Asked by: Lord Cotter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government what action they will take in response to claims that hospital patients are paying 50p a minute to make telephone calls.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Department is not party to the contracts made with any of the companies that provide the bedside telephone service to patients and it has not made an assessment of the contingency arrangements National Health Service trusts have in place, should their service provider be unable to fulfil its contractual obligations. Therefore it has no authority to impose any price changes on the suppliers of the services.
Patients can use their mobile phones as an alternative in specified areas of the hospital and payphones should be available as an alternative.
It is the responsibility of the NHS trust to consider contingency arrangements, should it wish to continue to provide this service to its patients. The telephone company contracts are made between individual NHS trusts and their chosen suppliers. Trusts do, in fact, have the ability to renegotiate their terms.
The bedside telephone is an additional service to that which existed in the past so alternatives already exist in hospitals. It is still possible for relatives and friends to contact a hospital via its main switchboard, and then be transferred to the nurses’ station on a ward to enquire about their relative’s health, as they have always been able to do in the past.
Asked by: Lord Cotter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which parity of esteem between the treatment of mental health and physical health is applied across the NHS.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government set out parity of esteem in physical and mental health in law in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The Government also set up the first waiting times for mental health – to improve access to psychological therapies and early intervention in psychosis, we have also introduced a waiting time for General Practitioners, reflecting commitments which had existed in physical health for some time. The Government further retained this commitment by welcoming the independent Mental Health Taskforce’s Five Year Forward View for Mental Health report in February 2016. The report set out a strategy for change in four key areas to drive forward improvements in mental health: promoting good mental health and helping people lead the lives they want to live, integrating care, creating a seven-day National Health Service for mental health and hard-wiring mental health across health and social care. The Government accepted all the report’s recommendations in January 2017 and published a detailed action plan for taking forward the recommendations, including how we will monitor progress and report transparently. NHS England’s implementation plan for the Five Year Forward View, published in July 2016, also set out a robust plan for delivering the commitments set out in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.
Asked by: Lord Cotter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to promote organic foods with the aim of reducing potential health effects such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Organic food production is based on low input, sustainable systems which provide environmental benefits. The Government’s view is that there is no firm evidence to support claims of consistent differences in the nutrient content of organic food, compared to conventional, or to confirm beneficial health effects associated with their consumption.
For the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, the Government encourages individuals to adopt a healthy balanced diet, as represented in the Eatwell Guide. This means increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, oily fish and fibre, and reducing the consumption of energy (calories), saturated fat, salt and sugar. A copy of the Eatwell Guide is attached.