Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding was provided to mental health services in Northamptonshire in 2015-16; and how much is projected to be spent in 2016-17.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The following table shows the funding for mental health services in Northamptonshire in 2015 to 2016, and the projected spend for 2016 to 2017. The figures do not include any mental health spend on specialised commissioning.
| 2015/16 | 2016/17 |
| Actual spend £000s | Actual spend £000s |
NHS Corby Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) | 10,032 | 10,961 |
NHS Nene CCG | 102,899 | 108,337 |
The numbers do not include specialised services.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the GP Forward Review published in April 2016, how many of the 3,000 mental health therapists will have been employed by the end of each year to 2020.
Answered by David Mowat
Therapists working in general practice will be a mix of trainees and experienced therapists and will be part of integrated services in primary care, working in multi-disciplinary teams in general practices. Existing providers will employ new therapists and they will be deployed, along with experienced therapists, into general practices. The first new integrated services will start in 2017. The exact therapist numbers within each clinical commissioning group is to be determined locally.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many medical assistants he plans to introduce into general practice in each year until 2020.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The numbers of medical assistants employed in general practice will be determined by individual employers. Health Education England (HEE) will begin work to pilot and evaluate the medical assistant role in 2017. HEE are also supporting an employer led Trailblazer Group which will enable the development of an apprentice route into this occupation.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of GP practices to receive support in 2016-17 under the General Practice Resilience Programme.
Answered by David Mowat
The General Practice Resilience Programme is a four-year £40 million programme which devolves funding to NHS England’s 13 local teams to secure and deliver a wide menu of support to practices prioritised locally, against nationally set criteria.
NHS England is offering support to over a thousand general practices under the first wave of the General Practice Resilience Programme. The assessments carried out by NHS England local teams, concluded on 18 October 2016, identified 1,062 individual practices that will benefit from support this year to help improve sustainability and resilience, including support upstream of difficulties occurring. NHS England believe that the actual number to be offered support is likely to be greater, as some NHS England local teams are additionally targeting support across geographical areas more generally.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS priority treatment for armed forces veterans is delivered by private health care providers when HNS services are contracted out to such providers.
Answered by David Mowat
The standard contract between NHS England and any independent providers requires due regard to the health commitments of the Armed Forces Covenant which includes ensuring veterans receive priority treatment for any condition which is related to their time in service, subject to the clinical needs of others.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how health care professionals assess whether a veteran's illness or condition is related to service in the armed forces and therefore eligible for priority NHS treatment; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by David Mowat
It is for clinicians to determine whether it is likely that a condition is related to service via clinical assessment and patient disclosure. Veterans accessing the nine National Health Service disablement centres and the veteran’s prosthetic panel will be asked to provide supporting information that the injury is service related.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to raise awareness of World AIDS Day before 1 December 2016.
Answered by Jane Ellison
In preparation for World AIDS Day 2016 Public Health England (PHE) will publish the annual HIV in the UK situation report and associated data tables in mid-November 2016. This report will include the latest HIV epidemiology for the United Kingdom, providing national and local systems essential information to inform their World AIDS Day 2016 awareness campaigns. Alongside this HIV Prevention England, co-ordinated by Terrence Higgins Trust and commissioned by PHE will provide a national HIV testing campaign ‘HIV Testing week’. This will commence prior to World AIDS Day and run for one week from the 19 November 2016.