Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional mental health support has been provided during the covid-19 outbreak; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of people who have accessed that support.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
National Health Service mental health services have remained open for business throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and we have provided tailored guidance to help people deal with their mental health and wellbeing on GOV.UK and the Every Mind Matters website.
We have also provided additional funding of £5 million for mental health charities to support adults and children struggling with their mental wellbeing during this time as well as a further £4.2 million, as part of the Government’s United Kingdom-wide £750 million package of support for the voluntary sector.
No estimate has been made of the number of people who have accessed this support. NHS Digital publishes monthly data on the number people who have been in contact with mental health services and the number of referrals to mental health services. Reports can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 ensure that funding is ringfenced for local authorities to meet the demand for mental health support.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The public health grant supports local authorities’ statutory duty to take steps to improve the mental and physical health of their local population. The overall public health grant to local authorities in 2020/21 is £3.279 billion and this continues to be ring-fenced for health improvement.
Local authorities make their own funding decisions based on their assessment of local population need, hence we cannot specify how much is spent on individual services.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many companies have (a) contacted and (b) been engaged by the Government to assist with the manufacture of equipment to help tackle the covid-19 outbreak in (a) England, (b) the North East, (c) Northumberland and (d) Wansbeck constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are building up United Kingdom manufacturing with signed contracts to manufacture over 2 billion items of personal protective equipment (PPE) through UK-based manufacturers, including facemasks, visors, gowns and aprons.
The Government is currently in contact with over 350 potential UK manufacturers. Engineering efforts by small companies are being scaled up and we have already taken delivery of products from new, certified UK manufacturers.
To date, we have authorised the release of over 139 million items of PPE to local resilience forums to help them respond to urgent local spikes in need across the adult social care system and some other frontline services, where providers are unable to access PPE through their usual, or dedicated wholesaler routes.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the covid-19 reproductive (r) rate was in (a) the UK, (b) England, (c) the North East, (d) Northumberland and (e) Wansbeck constituency in each week from 3 February 2020.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government Office for Science currently publishes the latest estimate of the United Kingdom-wide range for R on a weekly basis. The current range is estimated to be 0.7-0.9 and is based on latest data available to determine infection and transmission rates. We do not calculate the R rate for different UK regions.
The Government is committed to publishing the scientific evidence that has informed the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies advice. These papers are being published in batches. The full list of papers reviewed to date is available at the following link:
This list will be updated to reflect papers considered at recent and future meetings.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 (a) increase the training provided to and (b) improve the understanding of dealing with cases sensitively and effectively of (i) medical students and (ii) junior doctors on eating disorders.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Mental health should be an integral part of medical education and training so that all doctors have the necessary knowledge and experience of mental health to assess patients holistically, considering the individuals’ physical, social and psychological needs. All newly qualified doctors, as a condition of their registration with the General Medical Council (GMC), must explain and illustrate by professional experience the principles for the identification, safe management and referral of patients with mental health conditions.
The Government is committed to provide the best training experience for all doctors in training and will work with the GMC and relevant stakeholders to ensure doctors in training receive the necessary mental health training to meet the current and future needs of patients. The GMC, at the request of the Department held a roundtable on 21 November 2019 to use their influence to improve educational knowledge and skill in the recognition and treatment of eating disorders.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to ensure that public health campaigns (a) take into account the welfare of people affected by eating disorders and (b) do not (i) inadvertently reinforce unhealthy thoughts and (ii) trigger harmful behaviour in those people; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Messaging in public health campaigns aimed at healthy eating and physical activity is developed with guidance from Public Health England’s (PHE’s) nutritionists and tested with stakeholders and target groups such as parents and children. Change4Life recommends that those with special dietary requirements, medical needs, eating disorders or who require specialised nutrition advice, seek guidance from a registered health-care professional which can be found at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/about-change4life
PHE is currently not undertaking any marketing activity aimed at adults around eating behaviours.
In addition, PHE’s Rise Above social marketing programme aims to help build resilience and support the good mental health of young people aged 10 to 16. It delivers video resources enabling self-care, developed with guidance from PHE and independent experts in young people’s health. These are tested with young people to ensure they do not normalise or trigger unhealthy or harmful behaviours. These resources can be viewed at the following link:
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 ensure the provision of healthcare to UK citizens living in other EU countries after the UK has left the EU.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement we have reached with the European Union, there will be no changes to reciprocal healthcare access for pensioners, workers, students, tourists and other temporary visitors from the European Economic Area/Switzerland, the European Healthcare Insurance Card scheme, or planned treatment until 31 December 2020.
Longer term, we are discussing the future of reciprocal healthcare arrangements with the EU.
Regardless of any future healthcare arrangements, United Kingdom nationals that move to the EU and EU citizens that move to the UK before 31 December 2020, will continue to have life-long reciprocal healthcare rights provided they remain within scope of the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 ensure that the supply of factor concentrates for haemophiliacs will not be affected in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department is doing everything appropriate to prepare for the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. We want to reassure patients that our plans should ensure the supply of medicines and medical products, including those used in the treatment of haemophilia, when we leave the EU on 31 October.
The Department, in partnership with the devolved administrations, has been working with trade bodies, product suppliers, and the health and care system across the UK to make detailed plans that should ensure continuation of the supply of medicines, to the whole of the UK and its Crown Dependencies.
On 26 June, we wrote to suppliers of medicines to the UK from or via the EU or European Economic Area setting out our continuing multi-layered approach to support continuity of supply of medicines and medical products from 31 October.
Further details can be found at the following link:
Ahead of 31 October, all necessary funding will be made available to support our preparations.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 developing a care pathway for women who choose to continue their pregnancy after a positive result for Down's Syndrome.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department asked the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) to consider developing a care pathway for women who choose to continue their pregnancy after a positive result for Down's Syndrome. The RCOG is currently reviewing their clinical guidelines, and guidance for the care of women through antenatal screening and further diagnostic testing is planned for publication on the RCOG website at the end of the month.
In addition, the RCOG is looking to commission further advice which will aim to support decision making around choices after the diagnosis of fetal anomaly in pregnancy, ensuring results are provided in a non-directive way and to guide clinicians in providing high quality care for women to support the choices they make.
The RCOG is also working on a position statement to ensure its members clearly understand the importance of providing impartial support and options to women and their partners throughout antenatal screening through to diagnostic results and beyond.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will consider conducting a consultation on the ethical implications of non-invasive prenatal testing.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Following the United Kingdom National Screening Committee’s (UK NSC’s) recommendation to evaluate the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) as a contingent test into the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (FASP), the Nuffield Council on Bioethics undertook a considerable amount of work on bioethics particularly related to the addition of NIPT into the NHS FASP screening pathway.
The Council published a report in March 2017 which looked at the ethical, legal and regulatory implications of recent and potential future developments in NIPT. Their work included a consultation of views on offering screening for Down’s syndrome which was carried out with a small group of people from the Down’s syndrome community supported by the learning disability charity Mencap.
The UK NSC acknowledged the importance of the ethical considerations of screening and has set up an ethics task group to provide further scrutiny and advice to the committee.