Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to improve the availability of support that is offered for the friends and families of suicide victims.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Providing better information and support to people bereaved by suicide is a key area for action in the Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy for England. Effective suicide bereavement services should be provided through effective local partnerships between local authorities, National Health Service organisations and voluntary and charitable sector providers. Public Health England published a suite of guidance in 2017, in conjunction with the National Suicide Prevention Alliance and the Support After Suicide Partnership, to local areas for developing and implementing compassionate suicide bereavement services. The guidance is available at the following link:
Almost every local area has a multi-agency suicide prevention plan in place to ensure that all local services are working together to deliver tailored approaches to reducing suicides in their communities. Public Health England published updated guidance in 2016 to local areas on developing these multi-agency partnerships and plans and advised that local plans should reflect the key areas for action of the national strategy, including providing effective bereavement support. The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-prevention-developing-a-local-action-plan
The Department funds the Help is at Hand suicide bereavement support resource, published by Public Health England, which provides compassionate information and signposting to people who have been bereaved by suicide. Help is at Hand provides helpful advice such as explaining the processes followed by authorities following a suicide, gives testimonies by other people bereaved by suicide and provides a directory of other organisations which can provide support. The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/you-are-not-alone-help-is-at-hand-for-anyone-bereaved-by-suicide
We published Learning from Deaths guidance to the NHS in 2017, which was in response to the Care Quality Commission’s review of how the NHS investigates and learns from deaths. A key area of this document is how the NHS should engage and communicate compassionately and respectfully with bereaved families when a patient dies. We have made it clear within that guidance that we expect NHS organisations to provide bereavement support services, or signpost bereaved families to services, to ensure they can access effective support. The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/national-guidance-on-learning-from-deaths/
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
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 rate of uptake of free flu vaccines among vulnerable groups during winter 2017-18.
Answered by Steve Brine
In the 2017/18 flu season the uptake rate was higher across all at-risk groups in England compared to the previous year.
Provisional uptake data for England on flu vaccines administered from 1 September 2017 to 31 January 2018 for those aged 65 years and over; those under 65 years in an at-risk group; and pregnant women is as follows:
At risk cohorts | Percentage (%) Vaccine uptake 2016/17 | % Vaccine uptake 2017/18 | % points difference: 2017/18 versus 2016/17 |
65 years and over | 70.4 | 72.6 | +2.2 |
6 months to under 65 (in a clinical at-risk group) | 48.7 | 48.9 | +0.2 |
All pregnant women | 44.8 | 47.2 | +2.4 |
Further information is available here:
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
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 encourage collaboration between the (a) NHS, wider public sector and (c) charities sector to (i) identify and (ii) support those at risk of suicide.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We updated the Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy last year to strengthen delivery of its key areas for action across Government, its agencies and other sectors including the voluntary and charitable sector. The Government has worked in partnership for a number of years with a range of organisations and sectors including the National Health Service, rail industry and with voluntary and charitable sector organisations such as the Samaritans. The Government continues to provide funding for the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, established through a call to action in the 2012 Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy and comprising mostly voluntary and charitable sector organisations that work towards reducing suicide and self-harm.
We are ensuring that every local area has a multi-agency suicide prevention plan in place and we will be quality assuring those plans this year. Local multi-agency suicide prevention groups include all local organisations and services that may come into contact with someone at risk of suicide to implement tailored approaches to reducing suicide in their communities.
NHS England has been working with a wide range of suicide prevention stakeholders to set the priorities for investing £25 million on suicide prevention, between 2018/19 and 2020/21, through the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. This includes establishing a national quality improvement programme on suicide prevention across the NHS and providing funding to sustainability and transformation plan areas to improve local area multi-agency suicide prevention plans.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will ensure additional ongoing financial support for the provision of mental health services in Greater Manchester to assist those affected by the Manchester Arena attack.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department has committed to making £800,000 available in both 2018/19 and 2019/20 for post incident health support following the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. This covers the period until the next Spending Review settlement when funding for Manchester will be reassessed taking into account all mental health requirements.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
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 encourage NHS dentists to remain in the public sector.
Answered by Steve Brine
In the latest year for which data is available 2016/17, 3,847 more dentists worked in the National Health Service than were working in the NHS when the current contract started in 2006/07.
NHS England is responsible for commissioning primary care dental services. Where a dental practice owner (contractor) chooses to leave the NHS the funding reverts to the NHS and can be reused to commission alternative dental services.
The Government is committed to supporting dentists and NHS dental services. The Department is continuing to test, alongside NHS England, a new NHS dental contract. It is our intention to work with the profession to develop a contract that remains attractive to dentists whilst delivering high quality preventative care needed by patients. We expect to publish the evaluation report from the first full year of testing the prototype system shortly.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people presented at NHS Accident and Emergency departments with dental issues in the last 12 months.
Answered by Steve Brine
Data has not been collected on the number of unique individuals who have presented at National Health Service accident and emergency (A&E) departments with dental issues in the last 12 months.
Information is collected by NHS Digital on the number of A&E attendances in English NHS hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector requiring dental investigations. The latest available data shows that for 2016/17 there were 18,061 such attendances.
It should be noted that 'attendances' is not the same as 'people' as one person may have more than one attendance.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the NHS of delivering emergency dental treatment in hospitals has been in each of the last five years.
Answered by Steve Brine
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
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 improve access to NHS dentists.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has a legal duty to commission primary care dental services to meet the needs of the local population. NHS England also has arrangements in place to help patients who cannot find a local dentist that is accepting new patients.
Access nationally remains high. 22.1 million adults saw a National Health Service dentist in the 24 months ending in 31 December 2017 and 6.9 million children in the 12 months ending in 31 December 2017. However, there are areas where there is further to go to ensure that all those who want to access NHS dental care can do so.
New ways of providing primary care dental services are being tested by the Department and NHS England which aims to further improve oral health and increase access to NHS dental services, by preventing as well as treating disease. Alongside this is NHS England’s Starting Well programme, which aims to improve access to dental services for children known to be at greater risk of dental disease and who are not currently being seen by a dentist.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the Government plans to introduce the compulsory display of food hygiene ratings for shops and restaurants.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) considers that the mandatory display of food hygiene ratings in England would be beneficial and is using the evidence from Wales and Northern Ireland to build a strong case. The FSA is exploring how a statutory scheme could be delivered in England, including display of ratings on online food ordering platforms, as part of their work to deliver a new model of regulation for food businesses – the Regulating Our Future programme, which is expected to have changes to the regulatory system in place by 2020.
The Regulating Our Future programme is redesigning how food businesses are regulated for food safety, and as hygiene ratings are currently based on local authority inspections of food businesses it is important that the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) is part of those considerations. Embedding FHRS into the future model of food regulation will ensure we have a robust and credible scheme that continues to deliver benefits for consumers
As a result of further regulation under the statutory scheme in Northern Ireland, it is anticipated that next year businesses which offer on-line ordering of food will need to publish their ratings online so that they can be seen before an order is placed. Wales is also considering introducing further regulations to require the promotion of food hygiene ratings on food businesses’ websites.
The FSA remains committed to the successful and trusted FHRS. The FSA will continue to ensure the FHRS is sustainable and work towards the introduction of a statutory scheme that would require mandatory display of ratings in England as is the case in Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government will consider the case carefully once it is available.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the Government plans to introduce the compulsory display of food hygiene ratings for online food ordering platforms.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) considers that the mandatory display of food hygiene ratings in England would be beneficial and is using the evidence from Wales and Northern Ireland to build a strong case. The FSA is exploring how a statutory scheme could be delivered in England, including display of ratings on online food ordering platforms, as part of their work to deliver a new model of regulation for food businesses – the Regulating Our Future programme, which is expected to have changes to the regulatory system in place by 2020.
The Regulating Our Future programme is redesigning how food businesses are regulated for food safety, and as hygiene ratings are currently based on local authority inspections of food businesses it is important that the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) is part of those considerations. Embedding FHRS into the future model of food regulation will ensure we have a robust and credible scheme that continues to deliver benefits for consumers
As a result of further regulation under the statutory scheme in Northern Ireland, it is anticipated that next year businesses which offer on-line ordering of food will need to publish their ratings online so that they can be seen before an order is placed. Wales is also considering introducing further regulations to require the promotion of food hygiene ratings on food businesses’ websites.
The FSA remains committed to the successful and trusted FHRS. The FSA will continue to ensure the FHRS is sustainable and work towards the introduction of a statutory scheme that would require mandatory display of ratings in England as is the case in Wales and Northern Ireland. The Government will consider the case carefully once it is available.