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.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the statement in the Queen's Speech that they will ensure that mental health is prioritised in the National Health Service, what steps they are taking to (1) end health inequalities faced by people with severe mental illness, and (2) ensure that those people have the same life expectancy as the rest of the population.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
This Government was the first to introduce waiting time targets for mental health, has increased funding to £11.6 billion and committed to increasing access to 1 million more people by 2020/21.
Public Health England (PHE) is taking action to reduce premature mortality for people with serious mental illness.
PHE has responsibility for Recommendation 20 in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, which focuses on ensuring that people with mental health problems who are at greater risk of poor physical health get access to prevention and screening programmes. This includes primary and secondary prevention through screening and NHS Health Checks, as well as interventions for physical activity, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and access to ‘stop smoking’ services.
Asked by: Lord Pendry (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government how they intend to ensure that the UK's withdrawal from the EU does not jeopardise or undermine cross–border healthcare provision in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
As the Prime Minister said in her Article 50 letter we want to avoid a return to a hard border between the United Kingdom and Ireland and maintain the Common Travel Area (CTA) between us. We recognise that for the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland, the ability to move freely across the border is an essential part of daily life. There is a strong appetite on both sides of the border and in all parts of the UK to maintain the current status quo. The Government has been clear that there will be no immediate changes to our practices surrounding the CTA.