Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 waiting times for (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of bipolar disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to investing £2.3 billion extra funding a year in expanding and transforming mental health services by March 2024, enabling an extra two million people, including people with bipolar disorder, to be treated by mental health services within the National Health Service.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are also expanding community mental health services. This includes new integrated community models for adults with severe mental illness including bipolar disorder. These new models are still in the early stages, and will take time to embed nationally, but will give at least 370,000 adults greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities by March 2024.
The Department also provided an additional £500 million in 2021/22 to accelerate our expansion plans and help address waiting times for mental health services. The NHS is also working towards implementing five new waiting time standards for people requiring mental healthcare in both accident and emergency and in the community, to ensure timely access to the most appropriate, high-quality support.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with colleagues at NHS England on the potential merits of setting up a national NHS Mental Health Emergency Helpline.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are working towards making emergency mental health support available through NHS111 across England by April 2024. Linking the urgent mental health helplines that are already available in all areas of the country 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through to NHS111 will provide a consistent route for people to access support.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of percentage targets to reduce consumption of ultra-processed food.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy, balanced diet in line with the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods high in fat, salt or sugar should be eaten less often or in small amounts. UK Government dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN is currently carrying out a scoping review of the evidence on processed foods and health and aims to publish its initial assessment in the summer of 2023.
There is currently no universally agreed definition of ultra-processed foods. However, a diet high in foods classified as processed is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, fruit and vegetables, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity and developing chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
We have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on improving health and wellbeing, including measures to improve diets. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, salt or sugar in key selling locations in store and online came into force on 1 October 2022. We are also working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for people to make healthier choices. There have been no discussions with NHS England on the introduction of dietary guidelines on ultra-processed foods.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with NHS England on the introduction of dietary guidelines on ultra-processed foods.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy, balanced diet in line with the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods high in fat, salt or sugar should be eaten less often or in small amounts. UK Government dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN is currently carrying out a scoping review of the evidence on processed foods and health and aims to publish its initial assessment in the summer of 2023.
There is currently no universally agreed definition of ultra-processed foods. However, a diet high in foods classified as processed is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, fruit and vegetables, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity and developing chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
We have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on improving health and wellbeing, including measures to improve diets. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, salt or sugar in key selling locations in store and online came into force on 1 October 2022. We are also working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for people to make healthier choices. There have been no discussions with NHS England on the introduction of dietary guidelines on ultra-processed foods.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will submit for Parliamentary approval his preferred candidate organisation to be awarded the NHS Federated Data Platform contract.
Answered by Will Quince
The approval process for the Federated Data Platform Full Business Case, which will include details of the preferred supplier, will follow the standard process for approval via the following Government Departments ahead of contract award:
- Department of Health and Social Care;
- Cabinet Office; and
- HM Treasury.
Parliamentary approval will not be required ahead of contract award. Details of the contract award will be published online.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the development of the national suicide prevention strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There have been no specific discussions. The Department is working across Government, with the health system and with suicide prevention stakeholders, to ensure the new suicide prevention strategy reflects the most up to date evidence and addresses the current challenges, risks, and opportunities to prevent suicide.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish his Department's response to the consultation on its Mental health and wellbeing plan, which closed on 7 July 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion on 15 November 2022 to Question 82233.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what comparative assessment he has made of current waiting times for (a) paediatric assessments and (b) initial paediatric appointments for Autism Spectrum Conditions in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire and average waiting times in England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made.
Data currently collected by NHS Digital in the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) does not enable an assessment to be made of the waiting time from referral to a completed autism assessment, due to incompleteness of this data. However, it is possible to assess the average wait time from referral to first received care contact, this may or may not be a completed diagnosis assessment, for patients with a referral for suspected autism.
Based on the available data from the MHSDS from the year 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022 in England, 95,210 patients aged under 18 at time of referral had an open referral for suspected autism. Of these 30,095 have received a first attended contact. The median wait time for these 30,095 patients was 217 days. In the same time period for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), there were around 65 patients aged under 18 with open referral for suspected autism and of these 65 patients around 20 received a first attended contact with a median wait time of 172 days.
This assessment only includes data submitted to the MHSDS. Our understanding is that the majority of children assessed for autism are seen in child development services, these services submit data to the Community Services Data Set (CSDS). However, it is not currently possible to correctly identify referrals for suspected autism from the CSDS and so we are unable to provide average wait times. Work to improve autism waiting times data is underway.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 NHS cancer services have supplies of the isotopes used in the detection and measurement of cancer spread, following mechanical failures at the SCK CEN nuclear plant in Belgium.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department has worked closely with the British Society of Nuclear Medicine and other specialist clinicians to issue guidance to the National Health Service on how to manage patient services affected by the recent shortage of Technetium-99m generators and other reactor-produced radioisotopes.
The Government recognises the importance of maintaining access to radioisotopes for medical applications. We are working closely with counterparts in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to explore the role United Kingdom’s nuclear sector could have in supporting access to the reactor-produced medical radioisotopes in the future and to support the delivery of the £6 million Medical Radionuclide Innovation Programme. This is a new scheme aiming to develop technologies which could produce the isotopes required for nuclear medicine.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 NHS waiting times for ADHD assessments.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We expect integrated care boards and National Health Service trusts to have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline ‘Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management’. The guideline does not recommend a maximum waiting time standard from referral for an assessment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or from assessment to the point of diagnosis. It aims to improve diagnosis and the quality of care and support which people receive. Consultant-led mental health services are included in the NHS 18-week maximum waiting time.
Assessments for ADHD may be undertaken in a variety of care settings and there is currently no single established dataset to monitor the number of assessments nationally. NHS Digital is working to improve the quality of relevant datasets, such as the Mental Health Services and the Community Services Datasets.