Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional steps he has taken to support young people’s mental health since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Children and young people’s mental health services have remained open throughout the pandemic, offering digital and remote access to maintain support, and accepting new referrals. NHS England asked all mental health trusts to ensure there are 24 hours a day, seven days a week open access telephone lines for urgent National Health Service mental health support, advice and triage for all ages through a single point of access. Crisis lines are an NHS Long Term Plan ambition brought forward from 2023/24.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the information provided to women undergoing consultation for late-term abortions; and whether women undergoing those consultations are informed that a child could live at 22 weeks outside the womb and feel pain.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not set clinical practice. To support clinical practice, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has considered the issue of fetal pain and awareness in its guidelines on The Care of Women Requesting Induced Abortion and Fetal Awareness: Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice, which is available at the following links:
https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/abortion-guideline_web_1.pdf
https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/rcogfetalawarenesswpr0610.pdf
The RCOG have identified the Report ‘Fetal Awareness: Review and Recommendations for Practice’ should be reviewed, following the recent publication of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Guidance on best practice abortion care.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the temporary measure allowing medical abortions to happen outside a clinical environment, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that potential abuse, coercion and sex-trafficking of under 18s who may request medical abortions at home under that measure is detected.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Safeguarding is an essential component of abortion services. All providers must comply with legal requirements and have regard to any statutory guidance relating to children, young people and vulnerable adults. Providers must ensure that all staff are trained in recognising the signs of potential abuse and know how to respond. Providers must have written guidance that staff are aware of and can easily refer to as well as easy access to a named lead in the organisation for guidance and advice.
It is also a requirement that clinicians caring for women requesting abortion should be able to identify those who require more support than can be provided in the routine abortion service setting, for example young women, those with a pre-existing mental health condition, those who are subject to sexual violence or poor social support, or where there is evidence of coercion. These requirements apply to all consultations whether they take place via video link, telephone call or face to face.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department made of the potential effect of (a) mandatory calorie counts on menus and (b) other measures in the Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives policy paper on people with eating disorders prior to the publication of that policy paper.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening conditions and it is important that people have access to the right mental health support, in the right place, at the right time. We carefully considered all views on our measures to reduce obesity and will continue to do so. This includes feedback from a wide range of experts in response to our public consultations on specific policy proposals in ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’.
In response to feedback to our consultation on out-of-home calorie labelling, we will introduce legislation to require large out-of-home sector businesses with 250 or more employees, to calorie label the food they sell. An equalities assessment and impact assessment were published alongside the consultation response and is available at the following link:
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/calorie-labelling-for-food-and-drink-served-outside-of-the-home
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have received results from being tested for covid-19.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 14 October 2020, a total of 7,654,018, or one in eight people in England have received a COVID-19 test at least once since the launch of NHS Test and Trace on 28 May 2020.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
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 shopper intent when developing the scope for the proposed location restrictions set out in the Tackling Obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives strategy.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A full public consultation and impact assessment has been carried out for the proposal to restrict the promotion of foods high in fat, salt and sugar in stores. The Government’s response to the consultation and the impact assessment will be published shortly.
Policies on restricting the promotion and advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar are informed by the latest research, emerging evidence and various reports from key stakeholders including Public Health England.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to use the findings of Public Health England' report, Tackling Obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives, published on 27 July 2020 on the consumption of sugar and excess calories in developing the proposed promotion and advertising restrictions.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A full public consultation and impact assessment has been carried out for the proposal to restrict the promotion of foods high in fat, salt and sugar in stores. The Government’s response to the consultation and the impact assessment will be published shortly.
Policies on restricting the promotion and advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar are informed by the latest research, emerging evidence and various reports from key stakeholders including Public Health England.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
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 effect on mental health of enabling couples to form a bubble while living in separate households during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Until 3 December, people must not mix with any other households indoors apart from under certain exemptions, including being able to form a support bubble. If a person or their partner is in a single adult household, they can form a support bubble between your household and do not have to adhere to social distancing rules.
We understand these rules are difficult for everyone, but reducing social contact is paramount to protecting the National Health Service and saving lives. The Government will keep this under constant review and has published guidance on mental health and wellbeing which includes guidance on maintaining relationships, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
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 facilitate safe contact between the guests of care homes and their families to mitigate the effects of loneliness on mental health during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are aware that limiting visits in care homes has been difficult for many families and residents who want to see their loved ones.
We published updated visiting guidance on 15 October 2020, which set out tightened infection prevention and control measures to enable visits to continue safely, based on the views of their local Director of Public Health.
Care homes should provide support to visitors on how to prepare for a visit, including the appropriate infection control precautions.
For areas at local COVID alert level medium visits to care homes can continue as set out in the care homes visiting guidance. For areas at local COVID alert level high and very high visits to care homes should return to exceptional circumstances only such as end of life.
Our priority remains the prevention of infection in care homes to protect staff and residents and we are considering plans to test specific family and friends to reduce the risk of visiting care homes. We will set out further details in due course.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of covid-19 tests had results confirmed within 48 hours.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on turnaround times for testing is published for pillars 1 and 2 weekly as part of the NHS Test and Trace statistics at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports