Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the age profile of midwives leaving NHS employment in (a) November 2023 and (b) each November since 2013.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is shown in the attached tables.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the age profile of the NHS midwifery workforce for (a) November 2023 and (b) each November since 2013.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is shown in the attached tables.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) dentists and (b) dental care professionals from overseas were registered (i) between March 2022 and March 2023 and (ii) since March 2023.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The General Dental Council (GDC) is the independent regulator of dentists and dental care professionals (DCPs) practising in the United Kingdom and enforces the standards they must adhere to. In order to practise in the UK, dentists and DCPs are required to hold registration with the GDC.
The Department does not hold data on how many dentists and DCPs have been registered with the GDC. Data on the registration of dentists and DCPs with the GDC is held by the GDC.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of NHS dentists.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, which was published on 30 June 2023, sets out the steps the NHS and its partners need to take to deliver a workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next five, ten and fifteen years. These include a 40% increase to dentistry undergraduate training places by 2031/32. To support this ambition, we will expand places by 24% by 2028/29, taking the overall number that year to 1,000 places.
We have recently taken steps to streamline registration of overseas-trained dentists, including legislation to enable the General Dental Council to improve its international registration processes, and streamlining the process for overseas dentists to join the Dental Performers List and start working in the NHS.
Furthermore, we are currently working on a plan for dentistry to improve access to dental care across England. Our plan will build upon the first package of reforms agreed in July 2022 and will address making NHS work more attractive to ensure dentists are incentivised to deliver more NHS care.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure the NHS dentistry budget is fully used in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
From 1 April 2023 responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for identifying areas of need and to determine the priorities for investment.
NHS England has provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources re-directed to improve National Health Service dental access in the first instance. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence has been issued to ICBs. NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance, which provides more detail, is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2023-24-revenue-finance-and-contracting-guidance/
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate she has made of the number of dentists in (a) Oxfordshire, (b) Oxford and (c) Abingdon.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is available at integrated care board (ICB) level only. The latest National Health Service Dental Statistics for England Annual Report shows that in 2022/23, 1090 dentists in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICBs performed NHS work. Dental Statistics is available at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department is providing for work on a pancreatic cancer vaccine; and what his Department's timeline is for clinical trials of the vaccine.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government is supporting the development of cancer vaccines. Through the Cancer Mission we announced £22.5 million funding for immune-based cancer therapies, including cancer vaccines, targeted to a patient’s specific cancer, and for early cancer diagnostics.
In addition, the NHS England Cancer Vaccine Launchpad was created this year to support the delivery of cancer vaccine trials across England, enabling more patients to access trials for these groundbreaking therapies. While the Department does not have timelines for pancreatic cancer vaccine trials specifically, this pathway will seek to support such trial activity.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 impact of her Department's policy of prescribing alternative hormone replacement therapy medication when preferred medication is unavailable on the ability of menopausal women to manage changes in side-effects and drug interactions.
Answered by Will Quince
Clinicians are responsible for making prescribing decisions for their patients, working with them to decide on the course of treatment, with the provision of the most clinically appropriate care for the individual always being the primary consideration.
Serious shortages protocols (SSPs) are developed with input from expert clinicians but are only considered in exceptional circumstances. An SSP enables community pharmacists to supply a specified medicine or device in accordance with a protocol rather than a prescription, with the patient’s consent and without needing to seek authorisation from the prescriber.
Patient safety is a key factor in deciding whether to use an SSP to manage a shortage. As well as being agreed upon by clinical experts, every draft SSP is reviewed by NHS England’s National Medical Director and Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, who can suggest amendments and exclusions and raise any potential safety concerns about the SSP. At no point in the operation of the SSP policy has the Department yet received or been made aware of any concerns or negative effects on patient safety as a result of an SSP being in place.
All SSPs include a section on those patients who are excluded from being supplied in accordance with the SSP. Pharmacists must also use their professional judgement to decide whether it is appropriate for any patient to be supplied in accordance with an SSP. In addition, patients must consent to be supplied in accordance with an SSP. In the event that either the pharmacist or patient has any concerns, the pharmacist must refer the patient back to their prescriber, as would happen if an SSP was not in place.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 reasons for trends in the level of demand for hormone replacement therapy medication.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment on trends has been made. The demand for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been increasing over time. Total use of HRT across the four main product categories (orals, gels, patches and pessaries) has increased to nearly 800,000 patients each month, and the rate of increase has accelerated post-lockdown. Since the end of the last lockdown, nearly two years ago, monthly patient numbers in these categories have more than doubled (108% increase).
The increase in demand for HRT is likely to be due to a range of factors, including media and parliamentary campaigning, increased public awareness, and Government interventions aimed at improving access to menopause care and HRT. This includes the introduction of the HRT prescription prepayment certificate (PPC) to improve access to HRT. It enables women to pay a one-off charge equivalent to two single prescription charges, currently £19.30, for all listed HRT prescriptions for a year. Between the launch on 1 April and 14 June, there were 253,445 applications for the HRT PPC.
Menopause is a priority within the Women’s Health Strategy and the Government and National Health Service are implementing a programme of work to improve access to menopause care so that all women can access the support they need, including HRT.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 made of the potential impact of pharmacy closures in (a) England and (b) Oxford West and Abingdon constituency on practising pharmacy services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department closely monitors the market to ensure people in England have good access to National Health Service pharmaceutical services. Despite the increase in pharmacy closures seen in recent years, there are a similar number of pharmacies to ten years ago and 80% of the population live within 20 minutes’ walking distance of a pharmacy.
Every three years local authorities in England undertake pharmaceutical needs assessments for their areas to ensure provision continues to meet their population’s needs. The number of pharmacist training places annually is uncapped. In England, each year around 2,500 pharmacists enter training and the net increase in pharmacists practicing across all sectors is around 1,400 per year since 2016. NHS England are also investing £15.9 million to increase the number of pharmacy staff in primary and community care and develop skills in the existing workforce.
We have commissioned NHS England to develop a long term workforce plan for the next 15 years. This plan will help ensure that we have the right numbers of staff, with the right skills, to transform and deliver high quality services fit for the future.