Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 272159, what assessment he has made of the merits of the recommendations made in the Birth Companions Report entitled Birth Charter for women in prisons in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
No formal assessment has been made.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are responsible for commissioning healthcare services in prisons in England. It is working closely with Public Health England and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service on a review of how current practice meets the Gender Specific Standards for Women in Prison to improve health and wellbeing, published in March 2019. Standards are included around the care of pregnant and post pregnant women.
NHS England is developing a mental health perinatal service to ensure maternity services meet the needs of pregnant and post-partum women across the estate.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 July 2019 to Question 273333 on Stem cells: donors, what the targets are for the proportion of donors that must be from BAME backgrounds.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Since 2011 the Department has provided more than £26 million in financial support to NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan to enable the establishment of a unified United Kingdom Stem Cell Registry and improve stem cell donation. This includes improving equity of access to unrelated donor stem cell transplantation for Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) patients through targeted recruitment to the UK Stem Cell Registry. This funding is in addition to the recruitment campaigns run by NHS Blood and Transplant, Anthony Nolan and other partners
In 2017 the Department funded recruitment for 6,000 extra donors from BAME background and continues to fund recruitment of genome-typed BAME donors who are then much more likely to donate. Working collaboratively to recruit more BAME donors with our partners, 22% of donors recruited in 2018-19 were of BAME background.1
As part of the funding outlined above an Umbilical Cord Blood bank has been established. In its funding contribution the Department has set specific targets about the proportion of donors that must be from BAME background which is at least 35% and this target is being met.
1 https://www.anthonynolan.org/sites/default/files/State_Of_The_Registry_201819.pdf
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what policies his Department has implemented to tackle alcohol harm caused by social inequalities since 2010.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Lower socioeconomic status is associated with higher mortality for alcohol-attributable causes, despite lower socioeconomic groups often reporting lower levels of consumption. The Government is committed to tackling harms from alcohol. As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, we are establishing specialist Alcohol Care Teams in hospitals with the highest rates of alcohol harm. It is estimated that this will prevent 50,000 admissions over five years. Local authorities will also receive over £3 billion in 2019/20 to be used exclusively on public health including alcohol treatment services. Public Health England is supporting NHS England’s tobacco and alcohol commissioning for quality and innovation scheme, which encourages hospitals to screen all inpatients about their alcohol use and offer appropriate interventions.
Additionally, funding of £6 million has been allocated to support children who live with an alcohol dependent parent which will address the inequalities facing this vulnerable group.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 8 July 2019 to Question 272160 on Prisoners: Depressive Illnesses, if he will make it his policy to centrally record that data.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
There are no plans to record this data centrally.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 increase BAME recruitment to the stem cell registry.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Since 2011 the Department has provided over £26.8 million in financial support to NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan to enable the establishment of a unified United Kingdom Stem Cell Registry and improve access to and outcomes of stem cell donation. This includes improving equity of access to unrelated donor stem cell transplantation for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) patients through targeted recruitment to the UK Stem Cell Registry and the Department has set specific targets about the proportion of donors that must be from BAME backgrounds.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of people caring for someone at the end of their life who experience financial hardship.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
This information is not held centrally. However, the Government is committed to continuing to support carers to provide care as they would wish, and to do so in a way that supports their own health and wellbeing, employment and other life chances. That is why it published its Carers Action Plan 2018-2020 in June 2018 which sets out a programme of targeted work to support unpaid carers.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to ensure the maintenance of NICE standards on antenatal services in prisons.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
People in prisons should receive the same standard and access to National Health Service healthcare treatments and care as people in the community.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published quality standards on antenatal care (QS22) and antenatal and postnatal mental health (QS115). NICE quality standards are concise sets of statements designed to drive quality improvements within a particular area of care and cover the NHS, public health and social care. The Department does not have any arrangements for monitoring the uptake of NICE quality standards centrally as they are not mandatory, however health and care commissioners are expected to take them fully into account.
NHS England is responsible for commissioning healthcare services in prisons in England. It is working closely with Public Health England and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service on a review of how current practice meets the gender specific standards for women in prison to improve health and wellbeing, published in March 2019, which include standards around the care of pregnant and post pregnant women.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions officials in his Department have held with the officials from the Ministry of Justice on ensuring the maintenance of his Department's nutritional standards for pregnant women in prisons.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
No such discussions have taken place.
The Government wants to ensure that staff working with women in custody and the community have clear and concise guidance on how to deal with female offenders. We have therefore developed the Women’s Policy Framework which details the mandatory actions necessary to support women in custody and the community.
In addition, the Government has developed a comprehensive document on ‘Caring for Perinatal Women in Prison’. We have consulted with Birth Companions, a leading charity in this field, on the production of this guide and incorporated much of the material that they requested be included.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of (a) pregnant women and (b) new mothers in prison have reported symptoms of depression.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
NHS England has confirmed that this information is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 1 July 2019 to Question 268980 on Health: Children, to which published research that Answer refers.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
There are numerous published sources on adverse childhood experiences, including:
UCL Institute of Health Equity published ‘The impact of adverse experiences in the home on the health of children and young people, and inequalities in prevalence and effects’ (2016). The report is available at the following link:
The Journal of Public Health published ‘Adverse childhood experiences: retrospective study to determine their impact on adult health behaviours and health outcomes in a UK population’. The report is available at the following link:
https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/36/1/81/1571104?searchresult=1