Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
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 enable GP surgeries to provide additional services in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practices are able to provide Directed Enhanced Services and Enhanced Services by opting in, and will receive payment for these services separately to global sum payments. As commissioners of primary care, integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning Local Enhanced Services, which are not agreed nationally and can vary in scope and funding to fit local needs.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average payments to community pharmacies were in Aldershot constituency in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The average payments by the NHS Business Services Authority to community pharmacies in the Aldershot constituency were: £68,547.19 per pharmacy per month in 2021/22, or £822,566.32 per pharmacy for 12 months; and £77,398.58 per pharmacy per month in 2022/23, or £928,782.96 per pharmacy for 12 months.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of social care capacity in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population, which is why under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market to meet the diverse needs of all local people. In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to the need to ensure that it is aware of current and likely future demand for such services, and to consider how providers might meet that demand.
The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund includes grant conditions which require each local authority to submit an adult social care capacity plan. These were submitted to the Department in June 2024. The hon. Member's local authority, Aldershot, submitted their 2024/25 capacity plan, which is currently undergoing processing and quality assurance.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
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 provide (a) resources and (b) other support to help GP surgeries to reduce (i) patient backlogs and (ii) workloads in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that patients are finding it harder than ever to see a general practitioner (GP), and we are committed to fixing this crisis in GPs to secure the long-term sustainability of the National Health Service. Aldershot sits within the NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board, where 84.8% of appointments were delivered within two weeks of booking, 2.1% higher than the national average.
The Government has committed to fixing the front door to the NHS by shifting the focus from hospitals and into the community. We know that if patients can’t get a GP appointment, they will end up in accident and emergency, which is worse for them, and more expensive for the taxpayer.
NHS England is working to address training bottlenecks, so the health service has enough staff for the future, and we have provided £82 million to fund the recruitment of over 1,000 newly qualified GPs, to increase capacity and reduce workloads.
We are pleased to announce that newly qualified GPs will be included in the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme as part of an initiative to address GP unemployment, with additional funding over 2024/25.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
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 increase access to mental health services in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
People with mental health issues in Aldershot and across the country are not getting the support or care they deserve, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure that mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health, so that people can be confident in accessing high quality mental health support when they need it.
We will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to reduce delays and provide faster treatment which will also help ease pressure on hospitals. By cutting mental health waiting lists and intervening earlier with more timely mental health support, we can get this country back to good health.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
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 provide support to young people with eating disorders in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to working closely with NHS England to ensure that people with an eating disorder get the care and treatment they need, when they need it. The Department will focus on improving the performance of the existing waiting time standards for Children and Young Peoples’ Eating Disorder services including in Aldershot.
This will be supported by recruiting 8,500 additional mental health staff across children and adult mental health services, ensuring every young person has access to a specialist mental health professional at school, and setting up Young Futures hubs in every community, offering open access mental health services for young people.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) financial and (b) other steps his Department is taking to tackle workforce shortages in the NHS in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service has been facing chronic workforce shortages for years and we have to be honest that bringing in the staff and investment the NHS needs will take time.
We are determined to fix our NHS and restore it to a service we are proud of. We are committed to training the staff we need to get patients seen on time.
The Government is committed to making sure the NHS has the staff it needs to be there for all of us when we need it and get staff in places where patients and the NHS need them and that will benefit not just Aldershot but the whole of the NHS in England.
Local employers are best placed to understand the diverse needs of their communities and subsequently manage their own recruitment to ensure they have the right number of staff, with the right skill mix, to provide the safe and effective care that their patients need.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
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 waiting times for elective surgeries in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling waiting lists is a key part of our Health Mission and a top priority for the Government, as we get the National Health Service back on its feet. Equality of both access to care and outcomes will be at the heart of building an NHS that is fit for the future.
We have committed to achieving the NHS Constitutional standard that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment by the end of this Parliament. As a first step to achieving this, we will deliver an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week across the country, and will increase the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests, that are needed to reduce elective and cancer waits.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of residential care homes that have closed in Aldershot constituency since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since 2010, the total number of residential care homes that have closed in the Aldershot constituency is 29.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of care homes were rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in Aldershot constituency on 3 September 2024.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently 22 care homes registered with Care Quality Commission in the Aldershot constituency. As of the latest data from 1 August 2024, 16 of those care homes, or 73%, are rated ‘Good’.