Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 link between poor lung health and poverty.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton on 28 April 2025 to Question 46400.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 trends in the level of the uptake of vaccines by children from ethnic minority communities in England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors trends in the level of childhood vaccination rates by upper tier local authority (UTLA), region, and country. The UKHSA does not routinely collect data on trends in the level of the uptake of vaccines by children from ethnic minority communities in England. An assessment of coverage trends and ethnicity was published in the Lancet in 2023, and is available at the following link:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00458-3/fulltext
Data on the coverage of all routine childhood immunisations is published quarterly by the UKHSA, and is available at the following link:
Annual coverage data is also published by NHS England, and is available at the following link:
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the next meeting of the NHS England Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) will take place; and what steps the Government plans to take to fund treatments previously reviewed by CPAG.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS England Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) continues to meet on a monthly basis to consider policy propositions and service specification propositions that are categorised as in year service. The next scheduled meeting was due for 4 June 2025. The further review of treatments previously considered by CPAG that require significant investment will be deferred until such point that recurrent revenue funding can be identified to support new discretionary spend commitments.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to improve (a) maternity safety and (b) prevent brain injuries during childbirth.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is currently delivering a three-year plan for maternity and neonatal services, which brings together recommendations from previous independent inquiries, and sets national measures to make care safer, more personalised and more equitable. Significant improvements have been made through the plan, including the roll out of maternal mental health services, implementation of Version 3 of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, establishment of 14 maternal medicine networks across England, and Equity and Equality Action Plans being published by all local areas to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic backgrounds.
To prevent brain injuries during childbirth, the Department has invested £7.8 million to develop the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth programme which will reduce the number of avoidable brain injuries that occur during childbirth. This will be implemented by NHS England and will provide staff with the tools and right training to identify, intervene and manage obstetric emergencies as well as identifying and better identify signs that the baby is showing distress during labour.
Additionally, the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) Programme investigates certain cases of potential severe brain injury that occur in the first seven days of life. MNSI investigations seek to improve maternity safety and reduce the prevalence of adverse outcomes through providing learning to the health system via reports at a local, regional and national level.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 trends in the level of the uptake of vaccines by children in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors trends in the level of childhood vaccination rates by upper tier local authority (UTLA), region and country level. Newcastle-under-Lyme falls within the Staffordshire UTLA.
In Staffordshire, children aged five years old in 2023/2024 had a 94.8% coverage for the first dose of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. This is a 0.7 percentage point decrease from 2022/2023, when the coverage was 95.5% but is 3.6 percentage points above the England average which was 91.9%.
Coverage of the 6-in-1 vaccine, which includes diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis also known as whooping cough, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and hepatitis B, in the same age group was 95.6% in 2023/2024, a 0.7 percentage point decrease from 96.3% in 2022/2023 but 3.7 percentage points above the England average of 92.6%.
Data on coverage of all routine childhood immunisations are published quarterly by UKHSA and annually by NHS England, and are available at the following links:
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to help tackle ageism in healthcare services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to improving outcomes for older people through a range of cross-cutting strategies and initiatives.
Addressing healthcare inequalities is a fundamental part of the Health Mission and the 10-Year Health Plan, to ensure the National Health Service is there for anyone who needs it, whenever they need it. The Plan will be published in summer 2025 and aims to deliver on the three big shifts needed to move healthcare from hospital to the community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention. This includes how services can be better integrated and tailored to improve quality of life and reduce inequalities in later life.
The Department is embedding a focus on health inequalities across its work, including through the Core20PLUS5 approach in the NHS, which includes older age-related conditions such as dementia. It is also supporting improvements in adult social care to promote choice and to help people live as independent and fulfilling lives as possible.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 link between lung health and (a) air pollution and (b) indoor air quality in (i) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (ii) Staffordshire.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Poor air quality is one of the largest environmental risks to public health in the United Kingdom. Epidemiological studies have shown that long-term exposure to air pollution, over years or lifetimes, reduces life expectancy, due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and lung cancer. Short-term exposure, over hours or days, to elevated levels of air pollution can also cause a range of health impacts, including effects on lung function, exacerbation of asthma, increases in respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, and mortality. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-air-pollution/health-matters-air-pollution
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 NHS England on the adequacy of the data available to help clinical staff reduce the time taken to (a) diagnose and (b) treat cancer patients in (i) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency, (ii) Staffordshire and (iii) England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Officials in the Department regularly engage with NHS England on the adequacy of the data available, to improve performance against cancer waiting times.
The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) is introducing primary care symptom-based pathways, designed to support cancer referrals and to reduce the number of referrals into cancer pathways, where the risk of cancer is very low or more effective alternative referral pathways exist. The ICB intends to pilot clinical decision tools, which will prompt general practitioners to order relevant tests and suggest alternative referral pathways.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that a National Cancer Plan for England will be published this year, supporting the Prime Minister’s mission to build a National Health Service fit for the future and reduce the number of lives lost to cancer. The plan will outline how we will improve outcomes for all cancer patients, by speeding up diagnosis and treatment and ensuring access to the latest treatments and technologies.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which Minister attended the 2025 Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting; and what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of outcomes from that meeting.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention attended the 2025 Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting on 17 May 2025. The meeting was an opportunity for the United Kingdom and our Commonwealth partners to exchange views and strengthen cooperation on shared health challenges.
Commonwealth health ministers adopted an Outcome Statement outlining commitments to build equitable, resilient, and sustainably financed health systems that prioritise vulnerable member countries, that the UK supported. The statement included several UK health priorities including cancer, digital health, mental health, and antimicrobial resistance.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to include provision in the NHS 10-Year Plan for the National Health Service on the respiratory health of people living in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts our National Health Service needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention. All of these are relevant to improving respiratory health in all parts of the county, including in Newcastle-under-Lyme and across Staffordshire.
More tests and scans delivered in the community will allow for earlier diagnosis, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology will all help people manage their long-term conditions, including respiratory conditions, closer to home. Earlier diagnosis of conditions will help prevent deterioration and improve survival rates. Taking action to reduce the causes of the biggest killers, such as enabling a smoke free generation, can further help prevent lung conditions.