Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to ensure that any recommendations arising from the green paper on social care to be published in the summer will be considered separately to plans for the allocation of the £20.5 billion additional funding to NHS England announced by the Prime Minister on 18 June.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
It is right that social care funding is agreed alongside the rest of the local government settlement at the forthcoming spending review. However, we recognise that the health and social care systems are two sides of the same coin and we will ensure that social care places no additional pressure on the National Health Service. We also know that decisions on future reforms must be aligned, and this is precisely why it makes sense that we are now publishing the Green Paper in the autumn, around the same time as the NHS plan.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the estimated cost to the NHS of the treatment of obesity in (1) 2016, and (2) 2017.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The economic burden of ill health due to diet, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol and obesity in the UK: an update to 2006-07 NHS costs estimated that overweight and obesity cost the National Health Service in the United Kingdom £5.1 billion per year. This figure was uplifted to £6.1 billion in 2014/15 to take account of inflation. No estimates have been made centrally of the cost of obesity in 2016 or 2017.
A copy of The economic burden of ill health due to diet, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol and obesity in the UK: an update to 2006-07 NHS costs is attached.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the need to reduce vacancy levels amongst medical professionals and ancillary staff in the NHS.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
As set out in NHS Improvement’s most recent quarterly Performance of the NHS provider sector report, management information shows that over the course of the last year medical vacancy rates have reduced, from 10,848 whole time equivalent (WTE) in the first quarter of 2017/18 to 9,676 WTE in the third quarter of 2017/18.
A copy of Performance of the NHS provider sector for the month ended 31 December 2017 is attached.
NHS Improvement supports providers to reduce these rates. This includes programmes to reduce reliance on medicals locums and the development of new roles to support advanced clinical practice.
Information on the vacancy rates of ancillary staff is not available centrally.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to address the reported practice of drugs manufacturers supplying unlicensed medicines or special orders to the NHS at an inflated cost.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Our priority is to ensure that patients have access to safe and effective medicines.
For unlicensed medicines known as ‘specials’, reimbursement arrangements are in place that provide value for money in the majority of instances.
No company should exploit the National Health Service. That is why the Department will lay new regulations in the next few months that will require all specials manufacturers to provide information to the Department related to their sales. This will provide more transparency about the costs of specials and make our reimbursement arrangements more robust.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what change there will be in the number of people aged 65 and above by 2030; and what assessment they have made of the demand for an increase in the number of care workers and the need for measures to be introduced to aid recruitment and retention.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Office for National Statistics publishes population projections. The latest forecasts for England between 2017 and 2030 shows there is projected to be a 31% increase from 10,063,400 to 13,166,900 in the number of people aged 65 and over.
The Department is aware that our challenge, working alongside stakeholders in the adult social care sector, is to ensure the workforce has the right number of people to meet increasing demands, with the right skills, knowledge and behaviours to deliver quality, compassionate care. That is why we have set out a plan to attract and retain talented staff, backed by an additional £2 billion investment in the sector over the next three years and a commitment to consult on the future of social care to ensure sustainability in the long term.
Skill for Care publishes projections of the adult social care workforce and they forecast the number of adult social care jobs could increase by 31% (500,000 jobs) to around two million jobs by 2030.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the expenditure per head of population for each NHS England clinical commissioning group.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The information is not available in the format requested. However, figures for the total expenditure of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England for 2016-17 are in the table, which has been attached owing to the size of the data.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Health Foundation's recommendations in its Election Briefing: NHS and Social Care Funding, that (1) the level of NHS spending per person should, as a minimum, be maintained, and (2) health care funding should increase at least in line with the growth of GDP.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
National Health Service funding as announced in the 2015 Spending Review will see real terms rises in spend per head of 3.6% over the period 2015-16 to 2020-21 or an average of 0.7% in real terms per annum.
NHS funding is planned to increase by 7.5% over the period 2015-16 to 2020-21 or an average of 1.5% in real terms per annum. The Government recognises that the delivery of a strong economy is of vital importance to enable sufficient funding for the future sustainability of the NHS.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government how they intend to address findings from the Health Foundation that in the past three years the NHS has failed to meet its target for ambulance response times for those 999 calls where there is an immediate threat to life.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Secretary of State for Health announced the publication of the University of Sheffield Report on the Ambulance Response Programme and subsequent recommendations by Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s National Medical Director, on 13 July 2017. The report evaluates a series of pilots intended to support ambulance services in England to maintain and improve clinical outcomes for patients in the face of unprecedented increases in demand.
Based on the extensive evidence base detailed in the report, NHS England will put in place a new framework of ambulance performance standards and related operational changes that are focused on patients’ clinical needs and will help the service to operate more efficiently. One of the key consquences of the changes is that the ambulance services in England will be able to more consistently and sustainabily be able to provide rapid responds to calls where there is an immediate threat to life.
NHS England will now implement the Ambulance Response Programme recommendations in all ambulance services in the England so that patients across the country will benefit from the improvements seen in the pilot ambulance services.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government whether they are planning to widen access to specialist care for the 2,500 young people each year who are diagnosed with cancer, in the light of the estimate by the Teenage Cancer Trust that only half those people are currently in receipt of such services.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
NHS England, through its Specialised Commissioning team, commissions cancer services for children, teenagers and young people (0-24) on the basis of service specifications. The requirements in the service specification should be delivered by providers to all patients. The service specification outlines the role of different organisations and multidisciplinary teams as follows:
- Patients aged 16 to 18 years should be admitted to a Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Principal Treatment Centre which should provide age appropriate facilities;
- Patients aged 19 to 24 years should be offered a choice of access to a TYA Principal Treatment Centre with unhindered access to age- appropriate facilities; or
- A hospital designated to provide care for young adults within its adult cancer services.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation from the charity Rethink Mental Illness in their Manifesto 2017, that Her Majesty’s Government should appoint a cabinet level ministerial post for mental health with responsibility for ensuring a cross-Government plan to address mental inequalities.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Improving mental health in England is a priority for this Government and my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is part of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, is committed to ensuring the transformation of mental health through delivery of the mental health commitments in the Five Year Forward View. This includes addressing mental health inequalities. To ensure the delivery of this transformation programme a robust governance structure has been put in place, which includes ministers across Whitehall.