July 2021.

NHS England and NHS Improvement recognise manual ear syringing is no longer advised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence due to risks associated, such as trauma to their ear drum or infection. General practitioner (GP) practices are increasingly recommending self-care methods as the primary means to support the safe removal of ear wax.

However, if a GP practice considers removal clinically necessary, the procedure should either be undertaken at the practice or the patient should be referred to an appropriate service depending on the arrangements in place in the local area, including for pensioners and those on low incomes. Local commissioners are responsible for meeting the health needs of their local population and should continue to ensure there is appropriate access to ear wax services.

We have had no specific discussions. However, as part of COVID-19 recovery planning we are working with the Department for Education and NHS England and NHS Improvement to improve the provision of health and care services to disabled children. We have provided over £6 billion in un-ringfenced funding directly to councils to support them with the immediate and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 spending pressures, including for children’s social care. Since 2019-2020, the Government has provided additional funding for adults’ and children’s social care via the social care grant and is allocated £1.7 billion in 2021-2022. To improve access to healthcare, including for disabled children, we have also invested £6.6 billion from March to September 2021 to ensure health inequalities are tackled in National Health Service recovery plans.

It is not possible to estimate reliably the average waiting time for children to complete neurodevelopmental assessments in England from data currently held by NHS Digital.

I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer of 22 July to Question 27052.

We have not made such an assessment.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 26 July to Question 29135.

A specific assessment has not yet been made on a duty for integrated care boards (ICBs) to promote parity of esteem between mental and physical health. The principle of parity of esteem was enshrined in the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Legislation will set out minimum membership of ICBs and which will include representatives from National Health Service providers and we fully expect mental health trusts to play a central role in decision-making. Local areas will also have the flexibility to determine any further representation in their area, whether on the ICB or within the integrated care partnership.

I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer of 26 July to Question 10131.

Throughout the pandemic NHS England and NHS Improvement have published a variety of guidance which encompasses the robust sterilisation and decontamination of reusable medical equipment and use of single-use equipment. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care/infection-control

The purchase and use of single-use equipment is determined at individual National Health Service trust level to take into account their own facilities, workforce, finances and patient population when choosing the most appropriate medical equipment to use.

Discussions with HM Treasury on any multi-year settlement will take place within the Spending Review process. There are specialist training grants for 250 nurses to become cancer nurse specialists.

The NHS Long Term Plan set out a number of key ambitions, to improve care and outcomes for those individuals with diabetes. To support patients to potentially achieve remission from their type 2 diabetes while improving management and control, NHS England and NHS Improvement are piloting at scale, low-calorie diets. To improve care, NHS England and NHS Improvement have invested approximately £120 million of Transformation Funding into local services to target variation and improve performance in the treatment and care of people living with type 1 and 2 diabetes since 2017/18. This investment, overseen by local systems, covers the four treatment and care priorities, including: footcare teams; inpatient nursing teams; treatment target attainment; and, supported self-management.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s diabetes prevention programme identifies those most at risk of developing diabetes and refers them onto a behaviour change programme. Individuals receive tailored, personalised help to reduce their risk of developing stage 2 diabetes. Following a successful two-year pilot programme that saw a significant increase in the adoption of flash glucose technology across all clinical commissioning groups, over 35% of patients living with type 1 diabetes are now benefitting from flash glucose monitoring. Our focus on obesity and investment in weight management services also aims to prevent diabetes.

Public Health England in partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement, is running a campaign, ‘Help us help you’, to raise awareness of general symptoms of cancer and encourage people experiencing persistent symptoms to contact their general practitioner. Cancer referrals were over 10,500 referrals per day in April, and 11,000 per day in May.

Local systems, drawing on advice and analysis from their Cancer Alliance, will ensure that there is sufficient diagnostic and treatment capacity in place to meet the needs of cancer to meet the increased level of referrals and treatment required to address the shortfall in number of first treatments by March 2022. NHS England and NHS Improvement are prioritising delivery of NHS Long Term Plan commitments that also support recovery such as increasing diagnostic capacity and early diagnosis and survival rates through rapid diagnostic centres (RDC). As of June 2021, there were 88 active RDC pathways across hospitals in England, compared to 12 in March 2020.

We are enhancing capacity in community eating disorder services to improve urgent response and the delivery of intensive home treatment. Community eating disorder teams for children and young people are resourced to support early identification and access to treatment as soon as an eating disorder is suspected. These teams are working with schools, colleges and primary care to support improved awareness and access to expert advice and treatment.