Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for children to access diagnostic MRI services.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service’s Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care aims for 95% of patients needing a diagnostic test to receive it within six weeks by March 2025. £2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. As of December 2023, there are 136 CDCs, which have delivered over five million additional diagnostic tests since July 2021.
The remainder of the funding will increase capacity for imaging, including diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) services, endoscopy as well as lung and mammography screening, and improve digital diagnostics.
Growth in the MRI asset base and increased use of MRI acceleration software is creating additional capacity for approximately 572,000 MRI examinations per annum within the system. This capacity will be used to support both paediatric and adult waiting lists.
As of September 2023, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust delivered 75% of all MRI scans for both adults and children within the national standard of six weeks. Between April and November 2023, the average waiting time for routine outpatient MRI for children under 16 years old was approximately 12 weeks. Children who arrive within the emergency department at Sunderland Royal Hospital who require an urgent MRI scan receive this within three hours of arrival.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for a diagnostic MRI scan for a child at Sunderland Royal Hospital.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service’s Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care aims for 95% of patients needing a diagnostic test to receive it within six weeks by March 2025. £2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. As of December 2023, there are 136 CDCs, which have delivered over five million additional diagnostic tests since July 2021.
The remainder of the funding will increase capacity for imaging, including diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) services, endoscopy as well as lung and mammography screening, and improve digital diagnostics.
Growth in the MRI asset base and increased use of MRI acceleration software is creating additional capacity for approximately 572,000 MRI examinations per annum within the system. This capacity will be used to support both paediatric and adult waiting lists.
As of September 2023, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust delivered 75% of all MRI scans for both adults and children within the national standard of six weeks. Between April and November 2023, the average waiting time for routine outpatient MRI for children under 16 years old was approximately 12 weeks. Children who arrive within the emergency department at Sunderland Royal Hospital who require an urgent MRI scan receive this within three hours of arrival.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Radiologists’ 2022 Workforce Census, what assessment he has of the adequacy of the size of the NHS clinical oncology workforce.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In June 2023, NHS England published the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, which sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver a workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years.
The Government is backing the plan with over £2.4 billion funding over the next five years to ensure additional education and training places. This is on top of increases to education and training investment, reaching a record £6.1 billion over the next two years.
We are taking steps to build our cancer workforce. As of August 2023, there are currently over 1,600 full time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in the speciality of clinical oncology in NHS trusts and other core organisations in England. This is over 70 or 4.9% more than last year, almost 300 or 22.1% more than 2019, and almost 630 or 61.9% more than in 2010.
This includes 880 FTE consultants. This is 34 or 4.0% more than last year, almost 130 or 17.1% more than in 2019, and over 390 or 80.6% more than in 2010.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to address regional inequalities in the NHS clinical oncology workforce.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Compared to last year, there are 77 or 4.9% more full-time equivalent doctors working in clinical oncology in National Health Service trusts and other core organisations in England.
On 10 January 2023, Health Education England, now NHS England, announced the creation of nearly 900 additional medical specialty training posts for this year, including 270 in the cancer and diagnostics programme. Many of the additional posts are specifically targeted to tackle health inequalities and help ensure training places are distributed fairly to best meet patients’ needs in all parts of England.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans she has to publish a workforce strategy for the community diagnostic centre programme.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to publish a diagnostic workforce strategy for the community diagnostic centre (CDC) programme. NHS England has a plan to ensure sufficient workforce capacity, including for CDCs, to enable workforce expansion with the right skills and roles, in the right locations and at the right time. In 2022/23, this resulted in over 4,300 new starters across the training pipeline for diagnostics and cancer.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 20 November 2023 to Question 1862 on Dental Services: Easington, what data is held centrally on access to NHS dental care.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The annual GP Patient Survey includes questions on whether patients have tried to obtain an appointment with a National Health Service dentist and, if so, whether they had been successful. NHS Dental Statistics for England, published by NHS Digital, brings together information on NHS dental activity in England, including information about patients seen.
The latest NHS Dental Statistics Annual Report published on 24 August 2023 shows that 18.1 million adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 1.7 million, or 10%, when compared to the previous year; and 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 800,000, or 14%, when compared to the previous year. Dental activity, as measured by courses of treatment delivered, also increased by 23.2% compared to the previous year.
The latest GP Patient survey data is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/category/statistics/gp-dental-statistics/
The latest NHS Dental Statistics for England is available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
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 20 November 2023 to Question 1862 on Dental Services: Easington, what data her Department holds on levels of access to NHS dental care.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In addition to the GP Patient Survey, which includes questions on whether patients have tried to obtain an appointment with a National Health Service dentist and, if so, whether they had been successful, NHS Dental Statistics for England, published by NHS Digital, brings together information on NHS dental activity in England, including information about patients seen.
The latest Annual Report published on 24 August 2023 shows that 18.1 million adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 1.7 million or 10% when compared to the previous year; and 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 800,000 or 14% when compared to the previous year. Dental activity, as measured by courses of treatment delivered, also increased by 23.2% compared to the previous year.
The latest GP Patient survey data is available from the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/category/statistics/gp-dental-statistics/
The latest NHS Dental Statistics for England is available from the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times his Department answered Named Day written parliamentary questions stating that it would not be possible to answer a question within the usual time period, in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department provides a holding reply as a courtesy to hon. Members if a Named Day written parliamentary question is not expected to be answered on the named date. In the period 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2023, the Department received a total of 2,980 Named Day questions, out of which we issued 1,115 holding replies of the nature specified by the hon. Member.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dental practices in Easington constituency were accepting new NHS patients aged 18 and over in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally.
National Health Service dental practice profiles at NHS.UK show whether practices across England are currently accepting new patients. This information is available at the following link: https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Radiologists’ 2022 Workforce Census, what assessment he has made of the shortage in the NHS clinical oncology workforce on (a) radiotherapy waiting times, (b) patient outcomes and (c) staff well-being.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such assessment has been made. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP) was published on 30 June 2023. Backed by over £2.4 billion of Government investment over the next five years, the LTWP will put the workforce on a sustainable footing for the long term.