Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of the UK population who had some level of resistance to covid-19 before the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is no current estimate of the level of resistance to COVID-19 across the United Kingdom population. Government-funded research is ongoing to understand immunity to the virus.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate his Department has made of the proportion of the UK population who remain susceptible to covid-19 infection.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The proportion of people in the United Kingdom who are susceptible to COVID-19 is unknown at present. Government-funded research is ongoing to understand immunity to the virus.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of private GPs working in England.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold this information centrally. General practitioner practices are independent contractors who work under contract with NHS England to provide patients with National Health Service primary medical services.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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 (a) the accessibility of online talking therapies for patients with mental health needs and (b) the effectiveness of those online therapies compared to face-to-face therapies since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Talking therapies delivered by Improved Access to Psychological therapies services will continue to be made available remotely so people can access help safely from home and the National Health Service will work to ensure the option of face to face support is provided to people with serious mental health illnesses across all ages where it is clinically safe to do so.
At present, we have not accumulated a sufficient number of patients who have completed a course of treatment that would allow the observation of improvement and recovery rates for each consultation medium. However, the recovery target, which states that at least 50% of people who complete treatment should move to recovery, was met in August 2020 where the rate was 51.9%.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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 support the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme in response to the effects of the covid-19 outbreak on people's mental health.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Talking therapies delivered by Improved Access to Psychological therapies (IAPT) will continue to be made available remotely so people can access help safely from home and the National Health Service will work to ensure the option of face to face support is provided to people with serious mental health illnesses across all ages where it is clinically safe to do so.
Since April 2020, the IAPT programme has hosted a webinar series on delivering condition specific treatment during COVID-19, including on the role IAPT can play in the treatment of ‘long’ COVID-19
Furthermore, the NHS have been working with local health systems and Health Education England, to support ongoing trainee recruitment and expansion to ensure the programme can deliver the planned expansion needed to deal with the effects of the pandemic in future years.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to dialectical behaviour therapy.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We are committed to continuing our investment in expanding and transforming mental health services in England and to investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023/24. This means a further 380,000 more adults a year accessing specialist National Health Service treatment, which includes dialectical behaviour therapy by 2023/24.
Since 2019/20 NHS England and NHS Improvement have been working with Health Education England to provide new training places for staff to undertake courses in evidence-based psychological therapies, including dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) courses. Along with continued year-on-year investment in DBT training so that more trained staff can provide therapies over the course of the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England are supporting all mental health providers to improve timely access for patients in need of DBT by bringing down waiting times.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what provisions the NHS has made to deliver dialectical behavioural therapy online.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The National Health Service has worked hard to keep mental health services including dialectical behavioural therapy open during the pandemic, using technology such as online where needed. Talking therapies will continue to be made available remotely so people can access help safely from home.
To support mental health services, NHS England and NHS Improvement have published guidance for providers which is available at the following link:
This guidance contains advice on maximising the use of digital technologies with considerations applicable across a range of services and settings including the provision of dialectical behavioural therapy.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the standard procedure is for assessing the effect on people with allergies of a vaccine during the trial stages.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Entry of patients into a clinical trial is managed by the implementation of inclusion and exclusion criteria that are defined in the trial protocol and approved by the regulator. The inclusion and exclusion criteria will have been carefully selected by the trial sponsor to enable the objectives of the trial to be achieved and also to maximise safety for all patients enrolled into the trial. Allergic reactions can occur to any constituent of a medicinal product, including vaccines and clinical trials may exclude subjects who are known to have had a severe allergic reaction in the past to the same or similar constituents.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will (a) support Marie Curie’s National Day of Reflection campaign and (b) meet representatives of Marie Curie to discuss their plans for that campaign.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government is committed to supporting initiatives that provide people the opportunity to come together, to reflect upon their grief and loss and to remember those that are no longer with us. We welcome this campaign and we will continue to work with charities and other organisations to ensure that support and time for reflection are available to those in need.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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 recover the capacity of (a) antenatal care, (b) maternity units and (c) post-natal care in the NHS to pre-covid-19 outbreak levels.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Throughout the pandemic, NHS England and NHS Improvement have been guiding maternity services to prioritise maintaining safe and personalised maternity care by making adjustments to service provision only where necessitated by the local impact of COVID-19. Wherever possible, services have been asked to reinstate a fully personalised approach to meeting the needs of individual women and their families and the level of care contacts and choice options available to women and their partners across the maternity pathway.
Some changes have been made to the way that women receive their antenatal and postnatal care, however, women are still being offered their required number of appointments as per guidelines set by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.