Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 ability of people across Yorkshire to access NHS dental services; and what steps his Department is taking to increase access to NHS dentistry.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
National Health Service dental practices, including across Yorkshire, have been asked to meet as many prioritised needs as is safely possible. They are prioritising urgent care, care for vulnerable groups and children, followed by delayed planned care.
An additional £50 million in funding for National Heath Service (NHS) dentistry has been made available for the remainder of the 2021/22 financial year to give more patients that have been unable to obtain an NHS appointment access to dental care. The available appointments will be targeted first at those most in need of urgent dental treatment, vulnerable groups and children.
Patients across Yorkshire who are struggling to find a local dentist can contact NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre for assistance or contact NHS 111 if seeking urgent care.
Work to reform the NHS dental contract is underway and is being led by NHS England and NHS Improvement working closely with the Department and the British Dental Association. One of the main aims is to improve patient access to NHS care.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 support the installation of more defibrillators in public places.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The National Health Service has initiated a national network of community first responders and automated external defibrillators (AEDs). This will be supported by educating the general public, including young people of school age, on recognising and responding to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The Government encourages organisations in England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of their first aid equipment, particularly for places where there are high concentrations of people. With growing public awareness and acceptance of AEDs, many community defibrillators have since been provided in public locations through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities. From May 2020, the Government has required all contractors refurbishing or building new schools through centrally delivered programmes to provide at least one AED. The NHS cardiovascular disease programme has committed £15 million in 2021/22 for national projects to improve bystander responses to out of hospital cardiac arrests.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to encourage the installation of more defibrillators in public places.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The National Health Service has initiated a national network of community first responders and automated external defibrillators (AEDs). This will be supported by educating the general public, including young people of school age, on recognising and responding to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The Government encourages organisations in England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of their first aid equipment, particularly for places where there are high concentrations of people. With growing public awareness and acceptance of AEDs, many community defibrillators have since been provided in public locations through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities. From May 2020, the Government has required all contractors refurbishing or building new schools through centrally delivered programmes to provide at least one AED. The NHS cardiovascular disease programme has committed £15 million in 2021/22 for national projects to improve bystander responses to out of hospital cardiac arrests.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 increase the availability of lateral flow tests in East Yorkshire constituency.
Answered by Maggie Throup
In December 2021, we delivered approximately 280 million lateral flow device (LFD) tests and we have since procured new stocks and increased delivery capacity. We expect to deliver 90 million LFD tests a week across the United Kingdom, including East Yorkshire and County Durham, including seven million a day through GOV.UK. In England, this includes approximately 12 million tests a week through pharmacies.
For polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, we increased capacity before Christmas and developed a network which processed over four million tests by 10 January 2022. We expect that there is currently sufficient capacity to process PCR tests.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to (a) develop and (b) improve the services available at the Alfred Bean Hospital in Driffield.
Answered by Edward Argar
NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with East Riding Council and Driffield Town Council, local partner agencies and communities to understand, develop and improve local services. This includes reviewing services available at the Alfred Bean Hospital.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 21 June 2021 to Question 17694, on Bridlington and District Hospital, what recent progress has been made on the (a) development of the stroke inpatient rehabilitation service within Bridlington Hospital and (b) virtual outpatient and multi-disciplinary consultations referenced in that Answer.
Answered by Edward Argar
The stroke inpatient rehabilitation service is now fully operational at Bridlington Hospital, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. This service is accepting patients from the Bridlington and Scarborough area who require continuing care following discharge from a hyper acute stroke unit in York or Hull. The Trust is currently examining possible solutions for virtual outpatient and multi-disciplinary consultations to be undertaken in some areas of specialist care.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 potential future litigation risk to the NHS in the event that chemicals in NHS-prescribed e-cigarettes are found to be detrimental to public health.
Answered by Maggie Throup
No assessment has been made as there are currently no medicinal e-cigarettes available prescribed via the National Health Service. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) published updated guidance on 29 October 2021 to encourage manufacturers to bring a medicinal e-cigarette to market.
For a manufacturer to achieve a medicinal licence, products would need to meet the standards of quality, safety, and efficacy expected of medicinal products. There would be a duty to continually monitor the performance of their product, submit vigilance reports to the MHRA when incidents occur and take appropriate safety action if required.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time is over the past 12 months for which figures are available, for (a) Category 1 calls, (b) Category 2 calls and (c) Category 3 calls.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time over the past twelve months for (a) Category 1 calls, (b) Category 2 calls and (c) Category 3 calls in the last 12 months for the Sept 2020 to Oct 2021 period is as below:
Category 1: 8 minutes, 14 seconds
Category 2: 27 minutes, 27 seconds
Category 3: 1 hour, 19 minutes, 48 seconds
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many complaints have been made (a) to and (b) about the Yorkshire Ambulance Service in the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Edward Argar
The information requested is not held centrally.