Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he plans to endorse the revised Comprehensive School Safety Framework.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The Comprehensive School Safety Framework is well aligned with UK priorities, and we support its implementation through our funding to Education Cannot Wait. The UK has endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration which commits to reducing the impact of conflict on education and is closely linked to the Comprehensive School Safety Framework. FCDO officials will discuss endorsing the framework with The Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Any Hours and Any Speciality schemes used by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust on (a) maternity staff retention rates and (b) career progression among midwives.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Any Hours is a programme that allows for more flexible working hours and patterns. Wherever there are shifts that are unfilled, Any Hours allows midwives to choose when, where, and the number of hours they want to work. Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust data shows that since the Any Hours Scheme was enacted, it has released, on average, 300 hours a month, equalling two whole time equivalent midwives’ released every month. The Any Hours programme is expected to be featured as a case study by NHS England.
Any Specialty is a programme to encourage all Band 6 midwives to spend 15 hours a month, or two days, in a different speciality of their choice. This allows colleagues to improve the competencies and skills needed to help their career progression, or even to directly apply to a specialist midwife role at the trust. To date, specialties have recruited nine midwives following Any Specialty contact at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the shortage of children’s nurses in hospices across the UK.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is seeking to address shortages in the workforce, and particularly in community care, through the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP). The LTWP, published in 2023, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to grow the workforce, and deliver a workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. It will put the workforce on a sustainable footing for the long term. The LTWP aims to grow the number and proportion of NHS staff working in mental health, and primary and community care, and sets out an ambition to grow these roles by 73%, by 2036/37.
The Department has delivered on the Government’s commitment of 50,000 additional nurses, with over 363,000 nurses working across the NHS, which is over 62,000, or 20.7% more than September 2019. More widely, data for September 2023 from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows there are over 58,300 registered children’s nurses across the United Kingdom. This is over 6,500, or 12.7%, more than in 2019.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential benefits of introducing more flexible working arrangements for maternity staff in NHS services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Flexible working arrangements, or We work flexibly, is one of the elements contained in the NHS People Promise, with a commitment to deliver for staff, including midwives, by 2024/25. NHS England has created and shared flexible working arrangement resources, and delivered bespoke webinars and workshops on the issue. They have also brought together midwifery leaders from across the system to share good practice, foster collaboration, and support the implementation of flexible working across maternity services.
In September 2021, contractual changes took effect for employees covered by the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook, which includes the right to request flexible working from day one, without the need to provide a justification.
Flexible working is one of the key pillars of improving staff experience and retention, as set out in the Long Term Workforce Plan. It will contribute to the aim of retaining up to 130,000 more staff over the course of the plan. However, no assessment of the benefits of introducing more flexible working arrangements specifically for maternity staff has been made.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer in Lewisham West and Penge constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on the average time taken to diagnose pancreatic cancer is not published by NHS England who are responsible for publishing cancer waiting times data. NHS England is working to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which sets a target of 28 days from urgent referral by a general practitioner or screening programme to patients being told that they have cancer, or that cancer is ruled out. Latest published data from February 2024 shows FDS performance was 78.1% nationally. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust in February 2024, 81.2% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks which was above the 75% standard. For the same period 76.2% of patients referred to providers part of NHS South East London Integrated Care Board received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days.
Data on FDS does not individualise pancreatic cancer specifically, however it does include suspected upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, which encompasses pancreatic cancer, at provider level. Of those patients referred to Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust for suspected GI cancer in February 2024, 82.3% received a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within four weeks.
The Department is taking steps to reduce cancer treatment waiting times across England, including the time between an urgent general practitioner referral and the commencement of treatment. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to issue guidance to children’s hospices on changes in the distribution of the Children’s Hospice Grant for the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has confirmed it will renew the Children and Young People hospice funding for 2024/25, again allocating £25 million of funding for children’s hospices, using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as previously used. Funding will be distributed via integrated care boards (ICBs), in line with National Health Service devolution.
NHS England wrote to all ICBs and children’s hospices on 9 April 2024 to confirm the new arrangements, providing the sector with the clarity on 2024/25 allocations they have been seeking, for this very important funding stream.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her department is taking to improve retention rates of NHS maternity staff.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how to improve culture and leadership, to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the National Health Service over the next 15 years. This includes: implementing actions from the NHS People Plan that have been shown to be successful; implementing plans to improve flexible opportunities for prospective retirees, and delivering the actions needed to modernise the NHS pension scheme; and committing to ongoing national funding for continuing professional development for nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals, so NHS staff are supported to meet their full potential. These measures apply across staff groups, including maternity staff.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce (a) assessment and (b) diagnosis waiting times for ADHD.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards to make appropriate provision available, to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. The NICE’s guidelines for ADHD diagnosis and management aim to improve the diagnosis of ADHD, as well as the quality of care and support people receive. The NICE’s guidelines do not recommend a maximum waiting time standard for ADHD diagnosis, either from referral for an assessment to receiving an assessment, a diagnosis, or a first contact appointment.
There is, at present, no single, established dataset that can be used to monitor waiting times for the assessment or treatment for ADHD nationally. The Department is exploring options to improve data collection and reporting on ADHD assessment waiting times, to help improve access to ADHD assessments in a timely way and in line with the NICE’s guideline. In support of this, the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Policy Research Programme has commissioned a research project to provide insights into local ADHD diagnosis waiting time data collection.
NHS England is establishing a new ADHD taskforce alongside the Government, to improve care for people living with the condition. The new taskforce will bring together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the National Health Service, education, and justice, to better understand the challenges affecting people with ADHD, and help provide a joined up approach in response to concerns around rising demand for assessments and support.
Alongside the work of the taskforce, NHS England has announced that it will continue to work with stakeholders to develop a national ADHD data improvement plan, carry out more detailed work to understand the provider and commissioning landscape, and capture examples from local health systems who are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services, to ensure best practice is captured and shared across the system.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to assess the healthcare needs of women with autism and ADHD during menopause.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made. Menopause is a priority area within the Women’s Health Strategy, and the Department and National Health Service are implementing an ambitious programme of work to improve menopause care so all women, including those with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), can access the support they need.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for providing services that meet the needs of their local population. Every ICB is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism, whose remit includes supporting the board in addressing the health inequalities that autistic people and people with a learning disability experience, and supporting equal access to care across all health services.
From 1 July 2022, the Health and Care Act 2022 requires Care Quality Commission registered providers to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism, appropriate to their role. Since November 2022, over 1.7 million people have completed the first part of Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism. In addition, NHS England is improving the use and recording of reasonable adjustments to ensure care is tailored appropriately for disabled people, including people with autism and ADHD.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of maternity staff leaving NHS employment on services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department works with NHS England on a regular basis to review the numbers of staff working in National Health Service maternity services, and to identify any issues which could potentially impact services.
Growing, retaining, and supporting the maternity workforce to ensure that there are staff with the capacity and the right skills to deliver safe, personalised, and equitable care for women and babies is a key theme of NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Services. NHS England is also delivering a nursing and midwifery retention programme, supporting organisations in assessing themselves against a bundle of interventions aligned to the NHS People Promise, and to develop high-quality local retention improvement plans.