Asked by: Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of children who have visited an NHS dentist who would not have otherwise accessed NHS dental services as a result of the Starting Well Core initiative.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The ‘Starting Well’ programme, was developed to reach out to families with young children in 13 high need areas who were not under the care of a dentist. The first schemes began in spring 2018.
Alongside this, NHS England has developed a complementary ‘Starting Well Core’ offer, supported by the Chief Dental Officer, which commissioners can use and fund locally based on their own assessment of need. This enables areas not involved in the original scheme to commission and fund similar approaches based on their assessment of local needs.
‘Starting Well Core’ is in its initial roll-out phase. Information on the number of practices involved will be made available centrally in due course as the scheme is taken up. NHS England advises that the areas adopting this scheme include London, West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire, Cheshire and Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
NHS England advises that central costs for this scheme have focussed on developing resources, including patient information, for local commissioners who wish to use the ‘Starting Well Core’ approach. NHS England advises that to date the central spend is estimated at around £212,000. Information is not held centrally on any additional local funding directed to this scheme, including funding to increase dental capacity through this scheme. As the scheme is still being rolled out, it is, therefore, too early to assess its impact on attracting children to National Health Service dental services for the first time and no estimate has been made of the number of children who have visited an NHS dentist because of the Starting Well Core scheme, who would not have otherwise accessed NHS dental services.
Asked by: Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many NHS dental practices are actively involved in the oral health Starting Well Core initiative.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The ‘Starting Well’ programme, was developed to reach out to families with young children in 13 high need areas who were not under the care of a dentist. The first schemes began in spring 2018.
Alongside this, NHS England has developed a complementary ‘Starting Well Core’ offer, supported by the Chief Dental Officer, which commissioners can use and fund locally based on their own assessment of need. This enables areas not involved in the original scheme to commission and fund similar approaches based on their assessment of local needs.
‘Starting Well Core’ is in its initial roll-out phase. Information on the number of practices involved will be made available centrally in due course as the scheme is taken up. NHS England advises that the areas adopting this scheme include London, West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire, Cheshire and Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
NHS England advises that central costs for this scheme have focussed on developing resources, including patient information, for local commissioners who wish to use the ‘Starting Well Core’ approach. NHS England advises that to date the central spend is estimated at around £212,000. Information is not held centrally on any additional local funding directed to this scheme, including funding to increase dental capacity through this scheme. As the scheme is still being rolled out, it is, therefore, too early to assess its impact on attracting children to National Health Service dental services for the first time and no estimate has been made of the number of children who have visited an NHS dentist because of the Starting Well Core scheme, who would not have otherwise accessed NHS dental services.
Asked by: Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to limit the availability of high sugar products (1) in supermarket price promotions, and (2) at the point of sale.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Key measures in our world-leading childhood obesity plan, launched in August 2016, include the soft drinks industry levy and sugar reduction and wider reformulation programme, which will encourage the food and drink industry to reduce the amount of sugar in products popular with children.
Monitoring of progress by Public Health England (PHE) towards achieving the 20% sugar reduction by 2020 will be achieved through the use of sales weighted average sugar levels and reviewing changes in product sales towards lower or no added sugar products. If businesses over-promote high sugar products, they will be less likely to achieve the sales weighted average sugar level per 100 grams for the 20% reduction.
PHE will publish a detailed assessment of progress against delivering the 5% sugar reduction for the first year of the programme in March 2018. We will use this to determine whether sufficient progress has been made and whether alternative levers need to be considered.