Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of a fully funded plan to enable GP practices to respond to surges in patient demand.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
In the Autumn Statement we committed to publish a full recovery plan for primary care systems. This plan will set out detailed ambitions for recovery to deliver improved access to general practices (GPs), so that everyone who needs an appointment with their GP can get one within two weeks, and those who need an urgent appointment can get one on the same day. Our primary care recovery plan is being drafted and will be published in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of how many people have died due to using pholcodine-containing cough and cold medicines.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has not identified any deaths in patients in the United Kingdom known to have taken pholcodine or pholcodine-containing medicines, either from reporting to the MHRA Yellow Card scheme, from published literature studies or from any other sources.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to increase the availability of early evidence kits in hospitals for administering tests on sexual assault victims.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
It is important that early evidence kits are readily available for instances where it is appropriate to offer them. The purpose of the kits is for gathering early forensic evidence and as such, responsibility for their provision sits with policing. Their use is assessed on a case-by-case basis to secure and preserve evidence. The Department is working with the Home Office to consider the availability of early evidence kits in hospitals.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department is taking to help improve access to mental health services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are committed to improving access to mental health services. Through the National Health Service Long Term Plan, we are investing at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 so that an additional two million people can access NHS-funded mental health support.
We also provided an additional £500 million for 2021/22, to accelerate our NHS mental health expansion plans and to target groups whose mental health have been most affected by the pandemic including those with severe mental illness, young people, and frontline staff.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential health impacts of Opzelura for patients on the treatment of vitiligo and eczema.
Answered by Will Quince
Opzelura (ruxolitinib), is currently not approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA has noted that the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use issued a positive opinion for this on the 23 of February 2023 and is currently pending European Commission (EC) approval.
Should an application for Opzelura be received by the MHRA, we have processes in place to review this and, if appropriate, issue a licence in line with an EC decision.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that access to innovative therapies for (a) gastric cancer and (b) other less survivable cancers is included in its Major Conditions Strategy.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at the treatment and prevention of cancer, covering the patient pathway. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients. This Strategy will draw on previous work on cancer, including over 5,000 submissions provided to the Department as part of our Call for Evidence last year. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders, citizens, and the National Health Service in coming weeks to identify actions for the Strategy that will have the most impact.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of a separate strategy for rare and less survivable cancers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Major Conditions Strategy will set out our approach to tackling the different causes of mortality and ill health. It will include six conditions, one of which is cancer.
This Strategy will draw on previous work on cancer, including over 5,000 submissions provided to the Department as part of our Call for Evidence last year.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an estimate of the potential financial savings for the NHS of not prescribing over-the-counter medication.
Answered by Will Quince
We have made no estimate. The joint NHS England and NHS Clinical Commissioners guidance ‘Conditions for which over the counter items should not routinely be prescribed in primary care: guidance for CCGs’ was published in 2018. It recommends that over the counter items should not be prescribed for 35 conditions that are either minor or will resolve without treatment, and that probiotics and vitamins and minerals, which are not clinically effective, should also not be prescribed.
The guidance is currently being updated and is expected to be published this spring. This will include estimates of potential financial savings for the National Health Service of not prescribing over-the-counter items, taking account of the changes in prescribing volumes since publication of the guidance.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce A&E waiting times in (a) Lancashire and( b) Merseyside.
Answered by Will Quince
A range of measures are in place to reduce accident and emergency waiting times, including in Lancashire and Merseyside. The National Health Service winter resilience plan will increase NHS bed capacity by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds, helping reduce crowding and long waits for admission from accident and emergency. Our plan for patients announced a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund, helping people get out of hospitals quickly, freeing up beds and reducing long accident and emergency waits. We are now investing a further £200 million to speed up patient discharge, through direct support to local areas buying thousands of extra beds in care homes and other settings.
The Autumn Statement provides an additional £3.3 billion of NHS funding in both 2023/24 and 2024/25 to enable rapid action to improve urgent and emergency, elective, and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels. In the coming weeks the NHS will set out detailed recovery plans to deliver year-on-year improvements in accident and emergency waiting times.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
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 availability of spaces to register as an NHS dental patient in Southport.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No assessment has been made. Patients are only registered with a dental practice for the course of their treatment. National Health Service dentists are required to update their NHS.UK profiles regularly to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care. In circumstances where a person is unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice, or where parents are unable to access an urgent dental appointment for their child, they are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance.