Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the NHS dentist provision in Bolton South East constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No specific assessment has been made. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Bolton South East.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s announcement of 14 May 2022, Government delays restrictions on multibuy deals and advertising on TV and online, what representations his Department received from representatives of the food and advertising industries regarding those policies in 2022; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Department has received 15 letters on this subject and there have been two Ministerial meetings with the food and drinks and advertising industries.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2022 to Question 18862, how many registered NHS dentists there were in each year from 2011 to 2021.
Answered by James Morris
The following table shows the number of National Health Service dentists with NHS activity in each year from 2011 to 2021. The information requested for 2021/22 is expected to be published in September 2022.
Year | Number of dentists with NHS activity |
2010/11 | 22,799 |
2011/12 | 22,920 |
2012/13 | 23,201 |
2013/14 | 23,723 |
2014/15 | 23,947 |
2015/16 | 24,089 |
2016/17 | 24,007 |
2017/18 | 24,308 |
2018/19 | 24,545 |
2019/20 | 24,684 |
2020/21 | 23,733 |
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 roles the 50,000 Nurses Programme nurses have been recruited into; and how many of those nurses have been recruited into breast cancer nursing roles.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made as decisions on the deployment of additional nurses are made locally. This includes information on the specific roles the additional nurses are recruited to, such as breast cancer nursing. As of April 2022, there were more than 29,000 additional nurses working in the National Health Service, compared to September 2019.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 potential impact of lower than average uptake of breast screening amongst women receiving their first invitation in 2020-21 on future uptake of routine invitations within that cohort.
Answered by James Morris
We are researching the impact of different invitation methods, while taking account of previous screening history, to increase uptake across all eligible cohorts.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to increase financial support for carers in the event that they are unable to work because they tested positive for covid-19.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are continuing to provide free personal protective equipment, testing and vaccinations to the social care sector to manage the spread of COVID-19. While the vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers which determine their pay and terms and conditions, we expect all care providers to support good health and safety practice. This includes ensuring that staff stay away from the workplace when there would be a health risk to those in their care, as before the pandemic. We continue to review infection, prevention and control measures in line with the latest evidence on COVID-19 infections.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many of the one million tests and checks carried out by community diagnostic centres since July 2021 were for (a) people urgently referred by their GP with suspected breast cancer and (b) breast symptoms where cancer was not initially suspected.
Answered by James Morris
This data is not collected in the format requested. Information on general practitioner referrals to community diagnostic centres is not collected by specific care pathway.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of using percentage of those diagnosed with a specific sub-type of dementia in the dementia strategy as a key performance indicator to assess progress in diagnosing dementia.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We will shortly set out our plans on dementia for England, which will focus on the specific health and care needs of people living with dementia and their carers, including dementia diagnosis, risk reduction and prevention and research. As part of the development of the plan, we are working with partners to identify appropriate key performance indicators to monitor progress and assess the plan’s success.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of using the average age of diagnosis as a key performance indicator in the dementia strategy for assessing the progress of diagnosing dementia.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We will shortly set out our plans on dementia for England, which will focus on the specific health and care needs of people living with dementia and their carers, including dementia diagnosis, risk reduction and prevention and research. As part of the development of the plan, we are working with partners to identify appropriate key performance indicators to monitor progress and assess the plan’s success.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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) recruit NHS dentists, (b) reduce the NHS dentistry appointment backlog and (c) standardise international dentistry qualifications.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In its ‘Advancing Dental Care Review’, Health Education made recommendations to address recruitment and retention into the National Health Service. These recommendations are being implemented through the Dental Education Reform Programme. NHS England and NHS Improvement have asked practices to deliver 100% of contracted units of dental activity and 100% of units of orthodontic activity to safely improve access for patients safely. We allocated an additional £50 million for NHS dentistry for the final quarter of 2021/22 to provide urgent care to patients and address the backlog. NHS England is also consulting the British Dental Association and other stakeholders on a range of improvements to the current contract which aim at increasing access for patients and reward dentists fairly for complex work.
The General Dental Council (GDC) the independent regulator responsible for assessing the skills, knowledge and experience of healthcare professionals seeking to join its register who qualified outside of the United Kingdom to ensure that standards of practice are met. The Department recently consulted on legislative changes which will provide the GDC with greater flexibility on alternative routes to registration for international applicants. Officials are analysing the responses received with the intention of publishing the Government’s response later this year. The GDC will then determine how best to utilise this increased flexibility.