Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times NHS England has met Vertex to discuss Orkambi; and whether any steps have been taken as a result of those meetings.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has advised that it has met Vertex 5 times since July 2017 to discuss Orkambi. We are further advised that discussions are ongoing to seek to agree a commercial deal that would make Orkambi available to National Health Service patients.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which clinical commissioning groups fund endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy operations.
Answered by Steve Brine
Information on which clinical commissioning groups fund endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy operations is not held centrally.
It is the responsibility of each clinical commissioning group to decide which treatments they fund. Each decision must be based on clinical evidence, and clinical commissioning groups must ensure they meet their statutory duties when taking this decision.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the benefits of gamifying tooth brushing for children.
Answered by Steve Brine
No assessment has been made of the benefits of gamifying tooth brushing for children.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether any of the £20,000 bursaries for newly qualified GPs have been assigned to locations in North Herefordshire.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment scheme was launched in 2016 and offers a £20,000 salary supplement to attract doctors to enter general practitioner (GP) speciality training in parts of the country where there have been consistent shortages of GP trainees. The scheme is open to GP trainees committed to working their three years of specialty training in areas identified by the GP National Recruitment Office as having the hardest to recruit to training places in England. 238 trainees have entered the scheme so far. 265 places have been made available in 2018.
Places were available on the scheme in Hereford and Worcester in 2017 and further places have been made available in 2018.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on recruiting additional GPs in rural locations.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme funds a £20,000 salary supplement to attract general practitioner (GP) trainees to work in areas of the country where GP training places have been unfilled for a number of years. The scheme was launched as a one-year pilot in 2016 and was extended for a further year in 2017 and again in 2018. The scheme is open to GP trainees committed to working for three years in areas identified by the GP National Recruitment Office as having the hardest to recruit to training places in England. At the end of January 2018, 238 GP trainee vacancies were filled, of which, 105 trainees entered the scheme in its first year in 2016, and a further 133 entered the scheme in 2017. The fill rate increased from 86% in 2016 to 92% in 2017. 250 places are being made available in 2018.
In addition, NHS England are working with partners such as Health Education England, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of GPs, and the General Medical Council, on International GP Recruitment. The programme was extended in August 2017, and will now aim to recruit at least 2,000 GPs into England from overseas by 2020. Recruitment is now underway in a number of areas across England, including in rural communities.
NHS England has also provided funding to increase the number of GP training places in England each year to 3,250 and invested additional resources to attract former GPs back to practice. Both of these initiatives will support rural communities by building the overall GP workforce.
At the same time, NHS England is supporting rural practices by building the wider general practice workforce, including significant investment in other patient facing roles such as clinical pharmacists and practice nurses.
NHS England’s expectation is that these programmes, in conjunction with the range of other initiatives being delivered as part of the General Practice Forward View, will help alleviate some of the pressures that general practices currently face.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 effect of the use of smart toothbrushes on dental health outcomes for (a) children, and (b) care home residents.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Government has made no assessment of the effect of the use of smart toothbrushes on dental health outcomes for children and care home residents.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 improve data collection on oral health in care homes.
Answered by Steve Brine
Since 2013, local authorities have had a statutory duty for improving the health, including oral health, of their populations.
In 2016, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), an arm’s length body of the Department, published guidance on oral health for adults in care homes. The aim of the guidance is to maintain and improve oral health and ensure timely access to dental treatment. The guidance can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng48
In 2017, NICE published a quality standard on oral health in care homes, which was endorsed by the Department, and is aimed at commissioners and providers of care homes. The quality standard can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs151
In summer 2018, Public Health England (PHE) will be publishing ‘Commissioning better oral health for vulnerable older people’ to support commissioning of health and social care services that will have positive impacts on the oral health of vulnerable older people.
PHE has no plans to improve data collection and there have been no national surveys on the oral health or tooth brushing habits of people in care homes. However, in 2016, PHE reported on oral health in older people in England and Wales using data from existing surveys. The report found that older adults living in care homes were more likely to have no natural teeth and less likely to have a functional dentition; older adults living in care homes were more likely to have higher levels of tooth decay; care home managers experienced greater difficulty in accessing dental care for residents than household resident older adults did and residents resisting oral care routines was the second most common oral health issue raised by care home managers. Further information can be found here:
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 improve data collection on tooth brushing habits in care homes.
Answered by Steve Brine
Since 2013, local authorities have had a statutory duty for improving the health, including oral health, of their populations.
In 2016, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), an arm’s length body of the Department, published guidance on oral health for adults in care homes. The aim of the guidance is to maintain and improve oral health and ensure timely access to dental treatment. The guidance can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng48
In 2017, NICE published a quality standard on oral health in care homes, which was endorsed by the Department, and is aimed at commissioners and providers of care homes. The quality standard can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs151
In summer 2018, Public Health England (PHE) will be publishing ‘Commissioning better oral health for vulnerable older people’ to support commissioning of health and social care services that will have positive impacts on the oral health of vulnerable older people.
PHE has no plans to improve data collection and there have been no national surveys on the oral health or tooth brushing habits of people in care homes. However, in 2016, PHE reported on oral health in older people in England and Wales using data from existing surveys. The report found that older adults living in care homes were more likely to have no natural teeth and less likely to have a functional dentition; older adults living in care homes were more likely to have higher levels of tooth decay; care home managers experienced greater difficulty in accessing dental care for residents than household resident older adults did and residents resisting oral care routines was the second most common oral health issue raised by care home managers. Further information can be found here:
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 improve oral health in care homes.
Answered by Steve Brine
Since 2013, local authorities have had a statutory duty for improving the health, including oral health, of their populations.
In 2016, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), an arm’s length body of the Department, published guidance on oral health for adults in care homes. The aim of the guidance is to maintain and improve oral health and ensure timely access to dental treatment. The guidance can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng48
In 2017, NICE published a quality standard on oral health in care homes, which was endorsed by the Department, and is aimed at commissioners and providers of care homes. The quality standard can be found here:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs151
In summer 2018, Public Health England (PHE) will be publishing ‘Commissioning better oral health for vulnerable older people’ to support commissioning of health and social care services that will have positive impacts on the oral health of vulnerable older people.
PHE has no plans to improve data collection and there have been no national surveys on the oral health or tooth brushing habits of people in care homes. However, in 2016, PHE reported on oral health in older people in England and Wales using data from existing surveys. The report found that older adults living in care homes were more likely to have no natural teeth and less likely to have a functional dentition; older adults living in care homes were more likely to have higher levels of tooth decay; care home managers experienced greater difficulty in accessing dental care for residents than household resident older adults did and residents resisting oral care routines was the second most common oral health issue raised by care home managers. Further information can be found here:
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
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 tooth decay in children.
Answered by Steve Brine
Improving the oral health of children is a priority for this Government.
Alongside local authorities’ duties to improve health, including oral health, Public Health England is leading a wide ranging multi agency programme focussing on improving children’s oral health. They have established a Child Health Improvement Programme Board which supports evidenced based actions that will increase the use of fluoride (toothpaste, varnish, water fluoridation). This is in addition to the childhood obesity plan which sets out measures that will reduce the amount of sugar children consume.
NHS England are leading the Starting Well programme which will work in 13 high needs areas to reach children most at risk of tooth decay who are not currently seeing a dentist. Alongside this NHS England is also developing a complementary Starting Well Core offer, a commissioning approach designed to facilitate increased access and early preventive care for young children. The offer will be made available during 2018, with commissioners making local decisions on use based on their assessment of need locally.
Nationally, NHS England and the Department are testing new ways of providing National Health Service dental care focussed on preventing future dental disease. The aim is to deliver a new contract which improves oral health whilst increasing dental access. An evaluation report covering the first full year of testing the prototype approach is due to be published shortly.