Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there are plans to enable clinical commissioning groups to limit the number of people with diabetes whom they prescribe to.
Answered by Steve Brine
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have a statutory responsibility to provide services that meet the needs of local populations. If there is evidence of CCGs limiting prescriptions, and therefore rationing care, the Department expects NHS England to ensure the CCG is not breaching this statutory duty.
Treatment and prescribing decisions should always be made by clinicians based on patients’ clinical needs. It is a matter for NHS England, working in partnership with NHS Clinical Commissioners, to support CCGs to use their prescribing resources effectively and deliver best patient outcomes from the medicines that their local population uses.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) financial support and (b) other resources his Department has provided to Cancer Alliances for long-term planning for breast cancer care.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England provides funding, support and guidance to Cancer Alliances to ensure the delivery of improvements in early and faster diagnosis and quality of life for people living with and beyond cancer, including breast cancer patients.
For this year, all Cancer Alliances have agreed plans in place for using transformation funding, focused on the delivery of NHS England’s 2018/19 Planning Guidance priorities. As part of these plans, Alliances will:
- progress towards the 2020/21 ambition for all breast cancer patients to move to a stratified follow-up pathway after treatment; and
- have in place clinically agreed protocols for stratifying breast cancer patients and a system for remote monitoring by the end of 2018/19.
In addition to transformation funding, support that all Cancer Alliances will receive in 2018/19 to transform care for their cancer patients includes:
- dedicated support from the National Cancer Programme’s analysis, evidence and data service;
- support and assurance from NHS England regional offices;
- a tailored programme of leadership development; and
- a series of national events to share best practice and information across Cancer Alliances.
More information about the levels of transformation funding received by each Cancer Alliance in 2018/19, and how they are using this to improve cancer care, can be found on NHS England’s website at the following link:
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for the publication of the findings of the pregnancy loss review.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Pregnancy Loss Review was commissioned by the Department in March 2018.
The Department continues to work with the Review’s independent co-leads to engage with stakeholders such as parents, charities and medical professionals. The findings of the Review are intended to be published in 2019.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there are any plans to increase the level of available training for NHS staff on Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.
Answered by Steve Brine
The standard of medical training is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) and the training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the relevant medical Royal College, and has to meet the standards set by the GMC. Whilst curricula do not necessarily highlight specific conditions for doctors to be aware of, they instead emphasise the skills and approaches that a doctor must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
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 19 July 2018 to Question 164427 on learning disability: nurses, in what format his Department collects data.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department collects vacancy data from its arm’s length bodies; NHS Improvement, NHS Digital and Health Education England (HEE).
NHS Improvement has published management information vacancy data since April 2017 which is based on vacancies reported by trusts. This information covers the National Health Service trusts as a whole as well as a more granular breakdown for nursing and medics, but this does not go to the level of organisations, every staff group, or in particular learning disability nurses.
The latest NHS Improvement vacancy figures are available at the following link:
www.improvement.nhs.uk/resources/quarterly-performance-nhs-provider-sector-quarter-4-201718/
NHS Digital publishes NHS vacancy statistics, created from administrative data related to job advertisements published on NHS Jobs, the main recruitment website for the NHS.
The provisional experimental NHS Vacancy Statistics publication provides a proxy for vacancy information and, therefore, should be treated with caution. As one vacancy advert can be used to fill multiple vacancies it is not possible to accurately state the number of vacancies within a specified period – the only accurate statement is that the number of advertised vacancy full-time equivalents shows the minimum number of vacancies advertised. The figures contained in the publication are intended to provide an insight to recruitment in the NHS. It is not possible to identify unfilled advertised vacancies.
The latest NHS Vacancy Statistics publication is available at the following link:
HEE provides estimates of “shortage” as part of their Workforce Strategy for England. HEE advise that they work with a definition of 'shortage' as the difference between the number of funded posts and the number of contracted staff in post. HEE’s latest estimates of staff shortages and the plan for tackling these issues is set out in their Facing the Facts, Shaping the Future, A draft health and care workforce strategy for England to 2027 published in December 2017. This can be found at the following link:
https://hee.nhs.uk/our-work/workforce-strategy
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report entitled Rebuilding My Body: Breast reconstruction in England, published by Breast Cancer Now on 18 June 2018, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his Department's policies of the conclusions and recommendations of that report.
Answered by Steve Brine
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published updated guidance on ‘Early and locally advanced breast cancer: diagnosis and management’ in July 2018. Section 1.5 has a series of detailed guidelines for breast reconstruction. The guidance can be found at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng101
The Breast Cancer Now report, ‘Rebuilding My Body: Breast reconstruction in England’, found evidence that patients’ access to breast reconstruction surgery is being restricted by some local health bodies. It recommends that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) adopt new guidelines, which will ensure all breast cancer patients are supported to access the breast reconstruction they need at a time that is appropriate for them.
Breast Cancer Now, as the secretariat to NHS England's Breast Cancer Clinical Expert Group, will have regular engagement with NHS England who would be aware of the report and its recommendations.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will commission a new national mastectomy and breast reconstruction audit.
Answered by Steve Brine
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published updated guidance on ‘Early and locally advanced breast cancer: diagnosis and management’ in July 2018. Section 1.5 has a series of detailed guidelines for breast reconstruction. The guidance can be found at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng101
NHS England is continuing to work with its partners (NHS Improvement, Care Quality Commission) and others to ensure its portfolio of cancer audits is as comprehensive and representative as possible within the allocated resources. NHS England plan to hold discussions over the next six months on potential new clinical audit topics.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many unfilled vacancies there are for learning disability nurses.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The data is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many learning disability nurses were employed in the North East in each year since 2010.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care or in general practitioner surgeries, local authorities or other providers.
The following table shows the full time equivalent figures for qualified learning disability nurses and health visitors in National Health Service trusts and CCGs in Health Education England North East, as at 30 September each specified year and latest data as at 31 March 2018.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | March 2018 |
Learning Disabilities/ | 690 | 651 | 625 | 603 | 562 | 519 | 525 | 478 | 495 |
Source: NHS Digital monthly HCHS workforce statistics
Some of the reduction in learning disabilities nurses and health visitors will have been due to transfer of staff from the main employers (NHS foundation trusts) to a range of social care employers to reflect care delivered closer to home etc. Those nurses employed by social care providers are not recorded on NHS Digital data.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the survey conducted by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care (ADASS) entitled ADASS Budget Survey 2018; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The annual Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) Budget Survey is an important resource in understanding the concerns of local authorities in relation to adult social care. The Department regularly meets with representatives from the Association and, in partnership with the Local Government Association; ADASS delivers a programme of sector led improvement in social care on behalf of the Department.
The Government will set out further proposals for social care reform in due course, alongside the 10-year National Health Service plan. We will take into account representations such as the ADASS Budget Survey into account as we consider these.