Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the recruitment of nurses and midwives in the next three years.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
To meet the growing need to increase the future supply of registered nurses, additional clinical placement funding was announced by the Department in August and October 2017. This enables around 5,000 more nursing students to enter training each year to 2020-21, representing a 25% increase compared to 2016-17.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (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 incidence of childhood dental decay in (1) those regions where the water supply is fluoridated, and (2) those where it is not.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Public Health England’s Water fluoridation Health monitoring report for England 2014 compared a range of dental and non-dental health indicators in fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas.
The report concluded that, when deprivation and ethnicity were taken into account, five year-old children in areas with a fluoridated water supply were 28% less likely to have tooth decay than those in non-fluoridated areas, and 12 year-old children in areas with a fluoridated water supply were 21% less likely to have had tooth decay in permanent teeth than children living in non-fluoridated areas. A copy of Water fluoridation Health monitoring report for England 2014 is attached.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current vacancy rate for nurses and midwives in the UK.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Management information data collected by NHS Improvement estimates that as at September 2017, around 36,000 registered nursing and midwifery posts are not filled by a substantive member of staff - 33,000 of these are covered by bank and agency staff. This is management information data that continues to be developed.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of nurses and midwives from other EU countries who have returned to their country of origin in the last two years.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The information requested is not collected by the Department.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they anticipate a reduction in the number of nurses and midwives from EU countries coming to the UK after Brexit; if so, by how much; and what assessment they have made of the impact on the NHS of any such reduction.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government hugely values the contribution of all the European Union staff working across the National Health Service and social care, including nurses and midwives. The Government is committed to ensuring a clear pathway to permanent residency for these EU citizens.
The Department continues to monitor and analyse overall staffing levels across the NHS and social care, and we are working across Government to ensure there will continue to be sufficient staff to deliver the high quality services on which patients rely following the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU.
We are also working hard to improve our domestic supply of nurses and midwives. This year there are more nurses on our wards than last year and numbers will continue to increase in future because of a 25% increase in training places, the introduction of new routes into the profession through the Nursing Degree Apprenticeship, and an increase in the number of nurse associates.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the removal of the role of the National Clinical Director for gastrointestinal and liver diseases, what other forms of information and advice on those diseases are available to NHS England.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In future, NHS England will seek clinical advice on issues relating to gastrointestinal and liver disease from a variety of sources. This will include experts at Public Health England (PHE) for issues which are alcohol related, the National Clinical Director for Obesity and Diabetes for issues relating to obesity induced fatty liver disease as well as through the Clinical Reference Group for hepatitis C and the medical Royal Colleges.
Information on liver and gastrointestinal (GI) diseases is also available from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, PHE Atlases of variation, relevant national audits and regular clinical communication between the national Medical Director, his senior team and the relevant Royal Colleges and specialist societies and with senior professionals.
NHS England continues to run an Endoscopy Stakeholder Group to ensure that all aspects of diagnostic pathways for GI disease are reviewed and clinical advice is taken regarding policy developments to address the current and projected requirement in capacity. The relevant specialist societies are key members of this group. NHS England also supports the national Cancer Implementation Programme on behalf of the arm’s length bodies, which includes workstreams on early diagnosis, and on living with and beyond cancer, both of which are addressing many issues that affect patients with GI cancers.
Health Education England will continue to ensure that they engage with employers to forecast how many gastroenterologists they require year on year. The process for making decisions relating to medical training numbers is currently being refined. Medical speciality training post numbers will be reviewed in greater depth with a range of stakeholders on a rolling programme; approximately every two years. Gastroenterology is expected to be reviewed this winter.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether NHS England will seek advice from specialist gastrointestinal disease societies following the removal of the role of National Clinical Director for that area.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In future, NHS England will seek clinical advice on issues relating to gastrointestinal and liver disease from a variety of sources. This will include experts at Public Health England (PHE) for issues which are alcohol related, the National Clinical Director for Obesity and Diabetes for issues relating to obesity induced fatty liver disease as well as through the Clinical Reference Group for hepatitis C and the medical Royal Colleges.
Information on liver and gastrointestinal (GI) diseases is also available from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, PHE Atlases of variation, relevant national audits and regular clinical communication between the national Medical Director, his senior team and the relevant Royal Colleges and specialist societies and with senior professionals.
NHS England continues to run an Endoscopy Stakeholder Group to ensure that all aspects of diagnostic pathways for GI disease are reviewed and clinical advice is taken regarding policy developments to address the current and projected requirement in capacity. The relevant specialist societies are key members of this group. NHS England also supports the national Cancer Implementation Programme on behalf of the arm’s length bodies, which includes workstreams on early diagnosis, and on living with and beyond cancer, both of which are addressing many issues that affect patients with GI cancers.
Health Education England will continue to ensure that they engage with employers to forecast how many gastroenterologists they require year on year. The process for making decisions relating to medical training numbers is currently being refined. Medical speciality training post numbers will be reviewed in greater depth with a range of stakeholders on a rolling programme; approximately every two years. Gastroenterology is expected to be reviewed this winter.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what mechanisms they plan to employ to seek advice on workforce planning for gastroenterology following the removal of the role of National Clinical Director for that area.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In future, NHS England will seek clinical advice on issues relating to gastrointestinal and liver disease from a variety of sources. This will include experts at Public Health England (PHE) for issues which are alcohol related, the National Clinical Director for Obesity and Diabetes for issues relating to obesity induced fatty liver disease as well as through the Clinical Reference Group for hepatitis C and the medical Royal Colleges.
Information on liver and gastrointestinal (GI) diseases is also available from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, PHE Atlases of variation, relevant national audits and regular clinical communication between the national Medical Director, his senior team and the relevant Royal Colleges and specialist societies and with senior professionals.
NHS England continues to run an Endoscopy Stakeholder Group to ensure that all aspects of diagnostic pathways for GI disease are reviewed and clinical advice is taken regarding policy developments to address the current and projected requirement in capacity. The relevant specialist societies are key members of this group. NHS England also supports the national Cancer Implementation Programme on behalf of the arm’s length bodies, which includes workstreams on early diagnosis, and on living with and beyond cancer, both of which are addressing many issues that affect patients with GI cancers.
Health Education England will continue to ensure that they engage with employers to forecast how many gastroenterologists they require year on year. The process for making decisions relating to medical training numbers is currently being refined. Medical speciality training post numbers will be reviewed in greater depth with a range of stakeholders on a rolling programme; approximately every two years. Gastroenterology is expected to be reviewed this winter.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have assessed the plans of NHS England for provision of mandated research in the NHS.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department of Health formally holds NHS England to account on its delivery against the research objective in the NHS Mandate, a process which will be rolled forward during 2016/7.
Progress has been made in the areas of participation of National Health Service organisations in research, with 98% of NHS trusts recruited into National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network Portfolio studies during the course of 2014/15, and 78% of NHS trusts recruiting to commercial contract studies in the same year. In addition, recruitment of participants into such studies increased in 2014/15 compared to the previous year to 618,453 participants. Recruitment into commercial contract studies is at an all-time high, with 34,885 participants in 2014/15; a 35% increase from 2013/14.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (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 observations of the National Audit Office that there was a 7.2 per cent shortfall in nursing, midwifery and health visitor staffing levels in 2014.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department has set up Health Education England (HEE) to plan the future healthcare workforce for England. They are responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply that reflects the needs of local service users, providers and commissioners of healthcare. There are already over 50,000 nurses in training. HEE has increased adult nurse training places by 14% over the last two years. HEE has also increased midwifery training places by 1.6% in the last 12 months and have confirmed their intention to maintain that number of places in 2017-18.
In addition to funding nurses through undergraduate training, HEE is running a return to practice campaign to attract nurses back to the National Health Service. This initiative has already yielded an additional 779 nurses available for employment now.