Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
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 help people with severe insomnia.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The majority of patients experiencing a sleep disorder such as insomnia are diagnosed and managed by general practitioners (GPs) in primary care. Where the disorder cannot be resolved in primary care, or does not resolve itself, a referral to a specialist clinic may be appropriate. The NHS website provides advice and guidance for dealing with insomnia.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department provided for transport for patients to attend appointments in each year for which information is available.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Neither the Department nor NHS England hold the information requested.
NHS England allocates funding to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). Individual CCGs are responsible for commissioning local services, such as patient transport services, based on population need.
It is for local leaders working together with NHS England and NHS Improvement, to make the best use of the funding that has been allocated to them.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has a policy to reduce the time older patients have to wait for a care plan in their homes so that they do not have to be in hospital beds.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government recognises the need to maintain independence and support rehabilitation of people at risk of hospital admission or those who have been in hospital. It is important that patients receive properly joined up care at the right time in the optimal care setting.
As such, getting discharge right and ensuring patients are being supported to recover their independence and, where appropriate, treated in their homes is a priority for this Government. This is why we have identified intermediate care as an essential component of ‘Discharge to assess’ within the High Impact Change Model (HICM) to support discharge from hospital. We have further underpinned this by making the High Impact Changes a condition of the Better Care Fund.
Other system changes detailed in the HICM support faster discharge for people into their own homes, such as Early Discharge Planning. This sets expectations on acute hospitals to begin planning for a person’s discharge as soon as possible.
This is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Guidance for Intermediate Care which sets out across the how support for older people whether transitioning from a hospital admission or those in crisis in their usual place of residence can receive care and support.
Additionally, the NHS Long Term Plan made clear the importance of moving care into the community, and the Government’s commitment to achieving this. It confirmed that over the next 10 years the National Health Service will deliver more care closer to home, and to support this at least an extra £4.5 billion pounds a year by 2023/24 will be invested in primary care and community health services.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
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 help people who suffer from Cerebral palsy to equipment to aid walking.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
It is for clinical commissioning groups and local authorities to commission services that best meet the needs of their populations, including those with cerebral palsy. There are numerous mobility aids to assist walking and help with mobility limitations associated with cerebral palsy such as orthotic devices worn externally to improve and strengthen mobility, walkers, crutches, walking sticks and canes. Some do not require a prescription or the approval of a doctor to be purchased. An orthopaedic surgeon, orthotist or physical/occupational therapist should evaluate the patient’s condition to determine what support they need.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his department taking so that Locum Doctors are not being used to fill permanent posts.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The Department is committed to ensuring that trusts can fill permanent medical posts in the most cost-effective way and this means training, recruiting and retaining doctors in these posts on substantive National Health Service contracts rather than relying on locums.
We are addressing the challenge in a variety of ways.
We are increasing the supply of doctors into the NHS. By 2020 there will be an extra 1,500 students entering medical training each year; 630 of these additional trainees took up places on medical courses in September 2018, bringing the total intake for 2018/19 to 6,701. A further 690 places are available this year (2019/20) and the remaining 180 will be available next year (2020/21).
NHS Improvement is working in partnership with NHS Employers to improve staff retention in trusts across England. In July 2017 they launched a major programme which, through targeted support to all NHS trusts in England, aims to stabilise and then bring down leaver rates by 2020. The trust sector has also introduced a number of initiatives including promoting the benefits of NHS employment over agency work, making improvements to NHS staff banks, and increasing the flexibility of substantive contracts.
Even with these measures, it will still be necessary to occasionally use locum doctors to fill vacancies whilst recruitment is taking place so our efforts are also focused on reducing the cost of agency staff.
We are doing this through the use of agency expenditure ceilings, price caps on agency rates and procurement frameworks. As a result, trusts have reduced their total annual expenditure on agency staff by £1.2 billion - from £3.6 billion in 2015/16 to £2.4 billion in 2017/18. This reduction includes a £400 million fall in medical locum expenditure. To further reduce agency spending, and support flexible working, we are also working with NHS Improvement to facilitate the development of tech-enabled staff banks, covering all staff groups, in all trusts.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many organ donors there are in the UK as of March 2019.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
More than 52,000 people are alive today because of a life-saving transplant, due to the selfless generosity of organ donors and their families. In 2017-18, there were 1,574 deceased donors and 1,051 living donors, leading to a total of 5,090 transplants, in the United Kingdom.
Although 80% of people support organ donation in principle, only 38% or 25 million people had registered a decision to donate on the NHS Organ Donor Register. To better reflect the view of most people, the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent Act) 2019 will be introducing a new system of consent for organ and tissue donation in England, from 2020, to help increase the number of donors. NHS Blood and Transplant will launch a 12-month communication campaign before the law comes into force, to raise awareness of the changes and the options available under the new system.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has conducted research on the causes of hearing loss in people aged under 30.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including hearing loss. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. Information on individual projects funded by the NIHR can be found at the following link:
https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/
NIHR funding for research projects into hearing loss was £8.3 million over the last five years.
NIHR funded infrastructure supports research into hearing loss. Three NIHR Biomedical Research Centres have research themes on hearing health, conducting research into the identification, understanding, prevention, and interventions to alleviate hearing loss across the life course. NIHR funded infrastructure is supporting studies into identification and treatment of hearing loss in babies and children.
It is not possible to further disaggregate this spend or support by age group.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
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 combat bulimia among young people.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We are committed to ensuring everyone with an eating disorder has access to the best quality of care to meet their needs. We are investing an extra £30 million each year for eating disorders and the National Health Service is treating more children and young people with an eating disorder than ever before. The implementation of 70 dedicated new or extended community services, has led to improved swift access to effective eating disorder treatment in the community.
In 2015, the Government established a waiting time standard to improve access to eating disorders services for children and young people so that, by 2020/21, 95% of children with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published its updated clinical guideline for the recognition and treatment of eating disorders for people over the age of eight, including adults, in May 2017.
The NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January, commits to additional investment for eating disorder services for children and young people and maintaining waiting time standards for this group. There will be a comprehensive expansion of mental health services, with an additional £2.3 billion in real terms by 2023/24. This will give 380,000 more adults access to psychological therapies and 345,000 more children and young people greater support in the next five years. The NHS will also roll out new waiting times to ensure rapid access to mental health services in the community for those that need it, and expand crisis care.