Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 22 September 2021 to Question 49038 on NHS: Coronavirus, what plans he has to make an assessment of the effect on NHS frontline staffing levels of the advice that from 28 weeks all NHS staff who are pregnant should work from home and if that is not possible take sick leave or be suspended on full pay; and if he will remove that provision in response to the ending of shielding guidance.
Answered by Edward Argar
There are currently no plans to do so. However, the Department is currently reviewing the guidance ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): advice for pregnant employees’.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
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 effect on NHS frontline staffing levels of the advice that from 28 weeks all NHS staff who are pregnant should work from home and if that is not possible take sick leave or be suspended on full pay.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Department has made no such assessment.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to publish on a six-monthly basis the additional results achieved by the NHS through expenditure raised by the 1.25 per cent Health and Social Care Levy announced on 7 September 2021.
Answered by Edward Argar
We will publish the delivery plan for tackling the electives backlog later this year.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to publish on a six-monthly basis the value for money calculations made on the additional health and social care expenditure for which money has been raised through the 1.25 per cent Health and Social Care Levy announced on 7 September 2021.
Answered by Edward Argar
We have no plans to do so. HM Treasury and the Department will continue to scrutinise spending to ensure good value outcomes. Health and social care spending will also continue to be subject to scrutiny by the National Audit Office and through the Health and Social Care Select Committee and Public Accounts Committee.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
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 improve departmental response times to correspondence from hon. Members.
Answered by Edward Argar
In 2020 the Department received 31,509 cases from hon. Members compared to 10,467 in 2019; the increase was overwhelmingly due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have taken steps to improve efficiency through the end-to-end correspondence process and have doubled the number of staff in the Department’s correspondence unit temporarily to cope with the extra demand.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
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 in the West Midlands to ensure that the backlog for cancer treatment is prioritised.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Cancer treatments in the West Midlands have continued throughout the pandemic with little reduction in capacity for chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments. Work is now ongoing to prioritise surgery and diagnostic procedures, including additional endoscopy resource, further development of rapid diagnostic centres and implementation of community diagnostic hubs. The implementation of breast pain pathways should reduce demand on cancer services and help focus capacity on where it is needed. The elective recovery programme is underway and is focussing on the reduction of backlogs in the highest priority categories of patients, which includes cancer patients.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps the Department has taken to reduce the average waiting time was for accessing NHS mental health services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
In the West Midlands, the Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has received additional funding for mental health services during 2021/22. National planning guidance sets out the deliverables which are expected will be achieved with this funding and some of these relate to further improving access and reducing waiting times for patients.
Birmingham and Solihull CCG have undertaken modelling work to help understand and plan for an increase in demand for services to ensure that waiting times are maintained or improved.