Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of (a) the adequacy of and (b) progress on disbursing the additional financial support available to mental health charities since 22 May 2020.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
During the COVID-19 outbreak the Government provided £10.2 million of additional funding to mental health charities to support adults and children. This includes £6 million provided to the Coronavirus Mental Health Response Fund (CMHRF), led by Mind and the Mental Health Consortia and £4.2 million to mental health charities through the Government’s £750 million Coronavirus Charities Fund. We have also provided local authorities with £3.7 billion for COVID-19 pressures, including social care services provided by charitable organisations.
The CMHRF has supported over 130 charities to date. The list of charities that have received funding through this process was announced on 29 May 2020. The press release can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5-million-funding-given-to-mental-health-community-projects
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of (a) the adequacy of and (b) progress on disbursing the additional financial support available to mental health charities since 22 May 2020.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
During the COVID-19 outbreak the Government provided £10.2 million of additional funding to mental health charities to support adults and children. This includes £6 million provided to the Coronavirus Mental Health Response Fund (CMHRF), led by Mind and the Mental Health Consortia and £4.2 million to mental health charities through the Government’s £750 million Coronavirus Charities Fund. We have also provided local authorities with £3.7 billion for COVID-19 pressures, including social care services provided by charitable organisations.
The CMHRF has supported over 130 charities to date. The list of charities that have received funding through this process was announced on 29 May 2020. The press release can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5-million-funding-given-to-mental-health-community-projects
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timeframe is for the publication of the report on BAME covid-19 deaths.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England led a rapid review to better understand how different factors can impact on how people are affected by COVID-19. This includes analysis of ethnicity, deprivation, age, sex (male and female) and obesity, where data was available. The review’s findings have now been published and can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-review-of-disparities-in-risks-and-outcomes
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
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 5 May 2020 to Question 41469, what payments the NHS has made to the private sector since the beginning of March 2020; and what the average value is of those payments.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
An emergency agreement was put in place on 21 March to block book almost the entirety of the private hospital sector’s services, facilities and nearly 20,000 clinical staff for the foreseeable future to help cope with the surge of COVID-19 patients. Information about what payments the National Health Service has made to the private sector since this agreement was made or the average value of such payments is not currently available. All providers have agreed to a fully transparent approach and to provide services at cost price.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) routine appointments and (b) red flag referrals were cancelled or postponed during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The collection of information on cancelled appointments has been suspended to free up capacity within the health system during the COVID-19 outbreak.
‘Red flag referrals’ are only used in Northern Ireland. Health is a devolved issue and is dealt with by Health and Social Care Northern Ireland and therefore the information requested is not available.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
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 28 April 2020 to Question 38931 on Hospital Beds: Private Sector, if he will set out the (a) costs and (b) number of beds that have been used.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
National Health Service patients are benefitting from an unprecedented partnership with private hospitals in the United Kingdom as we battle the COVID-19 outbreak. The NHS is accessing these facilities at cost, with those costs judged by an independent auditor. Reimbursements to the independent sector will be for reasonable and narrowly-defined costs only.
As it is not currently known how extensively and for how long this extra capacity will be used, it is not possible to estimate the cost to the public purse, nor the number of beds that will have been used.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the covid-19 outbreak how many private healthcare hospital beds the NHS has requisitioned; how many of those beds have been used; and what the cost of that requisitioning has been to date.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector to increase capacity and resource within the National Health Service, adding around 8,000 beds and 20,000 clinical staff. This will ensure that more facilities are available for patients diagnosed with COVID-19.
Under the agreement, the independent sector will be reimbursed at cost.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who will represent the Government at the UN high level meeting on non-communicable diseases in September; and what the Government's expected outcomes for that meeting are.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Government is committed to addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs). A United Kingdom Government delegation is being considered to attend the United Nations high level meeting in September to contribute to the global agenda on NCDs control.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
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 prepare for the UN high level meeting on non-communicable diseases in September.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Government is committed to addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs). A United Kingdom Government delegation is being considered to attend the United Nations high level meeting in September to contribute to the global agenda on NCDs control.
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
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 effectiveness of GPs in identifying and treating perinatal mental health problems in mothers.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This Government is committed to improving perinatal mental health services for women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year, so that women are able to access the right care at the right time and close to home. The importance of this is reflected in both NHS England’s ‘Better Births’ and the ‘Five Year Forward View for Mental Health'.
General practitioners and primary care teams have a role in supporting the identification of perinatal mental illness and treatment, and are part of an integrated pathway of services. This includes monitoring early onset conditions, providing pre-conception counselling and referring women to specialist mental health services, including the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme and specialist perinatal community teams, if necessary.
The Department is investing £365 million to 2020/21 in perinatal mental health services, and NHS England is leading a transformation programme with the development of specialist perinatal mental health community services across England with their investment of £63 million between 2016/17 and 2018/19. Local teams work in close partnership with wider system partners including primary care to provide care and treatment to women with perinatal mental illness.
NHS England has also invested in multidisciplinary perinatal mental health clinical networks which include general practitioners, across the country to drive forward change, focusing on collaborative working to develop local, integrated pathways and support early identification of those at risk of mental illness in the perinatal period, to enable better outcomes for women in all communities.