Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department issues to NHS facilities on advertising the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme in cancer screening appointment communications.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme does not cover travel costs for any National Health Service screening programme, including cancer screening. Further details of what is covered under this scheme and who is eligible, is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/help-with-health-costs/healthcare-travel-costs-scheme-htcs/
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the newly announced Major Conditions Strategy will contain any new targets relating to cancer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at all cancer types, covering the patient pathway from prevention, through treatment, to follow-up care. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he will take to prioritise (a) pancreatic cancer and (b) the other less survivable cancers in the Major Conditions Strategy, due to be published later this year.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at all cancer types, covering the patient pathway from prevention, through treatment, to follow-up care. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which NHS Trusts have a formal written policy on (a) digital rectal examination, (b) digital rectal stimulation and (c) the digital removal of faeces for patients with neurogenic bowel dysfunction.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Digital rectal examination, digital rectal stimulation and the digital removal of faeces are all locally commissioned services. As such information on formal written policies owned by individual trusts is not held centrally.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the potential merits of allowing disabled people who directly employ their own care workers to sponsor care workers from abroad.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Secretary of State has not had specific discussions with the Home Secretary regarding this issue.
Personal assistants are not eligible for the Health and Care Visa, because Home Office rules require an employing organisation, not a private individual or household, to act as the visa sponsor for any care workers recruited from abroad.
The two departments have an ongoing dialogue about ways to improve the accessibility of the immigration system for the care sector.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of people living with a spinal cord injury in England.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
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 ensure that sufficient NHS staff are trained to provide (a) transanal irrigation, (b) digital rectal stimulation and (c) the digital removal of faeces for inpatients in NHS hospitals with neurogenic bowel dysfunction.
Answered by Will Quince
Training for transanal irrigation, digital rectal stimulation and the digital removal of faeces for inpatients in National Health Service hospitals with neurogenic bowel dysfunction is the responsibility of individual NHS employers.