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 tackle loneliness.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government published its first strategy to combat loneliness on 15 October 2018, ‘A connected society: A Strategy for tackling loneliness – laying the foundations for change’.
The strategy brought together the Government, local government, public services, the voluntary and community sector and businesses to identify opportunities to tackle loneliness and build more integrated communities.
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 his Department’s policy is on food companies that fail to disclose allergens on their packaging.
Answered by Steve Brine
Food businesses are required to declare allergenic ingredients on the packaging of pre-packed foods. For foods pre-packed for direct sale, there is also a legal requirement to provide allergen information but, given the nature of the business, there is an option to provide this orally on consumer request. In cases where food companies fail to disclose allergens, the Food Standards Agency may issue an allergy alert and companies will be required to withdraw or recall the affected product. The local authority should follow up with the business but failure of a business to comply with the relevant legal requirements may ultimately result in criminal prosecution.
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 assessment his Department has made of the effect on patient health of regular instances of concussion.
Answered by Steve Brine
Repeated concussions or blows to the head have been linked to serious problems, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a type of dementia and is particularly associated with contact sports, such as boxing or American football.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides the guidance on ‘head injury: assessment and early management’, last updated in June 2017. This provides information on minor brain injuries (concussion), as well and the early management of head injuries and information for the public.
Advice and further information on concussion and CTE can be found via the NICE and NHS websites at the following links:
www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg176
www.nhs.uk/conditions/concussion/
www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy/
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 support is provided to women who suffer from postnatal depression.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government is committed to improving both the detection and treatment of perinatal mental illness. In May 2018, NHS England confirmed that new mothers will be able to access specialist perinatal mental health community services in every part of the country by April 2019. In 2010, more than 40% of localities provided no service at all. In early December 2018, NHS England estimated that these services treated 9,000 women in 2018.
We are investing £365 million from 2015/16 to 2020/21 in perinatal mental health services to ensure that by 2020/21 at least 30,000 more women each year are able to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period. This investment is designed to improve access to specialist perinatal mental health services across England, resulting in better outcomes for women and their families.
In addition, the NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, includes a commitment for a further 24,000 women to be able to access specialist perinatal mental health care by 2023/24, building on the additional 30,000 women who will access these services each year by 2020/21 under pre-existing plans. Specialist care will also be available from preconception to 24 months after birth, which will provide an extra year of support.
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 assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of enabling pharmacists to issue low-strength prescription drugs to reduce the workload for GPs.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has made no assessment of the merits of enabling pharmacists to issue ‘low-strength’ prescription drugs to reduce the workload for general practitioners.
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 reduce the use of antibiotics by people that have (a) a cold and (b) influenza.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England (PHE) has developed a number of initiatives to educate and remind the public that antibiotics cannot be used to treat viral infections such as the common cold and influenza. To protect vulnerable members of the population, PHE has a seasonal influenza vaccination programme for those aged over 65, all children aged two to nine years, pregnant women and those in certain clinical risk groups.
PHE launched the ‘Keep Antibiotics Working’ national campaign in October 2017 to highlight the risks of antibiotic resistance to the general public, with the aim of reducing patient pressure on general practitioners to prescribe antibiotics. The multi-media campaign, which features advertising on television, radio, outdoor, digital, social media, public relations and extensive partnership support, ran for a second year in 2018. Details of the campaign can be viewed at the following link:
https://antibioticguardian.com/keep-antibiotics-working/
The e-Bug programme, now in its tenth year, aims to educate children, young people and communities about microbes, hygiene, infections and antibiotics. Further information on the e-Bug programme is available at the following link:
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 plans to introduce screening questions to patients at A&E Departments to reduce waiting times.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
All eligible acute trusts with a type 1 accident and emergency (A&E) Department have front-door primary clinical streaming services in place. Clinical streaming triages patients on arrival and directs them to a clinically appropriate service and clinician.
Patient streaming to other services can include on site primary care, same day emergency care services, mental health services and urgent treatment centres.
As part of the Spring 2017 statement, the Chancellor announced £100 million ringfenced capital funding for up to 100 new triage projects at English hospitals to support the delivery of primary care streaming in all A&Es by October 2017, as a component of improving performance against the operational standard of at least, 95% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
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 has allocated to cancer research in 2017.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Research is crucial in the fight against cancer. That is why the Department invests £1 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
The NIHR’s cancer research expenditure has risen from £101 million in 2010/11 to £136 million in 2017/18. This constitutes the largest investment in a disease area.
As with other Government funders of health research, the NIHR does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.
The NIHR Clinical Research Network supports the delivery of funded research in the National Health Service to quality, time and target, and has over 800 cancer trials and studies recruiting or in set-up. Through the NIHR Clinical Research Network, the proportion of patients entering cancer clinical trials and studies is more than double that in any other country for which data exists, including the United States.
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 to reduce the number of stillbirths.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
It is the Government’s ambition to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth by 2025 and to achieve at least a 20% reduction in these rates by 2020.
The stillbirth rate in England fell from 5.1 to 4.1 per 1,000 births between 2010 and 2017, representing a decrease of almost 20% and 827 fewer stillbirths. We currently have the lowest stillbirth rate on record.
A 20% decrease in stillbirth rates was recorded by early adopters of the Saving Babies’ Lives Care Bundle. All maternity units are now implementing elements of the Care Bundle and there are plans to expand its scope to include other clinical interventions.
We are improving investigations into term stillbirths, early neonatal deaths and other adverse outcomes, with investigations being undertaken by the independent Healthcare Safety Investigations Branch, identifying what went wrong and capturing the lessons learned.
Alongside the Welsh and Scottish Health Departments, we have also funded the Perinatal Mortality Review Tool, launched in 2018. All trusts have now registered to use this tool.
Additionally, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice are working together to look into whether the law should be changed to expand coronial jurisdiction to stillbirths with the intention that this may help ensure that important lessons are learnt to prevent future deaths.