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Written Question
NHS: Dental Services
Thursday 29th September 2022

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the review of the contractual arrangements under which NHS dental treatment is carried out will be completed.

Answered by Will Quince

In July 2022, we announced measures to improve the National Health Service dental system and in ‘Our plan for patients’ published in September 2022. This aims to increase access for patients, including those with greater oral health needs and ensure that dentists are fairly rewarded for the delivery of NHS care. Further information on improving access for patients, including in the South West, will be available later in the autumn.


Written Question
Dental Services: Torridge and West Devon
Thursday 29th September 2022

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take urgent steps to improve the availability and quality of NHS dental treatment in Torridge and West Devon constituency.

Answered by Will Quince

In July 2022, we announced measures to improve the National Health Service dental system and in ‘Our plan for patients’ published in September 2022. This aims to increase access for patients, including those with greater oral health needs and ensure that dentists are fairly rewarded for the delivery of NHS care. Further information on improving access for patients, including in the South West, will be available later in the autumn.


Written Question
Defibrillators: Finance
Monday 16th May 2022

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

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 the potential merits of funding the construction of defibrillator networks from the NHS central budget.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

No specific assessment has been made. However, in partnership with The British Heart Foundation, the Resuscitation Council UK and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, NHS England and NHS Improvement have developed ‘The Circuit’; a database to register defibrillators in the United Kingdom. This will assist ambulance services to identify the nearest defibrillator at the time of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.


Written Question
Defibrillators: Finance
Friday 13th May 2022

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

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 cost of building the Government's planned national network of defibrillators; and what proportion of that cost his Department will cover.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

No estimate has been made as the Government has not funded the network. We have encouraged communities and organisations in England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of first aid equipment, particularly in locations where there are high concentrations of people. Many community defibrillators have since been provided in public locations through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities.


Written Question
Defibrillators: Finance
Thursday 24th February 2022

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what financial support his Department has provided for the purchase of defibrillators for installation in public places in the last five years; what recent assessment he has made of the need to install community defibrillators in public places; and what steps he is taking to support the installation of more defibrillators in public places.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

In 2015/16, we provided £2 million to increase the availability of Automated External Defibrillators and the number of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Since then, we have encouraged communities and organisations across England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of first-aid equipment, particularly in locations where there are high concentrations of people. Many community defibrillators have since been provided through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities


No recent assessment has been made of the need to install community defibrillators in public places. The NHS Long Term Plan has a programme funded in 2022/23 which includes national projects to improve bystander response in relation to out of hospital cardiac arrests.


Written Question
Dental Services
Friday 5th November 2021

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government has a maximum distance it considers appropriate for patients to travel for dental care; what data he holds on waiting times for patients in Devon for NHS dental care; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reimbursing the cost of urgent dental treatment undertaken privately in circumstances where no local NHS dentists are available.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

There are no geographical restrictions on which practice a patient may attend, including urgent dental centres (UDCs). This enables patients wider choice when seeking a new dentist or choosing to stay with a familiar practice. No maximum travel distance is therefore defined.

Data is not held on waiting times in Devon and no specific assessment has been made, as the provision of urgent care has now returned to pre-pandemic levels. Patients can access care from any high street National Health Service dental practice accepting patients or via NHS 111. Over 700 UDCs continue to support the provision of urgent dental care, where a patient does not have or cannot access a dentist.


Written Question
Prisoners: Coronavirus
Friday 26th March 2021

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to administer covid-19 vaccinations to inmates in prisons.

Answered by Nadhim Zahawi

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has agreed that it would be difficult to advise additional prioritisation of detainees above the wider population based on the potential increased risk of exposure in a detained setting alone.

The overarching priority for the vaccination programme continues to be to reduce mortality, morbidity and hospitalisation and the JCVI has that priority should be based on age as the strongest indicator of risk of serious outcomes and clinical risk factors. Therefore, inmates in prisons will be prioritised for vaccination according to their own age and clinical risk along with the rest of the population.


Written Question
Neurology
Wednesday 28th March 2018

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

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 adequacy of the number of consultant neurologists in the NHS.

Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Department does not hold this information. National Health Service workforce statistics published by NHS Digital show that the full time equivalent number of consultant neurologists employed by the NHS in England has increased by 30% between September 2010 and December 2017:

FTE

Consultant Neurologists

September 2010

589

September 2011

610

September 2012

651

September 2013

689

September 2014

732

September 2015

756

September 2016

732

September 2017

766

December 2017

764

Source: NHS Digital

Health Education England is responsible for assessing the future need of the NHS at a national level in order to ensure sufficient supply of doctors across all grades and specialties. However, data on the number of trainees entering neurology is not routinely published.


Written Question
Health Services: Expenditure
Friday 18th November 2016

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to reduce health spending inequalities between (a) the UK and other European countries and (b) UK health authority districts.

Answered by Philip Dunne

Based on the latest internationally comparable Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, total health spending in the United Kingdom, as set out by the OECD for 2014 (published 30 June 2016), and which includes public (Government) and private spend, is at 9.9% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), above the OECD average1 of 9.0% and the EU-15 average of 9.8%.

Reducing health spending inequalities is part of the core formula that is used to determine the funding that is allocated to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), which are the equivalent of UK health authority districts in England. Responsibility for CCG allocations rests with NHS England. NHS England also has a duty to reduce health inequalities.

The formula includes an adjustment for unmet need and health inequalities, which has been refined for 2016-17 to 2020-21 allocations.

The unmet need and health inequalities adjustment continues to be based on the standardised mortality ratio for those aged under 75 years. The latest data has been used and the adjustment refined to give a higher weight per head to the areas with the worst standardised mortality ratio for those aged under 75 years and to be based on the size of each CCG’s registered lists in place of Office for National Statistics populations, on which it was previously based.

NHS England has published a technical guide to allocations which sets out all the individual factors used in determining the allocation levels. The guide is available here:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/04/allocations-tech-guide-16-17/#

Funding for other parts of the UK is a matter for the devolved administrations.

Note:

1The reported averages reflect the simple average of countries’ figures without weighting that for population or GDP of the respective countries.


Written Question
Health Services: Devon
Wednesday 16th November 2016

Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what scientific evidence led to the promotion of the care closer to home model adopted by the north, east and west Devon Success Regime.

Answered by Philip Dunne

The proposals developed by the north, east and west Devon Success Regime have drawn upon a range of evidence, including studies of the potential benefits of care closer to home. This included a number of national and local studies, such as the Torrington Community Care Test of Change in Social Care which can be found at:

www.northdevonhealth.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Appendix-7-Evidence-Review.pdf