Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to work with the NHS to change perceptions around organ donation to make it an expected part of care when a potential donor dies.
Answered by Lord Bethell
A system for deemed consent, known as ‘opt-out’, was introduced in England from May 2020, to make deceased organ donation the default position. NHS Blood and Transplant and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked together to implement the new United Kingdom-wide organ donation and transplantation strategy. NHS Blood and Transplant has launched communication campaigns and partnerships to address barriers, such as the ‘Leave Them Certain’ campaign and the Community Investment Scheme and promotes organ donation at events such as Organ Donation Week and the Transplant Games.
In addition, NHS Blood and Transplant has introduced prompts for organ donation when applying for a driving licence or taxing a car. Teaching resources have been provided in all state-funded secondary schools for blood, organ and stem cell donation.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Emergency Departments currently collect data on 12-hours from the time of arrival at the Department.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England and NHS Improvement are considering a 12 hour measure in emergency departments as part of its clinically-led review of standards and have undertaken a public consultation. They will respond in due course. All emergency departments are collecting data.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the 12-hour waiting times from the time of arrival at an Emergency Department will be published.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England and NHS Improvement are considering a 12 hour measure in emergency departments as part of its clinically-led review of standards and have undertaken a public consultation. They will respond in due course. All emergency departments are collecting data.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to expand same-day emergency care to all emergency departments in England; and what the timescales are for any such plans.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England and NHS Improvement’s planning guidance 2021/22 priorities and operational planning guidance published on 25 March 2021 includes guidance to progress the work already underway through the same day emergency care (SDEC) programmes. This guidance includes that systems should:
- maximise the utilisation of direct referral from NHS 111 to other hospital services including SDEC and specialty hot clinics and implement referral pathways from NHS 111 to urgent community and mental health services; and
- adopt a consistent, expanded, model of SDEC provision, including associated acute frailty services, within all providers with a type 1 emergency department to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.
A copy of the planning guidance is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Royal College of Emergency’s Medicine’s call to (1) restore bed capacity to pre-COVID levels, and (2) provide an additional 9,429 hospital beds, as set out in their letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 1 March.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We will continue to support the National Health Service in taking action to help reduce pressures on hospital bed capacity and increase patient flow through the emergency care pathway. This includes action within community services to help avoid unnecessary emergency admissions and the enhanced patient discharge arrangements which the NHS estimates has reduced long lengths of stay, increasing capacity to the equivalent of over 6,000 beds.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) domiciliary carers, and (2) hospice staff who provide care at home, have been vaccinated for COVID-19 in the same cohort as homecare staff.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We do not currently publish specific figures for domiciliary carers or hospice staff who provide care at home.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to allocate frontline funeral workers key worker or equivalent status to enable them access to regular COVID-19 testing.
Answered by Lord Bethell
It is for local authorities to decide where to introduce testing in their areas and which cohorts testing will cover, including funeral workers. In addition to local authorities, NHS Test and Trace will also work closely with other Government departments to increase workplace testing for medium and large organisations within their sectors.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the next iteration of the NHS People Plan will be published; and what assessment they have made of the recommendations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine RCEM Cares Retention of A&E staff: policy brief, published in February, (1) to recruit an additional 2500 Emergency Medicine Consultants, and (2) to increase the numbers entering Emergency Medicine training by 120 per year, to ensure services are sustainable long term; and what steps they intend to take in response.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The NHS People Plan is a shared programme of work to increase the workforce, support new ways of working and develop a compassionate and inclusive workplace culture in order to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan. We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England (HEE) and with systems and employers to determine our workforce and people priorities beyond April 2021 to support the recovery of National Health Service staff and services.
HEE has also worked proactively with system partners to address service pressures in emergency department teams. We have almost doubled the number of core trainees and consultants in emergency medicine since 2010. HEE will continue to work with service providers, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and NHS England to understand and discuss the recommendations in this latest Royal College of Emergency Medicine briefing.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many international medical graduates are working for the NHS in the UK on a temporary visa; how many (1) such graduates, and (2) families of those graduates, have not yet been granted indefinite leave to remain; and how many of those graduates have been told that they may be deported.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that NHS estates can reduce the viral load of COVID-19 in the ambient air; and what plans they have to undertake wide-scale deployment of professional high-efficiency particulate air purifiers to reduce the risk of nosocomial infection.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The current National Health Service infection prevention control principles are applicable to all healthcare staff in all healthcare settings.
These set out safe systems of working including administrative, environmental and engineering controls and interventions to reduce the risk of transmission of infection. This includes cleaning and decontamination of the environment and shared equipment, social/physical distancing, hand hygiene, personal protective equipment and ventilation.