Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
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 using digital technology to support access to stop smoking services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There is some evidence that digital health interventions can help people to stop smoking.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidelines in October 2020 recommending that digital interventions can be used as an option to support existing stop smoking services. Further details are available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng183/chapter/Recommendations#smoking
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of making the inclusion of advice on (a) how to quit smoking and (b) different methods of quitting smoking mandatory for all tobacco and nicotine-containing products.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department provides a range of advice and support to help people quit smoking through campaigns such as Stoptober and information on the Better Health website, alongside our funding to local stop smoking services.
To help even more smokers quit, on 14 August 2023 the Department launched a public consultation across the United Kingdom on mandating quit information messages inside tobacco packs.
The accompanying draft impact assessment states that introducing pack inserts into all tobacco products in the UK could lead to an additional 30,000 smokers giving up their habit, delivering health benefits worth £1.6 billion.
The consultation and draft impact assessment are available at the following link:
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) support access to and (b) provide funding for stop smoking services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Adult smoking rates are at their lowest level in England at 12.7%. The public health grant continues to support local authorities to provide a range of public health services, including stop smoking services. Latest figures from 2021/22 show that we provided £68 million to local authority led Stop Smoking Services, with further reported spend of just under £12 million on wider tobacco control.
We continue to roll out the NHS Long Term Plan commitments for delivery of National Health Service tobacco dependence treatment services for those admitted to hospital and pregnant smokers. The NHS allocated £35 million spend over 2022/23 and will do so again this year.
To meet our ambition to be Smokefree by 2030, on 11 April 2023 the Government announced a range of new measures to help people quit smoking. This included a national Swap to Stop scheme to deliver one million vapes to help smokers quit, and a financial incentive scheme to support pregnant smokers to quit smoking.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of specialist alcohol teams on levels of alcohol harm.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Initial modelling for the NHS Long Term Plan was based on the case study carried out by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and estimated that Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) would prevent 50,000 admissions over 5 years. A copy of the case study is available at the following link:
Impact of ACTs will be assessed through proACTIVE, a cost-effectiveness evaluation funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and led by the research collaborative, which is due to report in 2024. More information about the evaluation is available at the following link:
https://www.hull.ac.uk/work-with-us/research/institutes/health-trials/study/proactive
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
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 specialist alcohol care teams are provided in hospitals which serve the 25% of areas with the highest rates of (a) alcohol harm and (b) socioeconomic deprivation.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We are continuing to invest in the rollout of Alcohol Care Teams to the 25% of eligible hospital sites with the highest rates of deprivation and alcohol-related mortality, as committed to in the NHS Long Term Plan. At the end of March 2023, 31 out of 47 sites reported that they were optimally staffed, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan commitments.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing alcohol labelling that states the associated health risks of alcohol consumption.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ Low Risk Drinking guidelines highlight that the risk of developing a range of health problems, including cancer, increases the more you drink alcohol on a regular basis. The Government published voluntary guidance regarding how these guidelines could be communicated on pre-packaged alcohol products. This guidance is available at the following link:
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to make a decision on expanding the routine testing programme for HIV and blood-borne viruses in areas with a high HIV prevalence.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Provisional data from NHS England indicates that this HIV opt-out testing initiative has helped find more than 550 cases of undiagnosed or untreated HIV in the first year of the programme. We are currently considering all the evidence from the first year of opt-out HIV and blood-borne virus testing in emergency departments, alongside the data on progress towards our ambitions to end new HIV transmissions and AIDS and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030, to examine the feasibility of further expanding this programme. A decision will be made in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to publish an implementation framework for the Women's Health Strategy 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We do not plan to publish an implementation framework for the Women’s Health Strategy. We wrote to MPs in January 2023 setting out our priorities for the first year of implementing the Women’s Health Strategy. In this, we committed to update Parliament annually on progress, with the first update due in September 2023. In addition, the strategy committed to publishing a report on progress in delivering our commitments in three years (2025).
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce backlogs in community child health services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We regularly monitor community health services waiting lists and are committed to reducing waiting lists in community child health services. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets commitments to grow the community workforce, with increases in training places for district nurses, health visitors, school nurses and allied health professionals, and a renewed focus on retaining our existing staff.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing NHS targets for prevention of fragility fractures.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Major Conditions Strategy is an opportunity to tackle musculoskeletal conditions, including osteoporosis, to improve outcomes for patients. The strategy will set out a clear vision for musculoskeletal conditions, covering treatment and prevention.
To help support trends in the identification rate for patients with osteoporotic fracture and to improve early identification of osteoporosis, the Quality Improvement Partnership commissions and manages the Falls and Fragility Fracture Audit on behalf of NHS England. This includes the Hip Fracture Database, as well as an audit focusing on Fracture Liaison Services. This audit has developed the Fracture Liaison Service Database to benchmark services and drive quality improvement.