Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 20 February 2023 to Question 142657 on Mental Health Services: Children and Young People, what progress has been made on work to (a) establish the feasibility and associated risks of introducing new mental health waiting time standards for (i) adult's and (ii) children and young people’s community-based mental health services and (b) support the development of a baseline position for waiting times.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England will publish new core community all-age mental health waiting time metrics from autumn 2024, which will encompass activity data from April 2024. It will cover the percentage of patients receiving meaningful help within four weeks of referral to community mental health services. Once published, NHS England will focus on improving data quality, including ensuring appropriate Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine data is flowed to show when patients are receiving meaningful help. Improved data quality within community mental health services will provide greater insights into the frequency and types of therapeutic provision.
The publication of the new community waiting times metrics is expected to increase transparency and local accountability on waiting times for community mental health services. Furthermore, NHS England expect that publication of the data will improve the quality of the data, so that the Department and NHS England will be in a better position to assess the costs and benefits of introducing performance standards against these metrics.
Systems have also been asked to focus on reducing long waits in community mental health services and to develop local plans to support this, including by improving data quality. We will work with systems to develop an agreed baseline and improvement trajectories for waits over 104 weeks in autumn 2024, as referenced in NHS England’s 2024/25 Operational Planning Guidance.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 16 May 2024 to Question 25822 on War Crimes: Gaza and with reference to paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code, updated on 22 December 2022, if she will hold discussions with the Prime Minister on the potential merits of using her authority to publish summaries of advice provided to him on alleged war crimes in Gaza since 1 April 2024.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
As per my previous answer to UIN 25822 tabled on Thursday 16 May, and as reflected in the Ministerial Code, I do not confirm publicly whether I or any other Law Officer has advised on a particular issue or the content of any advice, save where I, as a Law Officer, explicitly consent. That consent is rarely given.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, whether she has written to the Prime Minister on Gaza and war crimes since 1 April 2024.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
I cannot answer your question as to do so would be in breach of the Law Officers’ Convention.
Paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code clearly states that the fact that the Law Officers have advised or have not advised and the content of their advice must not be disclosed outside Government without their authority.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Prime Minister of 8 May 2024 in response to a question from the hon. Member for Weston Super Mare, which the 500 dental practices referred to are; and how many of those practices were registering NHS patients on 8 May 2024.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients and as of 8 April 2024, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients, compared to the end of January 2024. The Find a Dentist website allows people to see which practices have said they are accepting new patients, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist
No estimates are currently available on the number of new patients seen by dental practices since the New Patient Premium scheme was introduced, but we are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once this is available.