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 improve (a) access to and (b) the provision of NHS dentistry in Easington constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the 24 months to June 2023, 1,099,769 adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in the Northeast and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), the equivalent to 46% of the population. This figure is 10% higher than the year before, as in the 24 months to June 2022, 996,298 adults were seen by an NHS dentist.
On 7 February 2024, we published Faster, simpler, and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients across the country, and to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry, including in Easington.
A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients, and since the end of January, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable.
From 1 April 2023, the responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all ICBs across England. The Northeast and North Cumbria ICB is responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need, and determine the priorities for investment across the ICB area.
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, if she will require integrated care boards to collect data on the availability of NHS dental care services in their locality.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
From 1 April 2023, responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for undertaking oral health needs assessments, including any data collection, to identify areas of oral health need, inform local commissioning intentions, and determine the local priorities for investment. It is a contractual responsibility for all National Health Service dental practices to update their NHS.UK profiles at least once every 90 days. The Find a Dentist website gives details of the dental practices in an area, and whether they are accepting new patients, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist
ICB-level data on the number of Units of Dental Activity and courses of treatment delivered, as well as the numbers of adults and children seen, 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, how many NHS dental appointments have been commissioned by North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board in Easington constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Activity in National Health Service dentistry is measured by the number of Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) commissioned and delivered, and by the number of courses of treatment delivered, rather than by the number of appointments. Data on the number of UDAs commissioned and delivered is published each month on the NHS Business Services Authority Open Data Portal, which currently holds data up to February 2024, and is available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-contractor-monthly-general-dental-activity
Data on the number of courses of treatment delivered in 2022/23, and in previous years, is published by NHS Digital, and 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, how many NHS dental appointments have been commissioned by the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Activity in National Health Service dentistry is measured by the number of Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) commissioned and delivered, and by the number of courses of treatment delivered, rather than by the number of appointments. Data on the number of UDAs commissioned and delivered is published each month on the NHS Business Services Authority Open Data Portal, which currently holds data up to February 2024, and is available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-contractor-monthly-general-dental-activity
Data on the number of courses of treatment delivered in 2022/23, and in previous years, is published by NHS Digital, and 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, how many people have been waiting for more than 12 months for (a) knee and (b) hip replacement surgery.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Waiting list management information shows that there were 3,469 people waiting for more than 12 months for hip replacement surgery, and 5,714 people waiting for more than 12 months for knee replacement surgery, as of 5 May 2024.
The National Health Service has been hit by the most disruptive industrial action in its history, and as of April 2024, approximately 1.4 million hospital appointments have been rescheduled since December 2022. The NHS is working incredibly hard to ensure that those who have been waiting the longest receive treatment as soon as possible, and staff are going above and beyond to make this happen.
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, whether she plans to place opioid-overdose reversal Naloxone alongside existing public access defibrillators.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is working to expand access to naloxone, and to increase the availability of this life saving medicine. We will shortly update legislation to enable more services and individuals to provide take-home supplies of naloxone without a prescription. This follows a public consultation in which the responses were overwhelmingly supportive of our proposals. The consultation outcome is available at:
These changes mean naloxone can be given to a family member or friend of a person who is known to be using opiates, and to professionals working with people who use these drugs, to save lives in the event of an overdose.
Whilst the government has no current plans to place naloxone alongside public access defibrillators, we are committed to making naloxone as accessible as possible to those who need it. We are therefore considering the feasibility and potential benefits of a range of options, including making naloxone available in locked boxes in public places.
We have also launched a £5 million fund to tackle drug deaths across the United Kingdom, which is funding research projects that are considering other innovative ways to make naloxone more readily available. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5-million-fund-to-tackle-fatal-drug-deaths-across-the-uk
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 deaths involving (a) nitazenes and (b) fentanyls have been confirmed by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in 2024 as of 25 April.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are actively monitoring, and responding to, the continued threat posed by the growing levels of potent synthetic opioids in the United Kingdom. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities receives intelligence via its networks on reported deaths from drug misuse, including those that involve nitazenes or fentanyls. There have been 14 deaths confirmed to have involved nitazenes, and no deaths confirmed to have involved fentanyls in England in 2024, as of 25 April.
Statistics on the annual number of deaths related to drug poisoning, including those involving synthetic opioids, are reported by the Office for National Statistics, and will be published in due course.
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 people have been waiting more than 12 months for (a) knee and (b) hip replacement surgery in the North East as of 29 April 2024.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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 has taken to help prepare for potential increases in levels of synthetic opioid-related harms.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are highly alert to the emerging threat from the arrival of potent synthetic opioids in the United Kingdom. The Department is an active member of the cross-Government synthetic opioids taskforce, which was established in the Summer of 2023, to develop mitigations to the synthetic opioids threat.
In July 2023, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities issued a National Patient Safety Alert, which promoted awareness and provided clear instructions for staff in health settings across the country, to ensure they are prepared for anyone that may present with an overdose caused by synthetic opioids.
We are developing an early warning system to improve drug surveillance on synthetic opioids, and are also expanding access to naloxone, a lifesaving medicine that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, so that more professionals and services can give out take-home supplies.
We are engaging on this issue internationally via the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and are playing an active role in the United States-convened Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats.
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 assessment she has made of the adequacy of the medication reimbursement mechanism for community pharmacists.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through the medicine margin survey, the Department assesses whether the reimbursement arrangements pay pharmacy contractors as agreed as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF). The medicine margin survey considers what pharmacies paid for medicines by looking at their invoices compared to the amount reimbursed by the National Health Service. Where the survey finds that they have been underpaid, we increase the pharmacy contractors’ payments, and where they have been overpaid, we decrease payments.
Furthermore, where pharmacies cannot purchase products at or below the Drug Tariff NHS reimbursement price, Community Pharmacy England can request that the Department reassesses the reimbursement price. If a new reimbursement price is issued, this is known as a concessionary price.