Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
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 that rural communities' access to a local GP surgery is maintained.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Capitation payments to practices include a formula weighting for rurality. The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme offers a £20,000 salary supplement to attract general practitioner trainees to work in areas of the country where training places have been unfilled for a number of years, such as rural locations. Additionally, NHS England and NHS Improvement have allowed commissioners to waive the Primary Care Network (PCN) minimum population where a PCN serves a community with a low population density across a large rural and remote area.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
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 tackle waiting lists for mental health services in Hertfordshire.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
To improve mental health waiting lists in the Hertfordshire area, 14 organisations have formed the Hertfordshire Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Collaborative. The Collaborative aims to develop joint working between these organisations to improve outcomes for local people. It will address local mental health demand in Hertfordshire and manage waiting times to ensure people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.
We have provided an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expanding the provision of mental health services in England. This will allow an additional two million people to access timely mental health care. We have also invested a further £500 million in 2021/22.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure that all hospitals allow expectant mothers to be accompanied when (a) attending antenatal appointments and (b) they are in labour.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
NHS England and NHS Improvement refreshed guidance on visiting restrictions for maternity services on 15 April 2021, asking all National Health Service providers to urgently complete any further action needed to ensure partners can accompany women to antenatal appointments. All maternity units should be allowing partners and support people to attend all scans and appointments.
All maternity units are allowing at least one birth partner who has no symptoms of coronavirus present with them during any type of labour and birth except some urgent emergency births or where a general anaesthetic is used.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
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 improve young people’s mental health as part of the recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We are providing an additional £79 million in 2021/22 for children and young people’s mental health services to allow around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services, and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
We are also providing £13 million to ensure young people aged 18 to 25 years old are supported with tailored mental health support, helping bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.
These investments are in addition to the commitments of the NHS Long Term Plan, through which mental health services will receive an extra £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24, allowing 345,000 more children and young people access to National Health Service-funded mental health services.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government plans to continue Public Health England's abdominal cancer symptoms awareness campaign that included the ovarian cancer symptom of bloating.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Evaluation of the latest national campaign on abdominal cancer symptoms which ran between November 2020 and January 2021 is currently underway.