Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what evidence base his Department used for the guidance issued on (a) vaping, (b) heat-not-burn and (c) other non-smoke nicotine products.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has an ongoing programme to build the evidence base about e-cigarettes. This includes annual evidence updates available from Public Health England available at the following link:
Systematic reviews from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence available at the following links:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng92
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ph45
Reports from the Committees on Toxicity, Mutagenicity, Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment on heated tobacco products and on electronic cigarettes available at the following link:
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s Yellow Card Scheme notification process for collecting safety concerns about e-cigarettes available at the following link:
https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/the-yellow-card-scheme/
Reports from the National Poisons Information Service available at the following link:
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what evidence base his Department used to produce guidance on the relative merits of breastfeeding and bottle feeding; and what changes have been made to that guidance in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In July 2018, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) published its report on ‘Feeding in the First Year of Life’, providing updated recommendations on infant feeding up to 12 months of age in the UK, which were last reviewed by SACN’s predecessor the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in 1994. The report can be found at the following link and it outlines in detail the evidence considered:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/feeding-in-the-first-year-of-life-sacn-report
SACN conducted a comprehensive risk assessment of the available evidence on infant feeding. The risk assessment included consideration of breastfeeding, infant formula feeding and the introduction of solid foods in relation to health outcomes. Based on this, SACN recommended that existing advice for women to exclusively breastfeed for around the first six months of life and to continue breastfeeding for at least the first year of life once solid foods have been introduced, should be retained.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 9 September 2019 to Question 286692, what equivalent data exists for the county of Hampshire and not limited to Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers.
The Department does not hold data for geographical regions. The NHS Digital data that the Department holds provides information by National Health Service trusts, CCGs and Health Education England regions. As such, Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was the best proxy that could be used to answer Question 286692.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of FTE (a) general practitioners, (b) other doctors and (c) nurses employed by the NHS in Hampshire in (i) 2010 and (ii) the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers.
The following table shows the number of doctors and nurses and health visitors in Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as at May 2019, the latest available data, compared to recent years, full time equivalent (FTE) rounded.
| Doctors | Nurses and Health Visitors |
May 2012 | 577 | 1,167 |
May 2013 | 590 | 1,172 |
May 2014 | 619 | 1,272 |
May 2015 | 640 | 1,299 |
May 2016 | 666 | 1,249 |
May 2017 | 673 | 1,277 |
May 2018 | 712 | 1,270 |
May 2019 | 718 | 1,311 |
Source: NHS Digital Workforce Statistics
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust came into being in January 2012 as a result of the integration of Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS Foundation Trust, which achieved Foundation Trust status in 2006, and Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust.
The following table below shows the number of general practitioners (GPs), excluding locums, nurses and other direct patient care staff working in general practice as of March 2016, earliest available data of the same month and March 2019, latest available data, in NHS North Hampshire CCG, NHS South Eastern Hampshire CCG, NHS West Hampshire CCG and NHS North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG. FTE rounded.
| March 2016 | March 2019 |
All Regular GPs (excludes Locums) | 729 | 729 |
Nurses | 310 | 327 |
Direct Patient Care | 212 | 233 |
Source: NHS Digital
GP locums are excluded as improvements have been made to GP locum recording methodology and figures are not comparable prior to December 2017.
Data prior to March 2016 has not been provided as improvements were made to the methodology for recording staff working in general practice in September 2015 and data prior to this is not comparable.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department has made in improving maternity and early years care.
Answered by Dan Poulter
We have made improving maternity services a key objective in our Mandate to NHS England. Over the past two years we have also invested 35 million pounds of capital funding to improve the physical environment of over 140 maternity units.
We have increased the numbers of midwives and health visitors. There are 1,700 more midwives and over 2,000 more health visitors than in 2010. In addition, there are more than 6,000 midwifery students in training. And we are committed to having an extra 4,200 health visitors by 2015.
We are expanding the Family Nurse Partnership programme - which provides dedicated one to one support to young, at risk first time mothers - to 16,000 places by 2015.
We launched the NHS Start4life Information Service for Parents, a digital service for parent-to-be and new parents in May 2012. Take up has already exceeded the sign-up target of 300,000 parents by 2015 - as of 1 June over 339,000 parents had signed up to the service.