Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of deaths in the social care sector as a result of covid-19.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every death from COVID-19 is a tragedy and the full weight of the Government is behind the effort to help the social care sector protect the most vulnerable in society. We have published a comprehensive action plan, including ramping up testing, overhauling the way personal protective equipment is delivered to care homes, and minimising the spread of the virus through cohorting and infection control. We continually review our policies in line with the best scientific advice.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much personal protective equipment the NHS (a) has and (b) plans on purchasing.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 14 April, since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak we have delivered over 923 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to 58,000 different health and care settings including National Health Service trusts, general practitioners, pharmacies, care homes and community providers.
The Government’s PPE plan was published on 10 April and can be found at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879221/Coronavirus__COVID-19__-_personal_protective_equipment__PPE__plan.pdf
As Strand 3 details, we have set up a cross-Government PPE sourcing unit to secure new supply lines from across the world and a call to industry has been issued to companies at home to manufacture and supply additional PPE at scale.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on what date the decision was made to approach British businesses for help producing ventilators in response to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Work preparing the National Health Service for the COVID-19 pandemic has been ongoing and we have already nearly doubled ventilator capacity. New and existing suppliers are being asked to build as many as they can. The Prime Minister has issued a call to United Kingdom industry to produce additional ventilators and the Department asked appropriate potential manufacturers on 13 March to come forward with proposals for new ventilation machines. Around a dozen potential prototypes have now been presented to the Department which we are currently pursuing.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on what date contact was first made with manufacturers to produce additional ventilators in response to covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Work preparing the National Health Service for the COVID-19 pandemic has been ongoing and we have already nearly doubled ventilator capacity. New and existing suppliers are being asked to build as many as they can. The Prime Minister has issued a call to United Kingdom industry to produce additional ventilators and the Department asked appropriate potential manufacturers on 13 March to come forward with proposals for new ventilation machines. Around a dozen potential prototypes have now been presented to the Department which we are currently pursuing.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 operational the NHS telephone helpline for the 1.5 million most at-risk people who have been told to stay at home during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
From 21 March, letters were sent out from general practices to the 1.5 million people considered to be most medically at-risk from COVID-19, informing them that they should stay at home and avoid all face-to-face contact for a period of at least 12 weeks.
The Government have set up a National Shielding Helpline, which is a support service that will contact those who have received letters but not responded by telephone to ensure that their food and wellbeing support needs are being met. The helpline makes outbound calls only and does not accept inbound calls. This is already operational.
On 1 April 2020, NHS England published Frequently Asked Questions for patients at highest clinical risk from COVID-19 which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 improve the training GPs receive on the treatment of menopausal symptoms.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The curriculum for general practitioner (GP) specialty training is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the General Medical Council (GMC) approves the curriculum and assessment systems for the programme. The curriculum integrates the GMC’s generic professional capabilities framework covering the professional behaviours, knowledge and skills that doctors in GP specialty training must demonstrate.
The RCGP Curriculum: Being a General Practitioner, has recently been reviewed and a wide range of conditions are covered in the clinical topic guides.
The menopause is emphasised in the clinical topic guides that supplement the curriculum and is listed in the Common and Important Conditions section of the topic guide on gynaecology and breast health.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department provides for women going through the menopause.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
To help ensure women receive the best possible care, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of the menopause in November 2015. This set out the support, information and treatments needed to address the often debilitating symptoms that women suffer.
Recently in December 2019, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published ‘Better for Women’ which calls for a life course approach and includes a focus on general health during and after the menopause.
The Government will continue to encourage employers to rise to the challenge by creating supportive and flexible ways to help those living with these conditions.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to announce on what date in April routine commissioning of PrEP will begin.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is continuing to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England and local authorities to plan for routine commissioning of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) from April 2020. NHS England and NHS Improvement have already agreed to fund the on-going costs of drugs for PrEP going forward. We will provide information on how other elements of the programme will be funded and how commissioners will be supported very shortly.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what budget the non-drug additional funding will come from to fully roll-out PrEP.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is continuing to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England and local authorities to plan for routine commissioning of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) from April 2020. NHS England and NHS Improvement have already agreed to fund the on-going costs of drugs for PrEP going forward. We will provide information on how other elements of the programme will be funded and how commissioners will be supported very shortly.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
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 information on how (a) routine commissioning of PrEP will be implemented, (b) PrEP will be funded and (c) local authority commissioners will be supported.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is continuing to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England and local authorities to plan for routine commissioning of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) from April 2020. NHS England and NHS Improvement have already agreed to fund the on-going costs of drugs for PrEP going forward. We will provide information on how other elements of the programme will be funded and how commissioners will be supported very shortly.