Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many agency nurses were employed in each acute hospital trust in the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board area in each year since 2019; and what proportion of all nurses they were.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not available.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS clinical staff were armed forces reservists in each year since 2010.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not collected nationally. NHS Employers is working with National Health Service organisations to support them in being flexible and supportive employers, so that they can enable their staff to participate in the Armed Forces reserve, and train and deploy when required.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the average waiting times for a first appointment following a routine referral to vascular services at (a) Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and (b) Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The mean average waiting time from referral to the first outpatient appointment for patients under vascular services at the Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is 78 days. For the Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, a breakdown of the data on vascular services is not currently held by the Department.
The Elective Reform Plan outlines our commitments on reforming outpatient care to reduce waiting times for first and subsequent appointments. These include improving the NHS App and the Manage Your Referral Website to give patients more control over their outpatient care, increasing Advice and Guidance to ensure that patient care takes place in the right setting, and reducing missed appointments and less clinically valuable follow ups. These reforms will help to free up clinicians’ time and reduce waiting times for those patients who most need care, including first appointments and clinically necessary follow ups. Outpatient transformation will help fulfil the Government’s commitment that 92% of patients return to waiting no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the average waiting times in Accident and Emergency for each Acute Hospital Trust in the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB area.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on accident and emergency performance is published monthly by NHS England. The headline metric used is the four-hour accident and emergency waiting time standard. This data is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/
Provisional data is published on median average waiting times in emergency departments by National Health Service provider. This data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the bed occupancy rate is in each Acute Hospital Trust in the Cheshire and Merseyside ICB area.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Bed occupancy rates for each National Health Service trust are published monthly by NHS England. The latest data is for December 2024, and is available at the following link:
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion patients who attended A&E with a respiratory condition and were admitted to a hospital ward were subsequently readmitted with a respiratory condition at a later date at each acute hospital trust since 2019.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A table showing the information requested is attached.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which organisation is responsible for procuring radiotherapy machines.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Responsibility for purchasing radiotherapy treatment machines sits with local systems. The Government committed £70 million for new machines in last year’s Budget, to ensure that the most advanced treatment is available to patients who need it.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people in Widnes and Halewood constituency were being treated for lung cancer as of 1 October 2024.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
We do not collect data on the number of people treated for lung cancer by constituency. However, we do have the total number of people being treated for lung cancer across trusts throughout the country. The number of people who received either a first or subsequent treatment for lung cancer in September 2024 was 4,676.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department has provided for child brain tumour research in each year since 2015.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The Department invests £1.5 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £121.8 million in 2022/23. Cancer is a major area of NIHR spend, reflecting its high priority.
For research specifically on child brain tumours, the NIHR has made three direct awards since 2015 with a total value of approximately £650,000. The following table shows the NIHR’s committed spend on research into child brain tumours in each year since 2015/16, and the total award budget:
Financial year | Total |
2015/16 | £0 |
2016/17 | £0 |
2017/18 | £54,305 |
2018/19 | £59,110 |
2019/20 | £64,058 |
2020/21 | £57,691 |
2021/22 | £0 |
2022/23 | £48,801 |
2023/24 | £179,149 |
Total award budget | £649,614 |
Between 2018/19 and 2022/23, the NIHR directly invested £11.3 million in research projects and programmes focused on brain tumors across 15 awards. Additionally, wider NIHR investment in research infrastructure, supporting the facilities, services, and the research workforce, supported the delivery of 227 brain cancer research studies over this period, enabling an estimated 8,500 people to participate in research at estimated cost of £31.5 million. This NIHR infrastructure-supported research included a significant number of studies involving children and young people, including those delivered by NIHR Great Ormond Street Biomedical Research Centre.
In September 2024, the NIHR announced new research funding opportunities for brain cancer research, spanning both adult and paediatric populations. This includes a national NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, to ensure the most promising research opportunities are made available to adult and child patients, and a new funding call to generate high quality evidence in brain tumour care, support, and rehabilitation. Further information on these opportunities is available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/new-funding-opportunities-novel-brain-tumour-research-launched
The NIHR continues to encourage and welcome applications for research into any aspect of human health, including childhood cancer. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the (a) prevalence of the use of, (b) adequacy of the standards of service provided by and (c) potential impact on patient outcomes of the use of the private sector in the provision of mental health services in the NHS; and what steps she has taken to help ensure compliance by the private sector with the Code of Practice: Mental Health Act 1983.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No such specific assessment has been made. Private companies have always played a role in the National Health Service, and patients should expect a safe and good quality service regardless of whether their care is delivered by private sector or public sector providers. Local integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning health and care services for their local populations, in line with the standards set out in the NHS Standard Contract.
The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and care services. All providers of regulated activities, including those in the private sector, must register with the Care Quality Commission, and follow a set of fundamental standards of safety and quality, below which care should never fall.
The Care Quality Commission also has a duty under the Mental Health Act 1983 to monitor how services exercise their powers and discharge their duties under the act when patients are detained in hospital or are subject to community treatment orders or guardianship.