Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
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 retain NHS midwives.
Answered by Edward Argar
The NHS People Plan, published in July 2020, focuses on building resilience with a recruitment, retention and support package. The People Recovery Task Force is developing a framework and set of interventions to ensure that National Health Service staff, including midwives, are safe and supported as we deliver the restoration of services. All staff have access to a psychological support package, including apps, a text service and 40 mental health hubs across the country.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to recognise covid-19 vaccines administered to British citizens residing in Mexico.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Vaccine certification from all countries and territories must meet the minimum criteria taking into account public health and wider considerations. We are taking a phased approach to the inbound vaccination programme to other countries and territories, including Mexico and we will keep this under regular consideration.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to introduce a covid-19 travel pass for those aged under 16 years.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The NHS COVID Pass is currently available to those aged 16 years old and over. Few countries require childrens’ vaccination status testing is generally available or entry on the parent/guardians’ status. However, we recognise that a small proportion of children aged over 12 years old have or will receive a full course of vaccination following the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s advice and the growing requirement abroad for children to demonstrate their status. The international standards for travel require a full course to be recognised as ‘fully vaccinated’. We are exploring ways for fully vaccinated children aged over 12 years old to demonstrate their vaccination status for travel. Those aged 12 to 15 years old offered one Pfizer dose should continue to follow destination countries’ entry requirements for unvaccinated arrivals.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
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 help improve the dispensing of prescriptions when patients are waiting to be discharged to avoid delays.
Answered by Edward Argar
NHS England and NHS Improvement support systems to improve their discharge processes through the Emergency Care Improvement Support Team and provide a number of resources that share best practice.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that the transition to a midwifery-led continuity of care model is accessible to women who are pregnant following the death of a previous baby.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
NHS England and NHS Improvement have committed to midwifery-led continuity of carer, so that it becomes the default model of care for women using maternity services across England by March 2023.
Upcoming NHS England and NHS Improvement guidance on continuity of carer will include advice on the implementation of maternal medicine-focused teams, which could be used to accommodate women deemed higher risk due to previous loss, whilst still offering continuity of the midwife caring for them.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
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 access to IVF for women whose partner has children from a previous relationship.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is clear that it expects local National Health Service bodies to commission fertility services in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, to ensure equitable access across England.
We are aware that some individual clinical commissioning groups set additional non-clinical criteria, which can include having children from previous relationships. This is outside the best clinical practice within the NICE fertility guidelines and we are currently considering options to address these variations.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to include privately run social care day centres within the remit of the CQC.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
There are no plans to include privately run social care day centres within the remit of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Social care day centres do not generally provide personal care or any other regulated activity as defined in Schedule 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. All providers of regulated activities must register with the CQC.
Personal care is defined by the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 as regulated activity that involves supporting people in their homes (or where they're living at the time) with things like washing, bathing or cleaning themselves, getting dressed or going to the toilet.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to expand covid-19 testing to teachers and school staff, outside of exceptional circumstances, ahead of the 2020-21 Christmas term break.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Before Christmas, symptomatic testing was available for all staff through the citizen’s portal, offering testing slots for regional and local testing sites and delivery of home test kits. Teachers had prioritised access to testing as they are classed as essential workers. This is alongside the polymerase contact reaction kits that were distributed to schools.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
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 adequacy of the provision of the second dose of the covid-19 vaccine for hospital patients.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We have sufficient doses to maintain the vaccination programme and to provide second doses to hospital patients and in other settings.
Asked by: Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the NHS plans to (a) resume administering vaccinations for tuberculosis and (b) begin offering appointments for people who were not offered that vaccination as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The significant decline in tuberculosis (TB) in England has meant the BCG vaccination programme is now targeted at protecting the children of people from TB high prevalence countries. The BCG vaccination is given at birth while the mother and baby are in hospital. The potential impact of COVID-19 on the provision of TB services including BCG vaccination was recognised early on and guidance was published in March 2020 which included maintenance of neonatal BCG provision.
Subsequently updated guidance was published in January 2021, which stated: “Childhood vaccination programmes are continuing, including the neonatal BCG vaccination. Therefore, maternity services and other providers of the BCG vaccination should continue to vaccinate for BCG.” General practices continue to offer routine vaccination services, using social distancing and personal protective equipment according to national guidelines.