Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate she has made of the number of people in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England who have unmet care needs; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure those care needs are met.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Local authorities are responsible for assessing individuals’ care and support needs and, where eligible, for meeting those needs. Where individuals do not meet the eligibility threshold, they can get support from their local authorities in making their own arrangements for care services, as set out in the Care Act 2014.
We recognise that some people still experience challenges in accessing the care and support they need, when they need it. That is why ensuring that people find adult social care fair and accessible is one of the three main objectives of our 10-year reform vision for adult social care. To achieve this vision, we are supporting local authorities to address workforce pressures, drive improvements in their local area, and better streamline their assessment processes.
To support this, the Government has made available up to £8.6 billion in additional funding over the financial years 2023/24 and 2024/25, to support adult social care and discharge. This includes up to £1.5 billion of additional grant funding for adult social care for 2024/25, compared to 2023/24, alongside a 2% increase to the adult social care precept for local authorities with social care responsibilities, uptake of which will generate a further £609 million in 2024/25. In addition, the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund, worth almost £2 billion over two years, is designed to support increased adult social care capacity, improve market sustainability, and enable local authorities to make improvements to adult social care services.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of trends in childhood obesity levels in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) collects data on children aged four to five years old, who would be in reception, and 10 to 11 years old, who would be in year 6. It provides detailed trend data on children’s weight status, including childhood obesity. While data is not available at a constituency level, it is available at a local authority, regional, and national level. The following table shows the obesity prevalence from the NCMP in Coventry, the West Midlands, and England, for 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23:
Area | Children aged four to five years old | Children aged 10 to 11 years old | ||||||
2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | |
Coventry | 11.7% | 15.2% | 10.4% | 9.8% | 25.3% | 30.2% | 26.7% | 25.6% |
West Midlands | 11.2% | 16% | 11.3% | 10.1% | 23.9% | 28.4% | 26.2% | 25.2% |
England | 9.9% | 14.4% | 10.1% | 9.2% | 21% | 25.5% | 23.4% | 22.7% |
Note: the data for 2019/20 was collected before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data shows that the prevalence of obesity in children aged four to five years old has decreased since the increase seen in 2020/21, during the COVID-19 pandemic. For children aged 10 to 11 years old, prevalence has decreased, but it still remains higher in 2022/23 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019/20, for the West Midlands and England. For Coventry, however, prevalence in 2022/23 is similar to pre-pandemic levels in 2019/20.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the take-up rate was for breast cancer screening in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in each of the last two years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS Breast Screening Programme statistics are available at the NHS Digital website's Breast Screening Programme page:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/breast-screening-programme
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for NHS treatment in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Cutting National Health Service waiting lists is one of the Government’s top priorities.
To facilitate this across elective services in England, we are increasing activity, with plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, expanding capacity though creating a network of community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and maximising all available independent sector capacity. We are managing demand through specialised advice in primary care and giving patients more control over where they receive their care, and we are increasing productivity through: transforming outpatient services; developing new surgical hubs to increase theatre productivity, funded by part of £1.5 billion; and working actively with trusts to support and challenge on their performance.
We recognise that local areas were affected by COVID-19 differently, resulting in variation in elective waiting times across different parts of the country. Tackling inequalities in access to elective care has therefore been a key component of the Department’s and NHS England’s approach to recovery. This is supported by the creation and expansion of CDCs and surgical hubs. There are currently 94 surgical hubs and 136 CDCs operational across England.
In the West Midlands there are 16 surgical hubs and six operational CDCs. In Coventry North East Constituency there is one surgical hub and one CDC.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve access to mental health services in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Coventry North East constituency, Coventry and the West Midlands.
On top of this we provided an extra £500 million in 2021/22 to accelerate our expansion plans and address waiting times for mental health services, give more people the mental health support they need, and invest in the National Health Service workforce.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve patient access to primary care in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions to improve access both nationally and in Coventry and West Midlands, namely to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice, and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.
We will achieve this by modernising telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. All practices have now signed up to transition to new digital systems. The plan will empower patients to do more themselves, cutting bureaucracy for general practitioners and building capacity to deliver more appointments. We have invested £1.5 billion and created an additional 50 million general practice appointments by increasing and diversifying the workforce.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to improve waiting times for cancer treatment in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Reducing cancer treatment waiting times is a priority for this Government. The Department is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care. The Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.
In the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance, NHS England announced it is providing over £390 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances in each of the next two years to support delivery of the strategy and the operational priorities for cancer which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity for cancer.
Additionally, the Government recently published the Major Conditions Strategy Case for Change and Our Strategic Framework on 14 August 2023 which sets out our approach to making the choices over the next 5 years that will deliver the most value in facing the health challenges of today and of the decades ahead, including for cancer.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the average waiting times for GP appointments in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Information on the approximate length of time between appointments being booked and taking place is not held at constituency or city level. The following table shows the percentage of appointments taking place on the same day as booking and within two weeks of booking for England and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Midlands region in each of the last three years:
Appointments - 12 months from November to October | National - Percentage of appointments occuring on the same day of booking | ONS Midlands Region - Percentage of appointments occuring on the same day of booking | National - Appointments occuring within two weeks of booking | ONS Midlands Region - Appointments occuring within two weeks of booking |
November 2020 - October 2021 | 45.2% | 47.2% | 88.6% | 88.7% |
November 2021 - October 2022 | 43.8% | 45.8% | 85.1% | 85.3% |
November 2022 - October 2023 | 43.1% | 44.7% | 82.5% | 82.6% |
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 adequacy of treatment provision for people with endometriosis.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific assessment has been made. Menstrual health and gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis, is a priority in the Women’s Health Strategy. We are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for menstrual problems, including women with suspected or diagnosed endometriosis.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is in the process of updating its recommendations on diagnosing endometriosis and surgical management of endometriosis if fertility is a priority. NICE will provide information on the expected publication date of its final guidance in due course.
Additionally, NHS England is updating the service specification for severe endometriosis, which defines the expected standards of care. This update will ensure that specialist endometriosis services have access to the most up-to-date evidence and advice and will improve standards of care for women with severe endometriosis.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of NHS workforce vacancies in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and what steps he is taking to fill such vacancies in those areas.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England publishes vacancy statistics for England on a quarterly basis. These present the difference between funded establishment posts and those filled by substantive staff. They do not indicate where vacancies are currently filled with temporary staffing and therefore do not equate to unfilled shifts.
The statistics are published at a national and a regional level. The data does not allow a differentiation between West and East Midlands. Data is also not available by city; however, NHS England has published trust level vacancy rates for March 2023.
The latest statistics show that as of June 2023, there are 125,572 full time equivalent (FTE) vacancies across National Health Service trusts in England, representing a rate of 8.9%. For NHS trusts in the Midlands, there are 23,639 FTE vacancies, also representing a rate of 8.9%. As of March 2023, the vacancy rate for University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, was 6.3%.
The NHS published the Long Term Workforce Plan in June this year, backed by over £2.4 billion over the next five years to fund additional education and training places. The Long Term Workforce Plan will double medical school training places to 15,000 by 2031, increase the number of general practitioner training places by 50% to 6,000 by 2031 and almost double the number of adult nurse training places by 2031, with around 58,000 nurse and midwife training places a year by 2031/32.