Asked by: Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS beds per 100,000 people were provided for mental health patients in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Norman Lamb
This information is not available in the format requested. The table below shows the average daily number of mental health beds open overnight in each of the last 10 years, for all NHS trusts with mental health beds in England.
Year | Beds per 100,000 population |
2013-14 | 40.75 |
2012-13 | 41.87 |
2011-12 | 43.59 |
2010-11 | 44.54 |
2009-10 | 48.86 |
2008-09 | 51.04 |
2007-08 | 52.41 |
2006-07 | 54.77 |
2005-06 | 58.89 |
2004-05 | 62.33 |
Source: NHS England KH03 return.
Since 2010-11 the data has been collected in a different format, therefore it cannot be directly compared with the data prior to 2010-11.
The Government has made it clear that beds must always be available for those who need them. We have set out in our Mandate to NHS England that plans must be put in place to ensure no one in mental health crisis will be turned away.
The first ever national Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat is a commitment by agencies to work together to improve care and support for people in mental health crisis. The Crisis Care Concordat makes it clear that local commissioners should commission a range of mental health services that respond rapidly and appropriately to a person in urgent need. We asked local areas to commit to and agree their own ‘Mental Health Crisis Declaration’ before the end of 2014. Every area in England agreed a Declaration by 23 December 2014 and work is now underway across the country to develop action plans detailing how local partners will improve crisis care for people of all ages. Progress with these plans can be seen at:
www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/
Asked by: Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve public awareness of neuroblastoma.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Public Health England runs a number of campaigns under the Be Clear on Cancer brand. These campaigns are aimed at the demographic groups most likely to develop cancer and to delay presentation, and focus on raising public awareness of the signs and symptoms of certain cancers. Priority has been given to those cancers with the largest number of potentially avoidable deaths - these include breast cancer (particularly targeting older women), bowel cancer, lung cancer and kidney and bladder cancers.
There are no plans at present to include neuroblastoma specifically in the Be Clear on Cancer campaigns but the existing campaigns do help to encourage earlier presentation to general practitioners with any worrying symptom. We will continue to keep these campaigns under review and work with relevant experts to see what might be done to tackle other cancers such as neuroblastoma.
Asked by: Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to support research into neuroblastoma.
Answered by George Freeman
The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is supporting neuroblastoma research through NIHR biomedical research centres, the NIHR clinical research facility at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (funded jointly with Cancer Research UK) and the NIHR Clinical Research Network. A study of re-purposing of 13-cis-retinoic acid for use in treating children with neuroblastoma has recently been approved for funding through the Health Innovation Challenge Fund. This is a fund jointly supported by the Department and the Wellcome Trust.