Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to build on the benefits of the Healthy Living Pharmacy framework and to increase the role of community pharmacies in the prevention of ill-health.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Both the NHS Long Term Plan and the Prevention is Better than Cure vision document, published in November 2018, set out an ambition for community pharmacy to take on an expanded role to support the prevention of ill-health. In 2016, Public Health England (PHE) introduced profession-led self-assessment for attainment of Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) level 1 status. This was followed by the introduction of a quality payment for HLP level 1 status attainment within the community pharmacy contractual framework. As a result, there has been an increase in the numbers achieving HLP status. There are now 9,562 community pharmacies in England, meeting standards set out by Public Health England and delivering a wide range of lifestyle and public health interventions. For example, to support national Smile Month. 74,563 pharmacy staff across England have passed an assessment of knowledge on children’s dental health and have taken part in a mandatory campaign to reduce oral health inequalities, to improve oral health in children under five.
In line with this, the NHS Long Term Plan outlines an aim for voluntary sector partners, community pharmacists and general practitioner practices to work together to facilitate opportunities for the public to check on their health, through tests for high blood pressure and other high-risk conditions. The Department is now developing a Green Paper on Prevention to further work up this ambition and plans for delivering it. This will be published later this year.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the role of community pharmacies (1) in promoting self care, and (2) as a first point of contact recognised in contractual frameworks.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In terms of promoting self-care, community pharmacy contractors are already obliged by the community pharmacy contractual framework to provide advice and support to enable people to derive maximum benefit from caring for themselves or their families. NHS England and Improvement have been running the Help Us to Help You campaigns which educate the public on the ability of community pharmacies to help the public and patients with their needs relating to self-care and minor illness.
In 2016, Public Health England (PHE) introduced profession-led self-assessment for attainment of healthy living pharmacy (HLP) level 1 status. This was followed by the introduction of a quality payment for HLP level 1 status attainment. As a result, there has been an increase in the numbers achieving HLP status. There are now more than 9,500 community pharmacies already accredited as HLPs, each with qualified health champions promoting health and wellbeing messages, helping to prevent people from becoming ill and maintaining the health of those that are already ill in their communities.
PHE is developing an HLP framework for commissioners which can be used when commissioning public health services to ensure consistency of delivery across the country, due to be published in spring 2020. These services help to further increase the role of community pharmacy in prevention and improving health.
In terms of community pharmacies as a first point of contact, the HLP initiative is also relevant. In addition, since December 2017, NHS England and NHS Improvement has been piloting the Digital Minor Illness Referral Service. This is a service that allows referrals from NHS 111 to community pharmacies for advice and support for minor illnesses and health concerns. The outcome for the patient, if they attend the pharmacy for a consultation with the pharmacist, may be either to receive advice alone or advice with access to medicines through a private sale of an over the counter medicine or potentially a medicine supply through a locally commissioned minor ailment scheme. In November 2018, the pilot was expanded to include London, Devon and the East Midlands., in addition to the North East.
Since 2016, the NHS Medicines Supply Advanced Service has been piloted. This is service manages a referral from NHS 111 to a community pharmacy where a patient has contacted NHS 111 because they need urgent access to a medicine or appliance that they have been previously prescribed on a National Health Service prescription.
Furthermore, the Department, with NHS England and NHS Improvement, has now begun negotiations with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee to determine the new Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework for 2019/20 and beyond. These are confidential negotiations and as such we are unable to provide further detail at this time.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the frequency of the Children's Dental Health Survey, currently conducted every ten years.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Dental Health Survey of Children and Young People has taken place every 10 years since 1973 with the most recent survey carried out in 2013. There are no plans to change the frequency of this survey which provides an important time series of information used to underpin and help plan dental health care for children in England.
The Government is committed to improving oral health in England and the Child Dental Health Survey is a valuable source of data and indicator of children’s oral health over time.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to include specific measures to prioritise good oral health in the forthcoming Green Paper on prevention.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We are considering a number of policy options for the Prevention Green Paper including measures to improve oral health. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care (Seema Kennedy MP) has held a roundtable meeting with dental and oral health stakeholders on 19 June to discuss Government plans on prevention and oral health in more detail.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the range of vaccination sources that could be provided in community pharmacies through the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Vaccination is one of the world’s most clinically effective public health interventions. Community pharmacies already provide National Health Service flu vaccination. During the 2018/19 flu season 1,431,538 vaccinations were provided in community pharmacy.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently undertaking a review of all vaccinations and immunisations and community pharmacy is represented in that review.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many nurses have returned to the NHS in the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The data is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are considering taking steps to reduce differences in levels of obesity between more and less deprived areas; and if so, what steps.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
In Childhood obesity: a plan for action, chapter 2, published in June 2018, we have set a bold ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce the gap in obesity between children from the most and least deprived areas by 2030. We want to achieve this by ensuring that we are supporting parents, particularly in the most deprived families, to help their children have the best start in life. We have reiterated this ambition in our vision document Prevention is better than cure, published on 5 November 2018, and in the NHS Long Term Plan published on 8 January 2019.
The childhood obesity plan delivers school based interventions including revenue from the soft drinks industry levy being invested in programmes targeted at disadvantaged children including up to £26 million to fund a breakfast club programme between 2017-18 and 2019-20 and £22 million in an Essential Life Skills programme in 12 Opportunity Areas to enable disadvantaged children aged 5-18 to participate in regular extra-curricular activities, including sporting activities, to develop essential life skills.
Through the Healthy Food Schemes, the Government provides a nutritional safety net to those who need it the most. The three schemes that make up this programme, Healthy Start, Nursery Milk and School Fruit and Vegetables, help to support children, babies and women through pregnancy, when they are at home, in childcare and in early years at school.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to introduce targets for reducing obesity amongst adults.
Answered by Baroness Manzoor
There are no plans to introduce targets for reducing obesity amongst adults. Many of the measures in both chapters of the childhood obesity plan will have an impact on tackling obesity across all age groups. These include the soft drinks industry levy, sugar reduction and wider calorie reformulation programme, restricting promotions and calorie labelling in restaurants which will improve our eating habits and reduce the amount of sugar we consume.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to reduce rising rates of tooth decay among young children in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the West Midlands.
Answered by Baroness Manzoor
The Government is committed to improving oral health, particularly of deprived children.
NHS England (Yorkshire and the Humber) have finalised plans to improve access to National Health Service dental services across the region. Over £4 million is being invested in the areas with the greatest need to increase the number of available dental appointments.
NHS England ‘Starting Well’ programme which will work in 13 high needs areas to reach children most at risk of tooth decay who are not currently under the routine care of a dentist. This includes the North West (Blackburn with Darwen; Blackpool; Bolton; Oldham; Rochdale and Salford).
Nationally, NHS England has also developed a complementary Starting Well Core offer, a commissioning approach designed to facilitate increased access and early preventive care for young children, supported by the Chief Dental Officer, which commissioners can use and fund locally based on their own assessment of need. Starting Well Core is being implemented by NHS England West Midlands in a bid to increase dental access amongst young children across the region.
Alongside local authorities’ duties to improve health, including oral health, Public Health England is leading a wide ranging multi agency programme focussing on improving children’s oral health. The Child Health Improvement Programme Board which supports evidenced based actions that will increase the use of fluoride (toothpaste, varnish, water fluoridation). This is in addition to the childhood obesity plan which sets out measures that will reduce the amount of sugar children consume.
The Department and NHS England are continuing to test a new way of providing NHS dental services which aims to further improve oral health and increase access. Over 70 practices are currently trialling a new way of delivering primary care dentistry which focusses on prevention and helping patients to reduce their risk of future disease.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what impact NHS England's Starting Well scheme has had to date; and whether they have any plans to extend that scheme.
Answered by Baroness Manzoor
The ‘Starting Well’ programme, led by NHS England at the request of the Department, is designed to reach out to families with young children in 13 high need areas who are not currently under the care of a dentist. There are now over 300 practices participating in the scheme. The first schemes began in spring 2018.
NHS England has commissioned an external evaluation of the scheme and its impact. NHS England advises the first information from this evaluation is expected to be made available later in spring 2019.
NHS England has since developed a complementary scheme ‘Starting Well Core’ which allows areas not involved in the original scheme to commission and fund locally similar approaches based on their assessment of local needs.