Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the value of Healthy Start payments to keep them in line with the current high levels of food price inflation; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
While there are no current plans to increase the value of Healthy Start, this is kept under continuous review. In April 2021 the value of the Healthy Start increased from £3.10 to £4.25, providing additional support to pregnant women and families on lower incomes to make healthy food choices. Due to the increase, eligible families with children aged under one year old receive £8.50 compared to £6.20 previously.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2022 to Question 140359 on Healthy Start Scheme, what plans she has to increase the value of Healthy Start scheme vouchers in line with inflation; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
While there are no current plans to increase the value of Healthy Start, this is kept under continuous review. In April 2021 the value of the Healthy Start increased from £3.10 to £4.25, providing additional support to pregnant women and families on lower incomes to make healthy food choices. Due to the increase, eligible families with children aged under one year old receive £8.50 compared to £6.20 previously.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she had made of the potential merits of providing additional funding for the modernisation of Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are allocating £12 billion of operational capital to the National Health Service in England for 2022/23 to 2024/25, of which £219 million has been allocated to North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB) for 2022/23. Following the national planning guidance, the ICB will determine how this funding is spent locally. London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust has also received targeted national funding for improvement and elective recovery.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Strategic Outline Case for a new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, published on 7 June 2022, if she will provide the funding to rebuild the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn as recommended in the Strategic Outline Case submitted to her Department; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS Foundation Trust has submitted an expression of interest for Queen Elizabeth Hospital to be considered in the next cohort of eight new hospitals. We are currently reviewing these expressions of interest and aim to announce the final decision later in the year. A Strategic Outline Case has not yet been submitted to the Department.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the prevalence of (a) diabetes, (b) heart disease, (c) hypertension, (d) high cholesterol, (e) obesity, (f) cancer, (g) poor eye health and (h) mental illness levels among people from the South Asian community in England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
‘Health Survey England Additional Analyses, Ethnicity and Health, 2011-2019 Experimental statistics’, published in June 2022, assesses the prevalence of commonly reported longstanding conditions, hypertension, diabetes and adult obesity. This data is available at the following link:
There are no recent estimates of raised cholesterol prevalence in South Asian ethnic groups in England. Data on the prevalence of child obesity by ethnic group are available from the National Child Measurement Programme. The latest data for 2021/21 show that prevalence of obesity in children aged four to five years old was below the national average for Indian children and above the national average for Bangladeshi and Pakistani children. In children aged 10 to 11 years old in 2021/20 prevalence of obesity was above the national average for Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani children.
Cancer prevalence counts the number of people living with and beyond a cancer diagnosis at a fixed point in time. Data from National Cancer Registration Dataset shows that in 2019, 47,761 people in the South Asian community were diagnosed with cancer between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019 and were alive on 31 December 2019.
There is no national dataset that provides information on the prevalence of the main eye conditions. Estimates are derived from population modelling and information from the Certification of Vision Impairment (CVI) register. While the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is assessing the ethnicity data collected as part of the CVI register, no analysis has yet been completed.
The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of 2014 provides prevalence estimates of some mental health conditions by broad ethnic group. The prevalence rates, taking account of age, in Asian/Asian British adults in England were 17.9% for common mental disorders; 5.8% screened positive for post-traumatic stress disorder; 0.9% for psychotic disorder in the last year; and 1.4% screened positive for bi-polar disorder. For all conditions except bi-polar disorder, although the prevalence is higher in the Asian group than the White British group it is not possible to say whether this is a statistically significant difference.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of NHS (a) policies and (b) protocols for use of personal protective equipment by NHS staff undertaking home visits at reducing risks for those whose immune system means they are at higher risk from covid-19; whether she plans to require the use of personal protective equipment by NHS staff during such visits; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
There are no current plans to make a specific assessment. We expect National Health Service providers to take account of the latest infection protection and control guidance when implementing such measures either in a hospital or community setting.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent staff in his Department were based permanently in (a) Gujarat, (b) Delhi and (c) other states in India in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Department has not employed staff based in India in the last five years.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients registered under the London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust have waited over 18 months for an operation in each year since 2014; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Argar
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust does not hold data before 2017. The following table shows the number of patients registered under the Trust who have waited more than 78 weeks for an operation in each year since 2017/18.
2017/18 | 5 |
2018/19 | 0 |
2019/20 | 0 |
2020/21 | 42 |
2021/22 – to February 2022 | 387 |
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, published in February 2022, sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years. The plan commits to eliminate waiting times of over 18 months by April 2023.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the number of people taking part in the Healthy Start scheme following the digitisation of that scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The NHS Business Services Authority is currently transferring Healthy Start beneficiaries from the paper voucher scheme to the digital scheme. Once the transition process is complete, further data will be made available. As of 16 March 2022, there were 311,972 successful applications to the digital scheme.