Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to reduce patient waiting lists for mental health services in England.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020 in autumn 2014.
The publication was backed by -
- £80 million of funding in 2015-16 to deliver:
Treatment within six weeks for 75% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, with 95% of people being treated within 18 weeks (introduced in April 2015); and
Treatment within two weeks for more than 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis (introduced in April 2016).
The National Health Service is currently exceeding its mental health access standards.
For IAPT, as at November 2017, of those people completing treatment, 89.1% of people waited less than six weeks (exceeding the 75% target) and of those people completing treatment, 98.8% of people waited less than 18 weeks (exceeding the 95% target).
For Early Intervention in Psychosis, as at January 2017, the NHS is exceeding the target with 69.3% of patients starting treatment within two weeks.
For Eating Disorders – The Department is investing £30 million a year to 2020 to support clinical commissioning groups in developing and enhancing eating disorder services for children and young people so that by 2020/21, 95% of young people in need of an eating disorders service will be seen within four weeks, and one week in urgent cases. The NHS is on track to meet this standard. As at Q3 (October-December 2017) 76.9% of patients started urgent treatment within one week and 83.1% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks.
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to increase the level of real term funding for mental health services in England.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We are taking steps to increase the level of real term funding for mental health services in England. We have increased spending on mental health to a record £11.6 billion in 2016/17 and this is planned to rise to £11.86 billion for in 2017/18.
The Mental Health Investment Standard requires all clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to increase funding for mental health by at least as much as the overall increase to their funding allocations. 85% of CCGs achieved the Investment Standard in 2016/17 and from 2018/19 all CCGs will be required to meet it.
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
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 who have received mental health treatment from South Tees NHS Trust since 2010.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This information is not collected in the format requested.
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to reduce patient waiting lists for mental health services in England.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020 in autumn 2014.
The publication was backed by -
- £80 million of funding in 2015-16 to deliver:
Treatment within six weeks for 75% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, with 95% of people being treated within 18 weeks (introduced in April 2015); and
Treatment within two weeks for more than 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis (introduced in April 2016).
The National Health Service is currently exceeding its mental health access standards.
For IAPT, as at November 2017, of those people completing treatment, 89.1% of people waited less than six weeks (exceeding the 75% target) and of those people completing treatment, 98.8% of people waited less than 18 weeks (exceeding the 95% target).
For Early Intervention in Psychosis, as at January 2017, the NHS is exceeding the target with 69.3% of patients starting treatment within two weeks.
For Eating Disorders – The Department is investing £30 million a year to 2020 to support clinical commissioning groups in developing and enhancing eating disorder services for children and young people so that by 2020/21, 95% of young people in need of an eating disorders service will be seen within four weeks, and one week in urgent cases. The NHS is on track to meet this standard. As at Q3 (October-December 2017) 76.9% of patients started urgent treatment within one week and 83.1% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks.
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of full-time practising GPs in (a) South Tees NHS Trust, (b) the North East and (c) England for each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Steve Brine
The requested information is shown in the table below. The table shows data for general practitioner (GP) full-time equivalent figures for NHS South Tees Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England North (Cumbria and North East) and England, for each of the years in question. Prior to 2015, the locum headcounts were not recorded.
Year | All GPs Full-Time Equivalent | All GPs (Excluding Registrars, Retainers and Locums) Full-Time Equivalent | ||||
England | NHS England North (Cumbria and North East) | NHS South Tees CCG | England | NHS England North (Cumbria and North East) | NHS South Tees CCG | |
March 2017 | 33,921 | 1,679 | 156 | 28,092 | 1,544 | 145 |
September 2016 | 34,495 | 1,837 | 154 | 28,458 | 1,724 | 142 |
September 2015 | 34,592 | 1,910 | 165 | 29,229 | 1,774 | 150 |
September 2014 |
|
|
| 32,628 | 2,160 | 180 |
September 2013 |
|
|
| 32,075 | 2,143 | 189 |
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of patients receiving treatment for arthritis in (a) South Tees NHS Trust, (b) the North East and (c) England.
Answered by Steve Brine
No specific estimate has been made. The majority of patients receiving treatment for rheumatoid arthritis are managed in outpatient settings where data collection is not mandated.
Asked by: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve NHS timescales for diagnosing children with autism.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Diagnosing autism in children can involve a range of observations over time and a number of different professionals. The time taken to formulate a diagnosis will not be the same in all cases.
There are concerns in some local areas that the length of time some children have had to wait for an assessment for autism to begin is longer than the three months recommended by the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) guidelines from a referral to a first appointment. Whilst local clinical commissioning groups have been working to bring down the waits in line with the NICE guidelines, to date there has been no national collection of waiting times data.
The Government is taking steps to rectify this and NHS Digital have confirmed they will be collecting and recording waiting times from referral for suspected autism to a first appointment within the Mental Health Services Data Set from April 2018. This will mean that each area can be held to account in real time and action can be taken to support them when waiting times are increasing.
An indicative timeline for the development of care pathways was set out in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. The precise timetable for the establishment of a care pathway for autism will be confirmed by NHS England in due course.