Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time has been for people attending the A&E department at the King’s College Hospital Denmark Hill site in each of the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of calls were responded to within the target timeframe by the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust in each of the categories measured (a) in the area covered by that Trust and (b) in the London Borough of Southwark.
Answered by Edward Argar
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure (a) all health care practitioners are trained in menopause and (b) that menopause guidance is introduced into workplaces in England.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
To help ensure women receive the best possible care, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of menopause in November 2015. This set out the support, information and treatments needed to address the often debilitating symptoms that women suffer.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the Royal College of General Practitioners also have important roles to play in relation to awareness of, and clinical practice relating to, menopause. Recently in December 2019, the RCOG published ‘Better for Women’ which calls for a life course approach and includes a focus on general health during and after the menopause.
We encourage employers to rise to the challenge by creating supportive and flexible ways to help those living with these conditions.
Whilst curricula for training healthcare professionals do not necessarily highlight specific conditions for them to be aware of, they do emphasise the skills and approaches that professionals must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to ensure people living in the London Borough of Southwark with epilepsy can continue to get the medication they need in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Department is doing everything appropriate to prepare for leaving the European Union. We want to reassure patients throughout the United Kingdom that our plans should ensure the uninterrupted supply of medicines and medical products, including those for use in the treatment of epilepsy, once we have left the EU.
The Department, as part of our EU exit preparations, is implementing a multi-layered approach to mitigate potential disruption to supply, which consists of stockpiling where possible, securing freight capacity, changing or clarifying regulatory requirements, procuring additional warehousing, working closely with industry to improve trader readiness and putting in place the National Supply Disruption Response to manage potential shortages. Further details can be found at the following link:
We have been working closely with suppliers to monitor over 300 different epilepsy medicines provided by almost 50 companies and we are pleased to see many are holding stockpiles far beyond the six weeks’ additional buffer we requested. We also know that the vast majority of those suppliers with lower levels of stockpiles have already taken action to re-route their supply chains away from the Channel short straits crossings where applicable.
The Department, alongside NHS England and NHS Improvement, is ensuring that there is regular communication with frontline NHS organisations and stakeholders in the health and social care sector regarding our EU exit preparations. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also been holding EU exit roadshows in the lead up to 31 October.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he is putting in place to (a) support people with Tourette’s syndrome and to (a) tackle the stigma associated with that condition.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department is committed to supporting people with neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions, including Tourette’s syndrome, to live healthy and independent lives, and to tackle the stigma associated with such conditions. We have established a Neurodiversity Unit to consider what additional actions can be taken to support those with neurodevelopmental conditions to ensure that their needs are met.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to reduce vitamin D deficiency in children in primary and secondary schools in (a) the London borough of Southwark and (b) England.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Advice for children and those at increased risk of having low vitamin D levels, can be found on both GOV.UK and from the National Health Service at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-new-advice-on-vitamin-d
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/
This advice is aimed at preventing vitamin D deficiency for the general population. Doctors may also investigate a patient’s vitamin or mineral status on an individual basis to correct deficiencies, which is a matter of clinical judgement.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to undertake a public consultation on proposals to change pathology and specialist scanning services in South East London hospitals.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The South East London pathology network is being created as part of a national strategy to network all National Health Service pathology services in England, following identification of significant opportunity in the 2016 Carter review.
Due to the significant benefits to quality and cost of service, all NHS trusts are expected to network as per the direction set out by NHS Improvement in September 2017.
There are different ways to approach networking and the delivery of pathology services and the trust may wish to lead public consultation on any chosen delivery model, however the decision to consult would be for the South East London hospitals involved to decide. Neither the Department or NHS England have plans to consult on this specific network.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made the ability of the Government to meet its end of life care choice commitment to babies, children and young people by 2020.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
In July 2016, the Government set out its commitment to everyone at the end of life in the Government response to the independent Review of Choice in End of Life Care. Our Commitment to you for end of life care set out what everyone should expect from their care at the end of life and the actions we are taking to make high quality and personalisation a reality for all, both adults and children, and to end variation in end of life care across the health system by 2020. On 21 September 2017 we published One year on: the government response to the review of choice in end of life care, an assessment of the progress made in delivering this over the first year. Copies of the Choice Commitment and the progress report can be found at the following links:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/choice-in-end-of-life-care-government-response
www.gov.uk/government/publications/choice-in-end-of-life-care-government-progress
Through the Mandate, we have asked NHS England to deliver the Choice Commitment, and working through NHS England’s National Programme Board for End of life Care with all key system partners and stakeholders, including the children’s end of life care charity Together for Short Lives. In the 2017-18 Mandate we asked for the identification of metrics to assess quality and choice in end of life care. As a result, we have in place a new indicator to measure the proportion of people with three or more emergency admissions in their final 90 days of life, which will help us assess how well patients with end of life care needs are being supported by local health and care services out of hospital and in the community.
For 2018-19, the Government’s Mandate asks NHS England to increase the percentage of people identified as likely to be in their last year of life, so that their end of lifecare can be improved by personalising it according to their needs and preferences at an earlier stage. NHS England will use the Quality Outcomes Framework to demonstrate such an increase by looking at the percentage of people who are on the general practitioner register for supportive and palliative care, and consider expected levels based on local populations. Further work will also be undertaken to develop indicators that will enable NHS England to assess the effectiveness of local health economies in delivering choice and quality in end of life care in line with the Government’s commitment.
NHS England knows that it can be difficult for some commissioners to develop suitable commissioning models for children with palliative and end of care needs, given the relatively small number of children concerned and their geographical spread. NHS England has established a Task and Finish Group to bring together knowledge and expertise in children’s end of life care to consider the development of commissioning models suitable for this vulnerable group of patients. The group met for the first time on 31 May 2018.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been spent from the public purse on palliative care services for children in (a) the London Borough of Southwark and (b) England in each of the last eight years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As with the vast majority of NHS services, the funding and commissioning of palliative and end of life care is a local matter, over which individual clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have responsibility. CCGs are best placed to understand the needs of local populations and commission services to meet those needs accordingly, and as such, decisions to fund an increase for palliative care services or hospice provision are for the local National Health Service.
Much of the palliative care patients receive will be provided either in outpatient or community settings, by nurses, community teams or general practitioners (GPs) as part of general NHS services provision, rather than as an identified palliative care service. In such services, data are either not available or does not identify palliative treatment. In addition, social and voluntary sector organisations can provide additional support to patients and the end of life. Therefore, figures for the total cost of palliative care service for children nationally, or across boroughs, is not available.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to require Clinical Commissioning Groups to provide annual funding to children’s (a) hospices and (b) palliative care services.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As with the vast majority of NHS services, the funding and commissioning of palliative and end of life care is a local matter, over which individual clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have responsibility. CCGs are best placed to understand the needs of local populations and commission services to meet those needs accordingly, and as such, decisions to fund an increase for palliative care services or hospice provision are for the local National Health Service.
Much of the palliative care patients receive will be provided either in outpatient or community settings, by nurses, community teams or general practitioners (GPs) as part of general NHS services provision, rather than as an identified palliative care service. In such services, data are either not available or does not identify palliative treatment. In addition, social and voluntary sector organisations can provide additional support to patients and the end of life. Therefore, figures for the total cost of palliative care service for children nationally, or across boroughs, is not available.