Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
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 tackle disinformation about vaccinations.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We take the issue of disinformation and misinformation about vaccines extremely seriously and are working across Government to tackle this. There is high confidence in the routine vaccine programmes, and we know that the National Health Service rightfully remains the most trusted source of information on immunisation. However, the influence of anti-vaccine misinformation on vaccine uptake rates is hard to quantify, so we are working to address this with colleagues from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Public Health England.
The Department continues to work closely with Public Health England and with NHS England and NHS Improvement to promote the positive value of vaccines in social media campaigns.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will allow the reopening of dental practices in line with the reopening of non essential shops as restrictions are eased due to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To meet the Government social distancing measures and to contain the spread of COVID-19 all routine dentistry was suspended at the start of the pandemic.
NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28 May that NHS dentistry outside urgent care centres will begin to gradually restart from 8 June where practices assess that they have the necessary personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control. The aim is to increase levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.
A copy of the letter that was published can be found at the following link:
We still expect all NHS dental practices to provide urgent telephone advice and triage. Dentists are giving urgent advice remotely and, if needed, prescriptions for painkillers or antibiotics. All urgent face to face treatment that is clinically necessary will still be available for patients who are triaged by their dentist or NHS 111 into one of over 600 urgent dental centres set up by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
To support dentists and teams to reopen safely NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer have published a standard operating procedure covering the recovery transition.
This can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if the Government will allow the reopening of dental practices in line with the reopening of non-essential shops as covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To meet the Government social distancing measures and to contain the spread of COVID-19 all routine dentistry was suspended at the start of the pandemic.
NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28 May that National Health Service dentistry outside urgent care centres could begin to gradually restart from 8 June where practices assess that they have the necessary personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control. The aim is to increase levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.
A copy of the letter that was published can be found at the following link:
We still expect all NHS dental practices to provide urgent telephone advice and triage. Dentists are giving urgent advice remotely and, if needed, prescriptions for painkillers or antibiotics. All urgent face to face treatment that is clinically necessary will still be available for patients who are triaged by their dentist or NHS 111 into one of over 600 urgent dental centres set up by NHS England and NHS Improvement.
To support dentists and teams to reopen safely NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer have published a standard operating procedure covering the recovery transition.
This can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
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 trends in the level of (a) closures and (b) reduction in the opening hours of rural pharmacies; and what assessment he has made of the effect on access to pharmacy services of reductions in the level of public transport services.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Whilst the Department does not track closures of rural pharmacies, we track the closure of those pharmacies that are more than a mile from their next nearest pharmacy. Since 2017, there have been 18, with no discernible trend in the closures. No assessment has been made of reduced opening hours or the effect of any reduction in public transport on access. NHS England and NHS Improvement closely monitor closures to ensure that National Health Service pharmaceutical services continue to be provided. Depending on the area, this maybe through other pharmacies that patients can access in the area, dispensing doctors and/or distance selling pharmacies.
The Government also paid for a medicines delivery service for people while shielding and, during the peak of the pandemic, enabled pharmacies to close to the public for two hours a day to help deal with the increased number of telephone calls, for advice on health and medicines, from the public, who preferred not to visit the pharmacy in person.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
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 provide mental health support to people who are living alone during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
On 22 April 2020, the Government announced a guaranteed £5 million boost for national loneliness organisations to help them continue and adapt their work to ensure that staying at home does not lead to loneliness. A number of charities, businesses and public figures will join the Government’s ‘Tackling Loneliness Network’ to help connect those at risk of isolation. Volunteers from the NHS Volunteer Responder programme are also available to support people isolating at home, including making regular check in and chat phone calls.
Mental health services remain open and are working around the clock to support people. We have published official guidance on mental health and wellbeing on GOV.UK and are promoting this through Every Mind Matters. For those with severe needs or in crisis, NHS England has instructed all National Health Service mental health trusts to establish 24 hours a day, seven days a week mental health crisis lines.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
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 ensure that the covid-19 tracing app will work in rural areas with poor access to mobile networks and broadband.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The National Health Service COVID-19 app uses Bluetooth technology to detect proximity contacts between app users, access to a mobile network or broadband is not required for this. The times when the user is required to use mobile data or broadband are downloading and registering the app, submitting symptoms if the user becomes symptomatic, and receiving alerts for self-isolation. We expect the vast majority of the population will be able to use the app using their existing mobile network or home broadband service. Mobile coverage is improving, with 91% of the United Kingdom landmass covered by a good 4G signal from at least one operator. The recently announced Shared Rural Network programme will go further and see Government and industry jointly invest to increase 4G mobile coverage throughout the UK to 95% by the end of 2025.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
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 ensure that rural communities have adequate access to health care facilities.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although overall health outcomes are better in rural than urban areas, the Government recognises the specific challenges that rural areas face and the potential for certain health inequalities to develop. The Department continues to take a systematic approach to tackling health inequalities and is committed to engaging with a range of stakeholders including the devolved administrations; encouraging spread of best practice and considering the wider drivers of ill-health in remote settings.
Within England, the NHS Long Term Plan sets out how the National Health Service will develop over the coming years and take stronger action surrounding health inequalities, including eliminating variation in quality of care across the country, building a workforce for the future, and embracing the opportunities of technology for rural communities.
NHS England has committed to continuing to ensure a higher share of funding goes towards geographies with high health inequalities than would have been allocated using solely the core needs formulae. This funding is estimated to be worth over £1 billion by 2023/24. Clinical commissioning groups benefiting from this health inequalities adjustment have been asked to report on how they are targeting that funding to improve the equity of access, experience and outcomes, and they will start to report later this year. As part of the Long Term Plan process all local health systems have been asked, as part of their overall delivery plans, to set out how they will specifically reduce health inequalities by 2023/24 and 2028/29 and their plans will be published shortly.