Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to intervene in the agency market of social care recruitment to (a) prevent money going out of the system to recruitment agencies and (b) support with staffing levels in that sector.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Most care workers are employed by private sector providers who make their own recruitment decisions, independent of central government. It is, therefore, the responsibility of individual providers to make decisions on the use of recruitment agencies to support with capacity.
To support the sector with workforce capacity, we are supporting recruitment at home and at abroad - investing £15 million to boost the international recruitment of care workers and launching our domestic National Recruitment Campaign in early November.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she will take to ensure restrictions on placement promotions for foods high in fat, salt and sugar do not increase the cost of goods for consumers experiencing the rising cost of living.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
We recognise the need to balance implications costs and benefits to businesses individuals, society and the National Health Service. Following consultation, a number of exemptions were made to ease the impact on businesses where appropriate. The restrictions only apply to products that are high in fat, salt or sugar and are assessed as ‘less healthy’, retailers are free to promote products that are healthier and that are not deemed in scope of the policy.
The location restrictions on promotions which came into force on 1 October are expected to accrue health benefits of over £57 billion and provide NHS savings of over £4 billion, over the next 25 years. In light of the unprecedented global economic situation, we have delayed the implementation of the volume price promotions by 12-months. These restrictions will come into force in October 2023.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department will take to help ensure that the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulation 2021 does not have a negative impact on businesses.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
We recognise the need to balance implications costs and benefits to businesses individuals, society and the National Health Service. Following consultation, a number of exemptions were made to ease the impact on businesses where appropriate. The restrictions only apply to products that are high in fat, salt or sugar and are assessed as ‘less healthy’, retailers are free to promote products that are healthier and that are not deemed in scope of the policy.
The location restrictions on promotions which came into force on 1 October are expected to accrue health benefits of over £57 billion and provide NHS savings of over £4 billion, over the next 25 years. In light of the unprecedented global economic situation, we have delayed the implementation of the volume price promotions by 12-months. These restrictions will come into force in October 2023.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans her Department has to (a) intervene in the market for agency care workers and (b) reduce the cost of employing care staff.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There are no plans to do so. The majority of care workers, including agency care workers, are employed by private sector providers who set their pay, independently of central Government. Local authorities work with care providers to determine fee rates, which should take account of wage costs based on local market conditions.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund she announced on 22 September 2022, which organisations will receive this funding, and what proportion of the funding local authorities will receive.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department is finalising the details of the Adult Social Care Discharge Fund. Further information will be available in due course.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the £300 million for supported housing will be made available; and how (a) local authorities and (b) housing providers will be able to access that funding.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The ‘People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform’ white paper, published on 1 December 2021, announced a £300 million investment in housing over the next three years to connect housing with health and care and increase the stock of new supported housing. We are currently developing this work with local authorities, housing providers and others and further information will be available in due course.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 3 August 2020 to Question 72841 on Tobacco: Marketing and the US Food and Drug Administration's Modified Risk Granted Order reference MR0000192, published on 11 March 2022, if he will (a) make it his policy to commission independent research into heated tobacco products as recommended in the Khan review: making smoking obsolete, published on 9 June 2022 and (b) introduce a new regulatory framework for those products.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The next Vaping in England report, commissioned by the former Public Health England and produced by Kings College London, includes a chapter on heated tobacco products. This will be published in summer 2020.
Plans for future research will be set out in the forthcoming white paper on health disparities and the Tobacco Control Plan, which will be published later this year. There are no current plans to introduce new regulatory framework for these products.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021, made on 2 December 2021, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of placement measures on businesses.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The costs to businesses were considered in the Government’s impact assessment for the placement restrictions, published in December 2020. The impact assessment show that the costs for businesses are expected to be £423 million per year, with transition costs for the first year, to implement the placement restrictions expected to be £47 million. While we recognise the costs associated with implementation, the costs of obesity to individuals, society and the National Health Service are considerable and the benefits from reducing calorie intakes across the population are substantial.
Following consultation in 2020, we made a number of exemptions to the placement restrictions to ease the impact on businesses where appropriate. Micro and small businesses are out of scope of the restrictions entirely, with only medium and large businesses with 50 or more employees subject to the restrictions. Stores that are smaller than 185.8 square metres will be exempt from the location restrictions, as well as specialist retailers which sell one type of food product category, such as chocolatiers or confectioners.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release, Government delays restrictions on multibuy deals and advertising on TV and online, published on 14 May 2022, when his Department plans to bring forward legislative proposals to delay the implementation of restrictions on the advertising of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We will provide further information on how the delay to the legislation will be implemented in due course.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing a traffic light system for the relative health impacts on tobacco and nicotine products.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The next Vaping in England report, commissioned by the Department, includes a chapter on heated tobacco products. It reviews data on use of these products, the evidence for use in smoking cessation and the exposure of users to major toxicants. The report will be published later this summer. In addition, a systematic review on heated tobacco was published by the Cochrane Collaboration earlier this year, which is available at the following link:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013790.pub2/full
No assessment has been made for the introduction of a traffic light system for the relative health impacts on tobacco and nicotine products.