Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they will ensure education on, and access to, contraceptives for marginalised and under-served populations.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to ensuring that the public has equal access to the best possible contraceptive services. The women’s health area on the National Health Service website brings together over 100 different women’s health topics, including contraception, as a first port of call for women seeking health information. Education surrounding contraceptives should be delivered to all pupils via the Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum. RSHE became compulsory in all schools in September 2020. The statutory guidance is clear that as part of the topic ‘intimate and sexual relationships’, pupils in secondary schools should know the facts about the full range of contraceptive choices, efficacy, and options available. These subjects should be taught to all pupils in schools, and teachers have the flexibility to deliver the curriculum in a way that meets the needs of their individual pupils.
Contraception is a core service for women’s health hub pilots. Women’s health hubs bring together healthcare professionals and existing services to provide integrated women’s health services in the community, centred on meeting women’s needs across the life course and reducing health inequalities. The Department has invested £25 million over 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the establishment of at least one pilot women’s health hub in every integrated care system.
To offer greater choice in how women can access contraception services across the country, the NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service was launched in April 2023, enabling pharmacists to issue ongoing supplies of contraception, initiated in general practice surgeries and sexual health services. The service relaunched in December 2023 to enable community pharmacies to also initiate oral contraception.
Survey outputs from the 2023 Women’s Reproductive Health Survey will be used to inform future policy development and support strategy work by improving our ability to monitor changes and inequalities in women and girls’ access to contraceptives.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they will ensure equitable postpartum and post-abortion contraception provisions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to ensuring that the public receives equitable access to the best possible contraceptive services. Contraception advice is delivered in sexual health services, general practice, some pharmacies, abortion and maternity services, and online. NHS England strives to ensure that this is integrated into a range of different health encounters that women are likely to have. For example, contraception advice is provided during both antenatal consultations and at the time of postnatal discharge. Many maternity services also provide both user-based and longer acting methods of contraception at this opportunity.
NHS England has published guidance to support general practitioners to provide all women with comprehensive mental and physical postnatal check-ups six to eight weeks after they give birth. The guidance, which was written in collaboration with the Royal College of General Practitioners, provides clear advice to address unwarranted variation for the delivery of safer, more equitable, more personalised care. This includes flexible appointment times tailored to a women’s needs.
The postnatal consultation provides an important opportunity for contraceptive health needs to be assessed. During this, women should be asked about contraception and supported to make planned choices about future pregnancies.
Contraception is commonly offered and provided by abortion services, in line with National Institute for Care and Excellence guidelines on abortion care, that were published in September 2019. The guidelines set out that commissioners and providers should ensure that a full range of contraceptive options is available for women on the same day as their surgical or medical abortion. Providers should also ensure that healthcare professionals have the knowledge and skills to provide all contraceptive options, including the contraceptive implant, injections, and intrauterine methods of contraception.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government with reference to the Department for Health and Social Care’s publication of the updated Notification of Child Death Form, which Minister, if any, approved the new questions on gender identity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The current process for updating the child death review data collection forms does not require ministerial approval.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to the Department for Health and Social Care’s publication of the updated Notification of Child Death Form, whether the new questions on gender identity are voluntary for (1) NHS staff to ask, and (2) parents to answer.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the death of a child, it may not always be a healthcare professional making the notification and therefore these questions may be answered by a range of different professionals, for instance those in healthcare, police, or social care. The questions will be answered based on what the professional knows at the time when they are making the notification of death. Therefore, if they do not hold any information on the gender identity of the child, this question will not be answered.
Parents would not be completing these forms. The purpose of the notification form is to give the basic information on what is known about the child by the professional at the time of death.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the Food Data Transparency Partnership’s decision not to make reporting on health data mandatory, what steps they are taking to ensure enforcement of and consistency in the voluntary scheme.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Food Data Transparency Partnership’s (FDTP) Health Working Group (HWG) has been testing the effectiveness and quality of potential standardised metrics that food and drink companies can use to report on the healthiness of their sales. This is an important part of government’s strategy to address poor diet and reduce obesity and was restated in the Major Conditions Strategy interim report August 2023.
Once a recommended set of metrics and reporting guidance has been produced and approved by Ministers, the expectation is that businesses who voluntarily report will all follow this standardised approach.
A key commitment of the HWG is timely and transparent communication so that wider food sector stakeholders can input into each stage of the process in order to ensure recommendations around comparability and enforcement will be as viable and effective as possible. Alongside engagement with industry, the FDTP also regularly engages civil society organisations and investor groups to gather and integrate wider feedback into discussions. Summaries of these HWG discussions are published online on the FDTP GOV.UK page.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to tackle diet-related ill-health, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
We remain committed to promoting a healthy diet for adults and children and are delivering an ambitious programme of work to create a healthier environment to help people make healthy food choices to improve health and to tackle diet related ill health. There are a range of measures in place to support improving diets, promoting physical activity and reducing obesity.
Regulations on out of home calorie labelling for food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways, came into force in April 2022. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, sugar or salt in key selling locations, came into force on 1 October 2022. We will be implementing restrictions on the sale of less healthy products by volume price such as ‘3 for 2’ and will introduce restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on TV and paid for less healthy product advertising online from 1 October 2025.
We are working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for the public to make healthier choices. The Food Data Transparency Partnership will help enable and encourage food companies to voluntarily demonstrate progress on the healthiness of their sales.
The Government continues to promote the Eatwell Guide principles through the NHS.UK website and government social marketing campaigns such as Better Health Healthier Families and Start for Life. We are also supporting more than three million children through the Healthy Foods Schemes and helping schools boost physical activity to help children maintain a healthy weight and good overall health through the Primary School PE and Sport Premium and the School Games Organiser Network.
We are continuing to support local authorities to improve the uptake of the NHS Health Check, England's cardiovascular disease prevention programme. The NHS Health Check helps to prevent a range of conditions including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Each year the programme engages over 1 million people and prevents around 400 heart attacks or strokes.