To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Healthy Start Scheme
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Western (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department has taken to restore the availability of data on the uptake of Healthy Start vouchers on the Healthy Start website.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department for Work and Pensions has identified an error in their data that means that the data published for Healthy Start uptake from July 2023 onwards was incorrect. It is important to state that the data used to calculate the uptake rate is not used as part of the live check to determine eligibility for individual applicants to Healthy Start, and no individual applicants or beneficiaries have been impacted, The Department for Work and Pensions has fixed the issue, and additional checks have been added to the process to ensure the issue does not occur in the future.

The incorrect data has been removed from the NHS Healthy Start website by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA), who run the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care. Corrected and updated data for March 2024 will be published by the NHS BSA shortly.


Written Question
Healthy Start Scheme
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Western (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department has taken to restore the availability of data on Healthy Start uptake on the Healthy Start website.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department for Work and Pensions has identified an error in their data that means that the data published for Healthy Start uptake from July 2023 onwards was incorrect. It is important to state that the data used to calculate the uptake rate is not used as part of the live check to determine eligibility for individual applicants to Healthy Start, and no individual applicants or beneficiaries have been impacted, The Department for Work and Pensions has fixed the issue, and additional checks have been added to the process to ensure the issue does not occur in the future.

The incorrect data has been removed from the NHS Healthy Start website by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA), who run the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care. Corrected and updated data for March 2024 will be published by the NHS BSA shortly.


Written Question
Genito-urinary Medicine and HIV Infection: Training
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of NHS England funding the training of specialists in (a) genitourinary and (b) HIV care.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The sexual and reproductive healthcare workforce is diverse as services are offered across primary care, community and sexual health clinic settings, other public health settings as well as acute and ambulatory care settings.

The Department is consulting with NHS England to reform the funding of specialist training in genitourinary and HIV care to increase the ability of specialists to train and then practice in areas of greatest need.


Written Question
Hospitals: Homelessness
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to prevent patients (a) experiencing and (b) at risk of homelessness from being discharged from hospital to no fixed abode.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department is committed to promoting safe and timely discharge for people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, to appropriate accommodation. Between 2020 and 2022, the Department delivered £16 million to 17 local sites, to pilot Out of Hospital Care Models to people experiencing homelessness following a hospital stay. These models provide interim accommodation, care, and support while full assessments of individual needs are carried out. There are positive preliminary findings, and a final evaluation is due next month. From this we will share learning to encourage local areas to adopt similar models.

Improving how discharges are arranged for people experiencing, or at risk of homelessness, is also supported by our wider work to improve discharge processes. We have ensured every acute hospital has access to a care transfer hub to manage discharge for people with more complex needs, who need extra support. Furthermore, in January 2024 the Department published guidance on discharging people at risk of or experiencing homelessness to support staff involved in planning safe and supportive discharge of these patients from hospital. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/discharging-people-at-risk-of-or-experiencing-homelessness/discharging-people-at-risk-of-or-experiencing-homelessness


Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Sales
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number of non-compliant vapes sold on the UK market.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Trading Standards, and other regulatory enforcement agencies to ensure that products sold in the United Kingdom comply with regulations for all e-cigarette products, and that non-compliant products are removed from the market.

In April 2023, the Government announced £3 million investment over two years to enhance work on illicit vape enforcement. Led by National Trading Standards, this builds on existing work by local trading standards officers across the country. Through this work, they identified that 2.1 million illicit vapes were seized across England by Trading Standards between 2022 to 2023.

To strengthen our enforcement activity, the Government will also provide an additional £30 million of funding per year for enforcement agencies, including Trading Standards. This increase in investment will help to stamp out criminal activity by boosting the enforcement of illicit tobacco and vapes.


Written Question
Obesity
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of trends in the level of obesity; and what steps her Department is taking to help tackle obesity.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is delivering a wide range of measures to reduce the numbers of both adults and children who are overweight, or living with obesity. To date this includes legislative measures to limit the advertising, and location and price promotion, of less healthy products, and to ensure calorie levels are provided on menus when eating out of the home. Impact assessments for the legislated measures suggest there will be substantial health benefits, as well as savings to the National Health Service, accrued.

We have seen important successes through the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), which between 2015 and 2020 has seen sugar levels reduced by 46% in, and over 46,000 tonnes of sugar removed from, products in scope of the levy. Data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey from 2019 shows that sugar intakes have fallen for some age groups. In older children and adolescents, this appears to be partly driven by soft drinks contributing less to sugar intakes, likely as a result of the changes made to drinks included in the SDIL. Further information from the survey is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/ndns-results-from-years-9-to-11-2016-to-2017-and-2018-to-2019

A paper on the association of obesity in primary school children and the SDIL suggests that the reduction in the sugar content of soft drinks delivered by the SDIL could have prevented up to 5,000 cases of obesity in girls in the last year of primary school. Reductions were greatest in girls who attended schools in the 40% of the most deprived areas. Further information from the paper is available at the following link:

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004160

The voluntary reformulation programme requires businesses reduce levels of sugar, salt, and calories in everyday food and drink. Levels of sugar have reduced in breakfast cereals, yogurts, and pre-packed milk-based drinks by 15%, 13.5%, and 29.7% respectively, between 2015 and 2020. Levels of salt have reduced in some products by 20%.


Written Question
Pharmacy: ICT
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following Pharmacy First claims recently appearing incorrectly in the NHS Business Services Authority’s 'Manage Your Service' portal, what assessment they have made of (1) the loss of confidence of community pharmacies in the Pharmacy First claims system, and (2) the impact on them of needing to set up a manual double-checking system to ensure that they do not lose out on funding.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Some pharmacy contractors have experienced a discrepancy between the data that they have entered, and the data received by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). This has affected February claims for Urgent Medicines Supply. This was caused by the new formatting of data received by the NHSBSA resulting from changes made by some IT system suppliers when implementing Pharmacy First.

The NHSBSA has been working closely with IT system suppliers to resolve the issues and identify the affected contractors. They have extended the deadline for claiming February activity. Contractors will be paid for all Pharmacy First consultations undertaken.

The contractual relationship for the provision of IT to support the new services is between pharmacy contractors and IT system suppliers. Any concerns should be raised by the contractor with their chosen IT system supplier.

The Department is aware of the disruption to service this has caused to some contractors, and the concerns that contractors have overpaid. That is why the claim window has been extended, and the NHSBSA is working closely with contractors’ IT suppliers to reconcile the data to ensure every consultation is captured and paid. We are keeping the situation under close review.


Written Question
Pharmacy: ICT
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what were the circumstances behind Pharmacy First claims recently appearing incorrectly in the NHS Business Services Authority’s 'Manage Your Service' portal; and what assessment they have made of the impact of this on the workload of community pharmacies.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Some pharmacy contractors have experienced a discrepancy between the data that they have entered, and the data received by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). This has affected February claims for Urgent Medicines Supply. This was caused by the new formatting of data received by the NHSBSA resulting from changes made by some IT system suppliers when implementing Pharmacy First.

The NHSBSA has been working closely with IT system suppliers to resolve the issues and identify the affected contractors. They have extended the deadline for claiming February activity. Contractors will be paid for all Pharmacy First consultations undertaken.

The contractual relationship for the provision of IT to support the new services is between pharmacy contractors and IT system suppliers. Any concerns should be raised by the contractor with their chosen IT system supplier.

The Department is aware of the disruption to service this has caused to some contractors, and the concerns that contractors have overpaid. That is why the claim window has been extended, and the NHSBSA is working closely with contractors’ IT suppliers to reconcile the data to ensure every consultation is captured and paid. We are keeping the situation under close review.


Written Question
Blood: Contamination
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what psychological support is available for people infected and affected by contaminated blood and blood products in South Antrim.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

Health Services in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Government.

In Northern Ireland, specialist clinical psychological support has been available for all infected and affected individuals impacted by contaminated blood since January 2019. The service was initially provided within the existing Clinical Health Psychological Services. After receiving the non-recurrent funding from the Department of Health as part of the inquiry process, a dedicated regional psychological service, providing assessment, psychological therapies, liaison and sign posting as appropriate, for those individuals who were infected and affected, as well as their relatives, has been made available. This includes HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C infected or affected individuals. A patient and family information leaflet is available within clinics and to clinicians, to discuss referral to this service with patients and their families.


Written Question
Continuing Care: Expenditure
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 12 October 2021 to Question 51702 on NHS: Expenditure, how much and what proportion of the NHS budget was spent on continuing healthcare in each financial year between 2015-16 and 2021-22.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) spend data includes Standard CHC, Fast Track CHC and Personal Health Budgets (PHBs). This data for the requested period is shown in the attached table.