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.