Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to set up an independent review of the use of electro convulsive therapy.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We have no plans to do so.
Electroconvulsive therapy is regulated under the Mental Health Act 1983 and can only be given when a patient consents.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how long the personal information and references provided by volunteer covid-19 vaccinator applicants will be retained by the National Vaccination Programme.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Working in partnership with St John Ambulance and the Royal Voluntary Service, 420,000 volunteers have been deployed to help support the COVID-19 vaccine programme. St John Ambulance holds the only nationally procured contract for volunteer vaccinators and of the 26,858 individuals recruited to support the vaccination programme in partnership with St John Ambulance, approximately 11,510 of these volunteers have not yet been deployed.
NHS England and NHS Improvement do not hold any personal data on volunteers within the vaccination programme sourced through the national supply chain contracts. Lead employers would retain the information of locally sourced volunteers and this would be the responsibility of an individual organisation. The data controller is St John Ambulance or the Royal Voluntary Service and all data received to the national programme team is anonymised.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 number of successful applications from volunteer vaccinators who have not been deployed during the covid-19 vaccine rollout.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Working in partnership with St John Ambulance and the Royal Voluntary Service, 420,000 volunteers have been deployed to help support the COVID-19 vaccine programme. St John Ambulance holds the only nationally procured contract for volunteer vaccinators and of the 26,858 individuals recruited to support the vaccination programme in partnership with St John Ambulance, approximately 11,510 of these volunteers have not yet been deployed.
NHS England and NHS Improvement do not hold any personal data on volunteers within the vaccination programme sourced through the national supply chain contracts. Lead employers would retain the information of locally sourced volunteers and this would be the responsibility of an individual organisation. The data controller is St John Ambulance or the Royal Voluntary Service and all data received to the national programme team is anonymised.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department collects on the length of time covid-19 patients spend in (a) regular and (b) intensive care hospital beds.
Answered by Edward Argar
The information requested is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the dentistry profession on the potential involvement of that profession covid-19 vaccine delivery.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
An enormous amount of work has already taken place to ensure we have the required workforce to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to the United Kingdom population at the pace and scale required.
To enable this, the Department made changes to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 in Oct 2020 (The Human Medicines (Coronavirus and Influenza) (Amendment) Regulations 2020). This allows additional health care professionals and those who have passed a programme of extensive training developed by Public Health England and Health Education England to safely administer a licensed or temporarily authorised influenza or COVID-19 vaccine.
Staff working in dental services – particularly those who are registered with relevant professional groups – have been encouraged to consider applying for temporary roles to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme, including as vaccinators. Information has been provided to dental staff groups on how they might apply for these opportunities.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his oral contribution of 21 September 2020, Official Report, column 633, on Covid-19 Update, if he will publish the citation for the trial to which he referred that showed that Vitamin D has no impact on coronavirus.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published ‘Vitamin D for COVID-19: Evidence Review’ which is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/es28/evidence/evidence-review-pdf-8777674477
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition also published ‘Rapid review: Vitamin D and acute respiratory tract infections’ which is available at the following link:
https://app.box.com/s/g0ldpth1upfd7fw763ew3aqa3c0pyvky
These rapid evidence reviews, published in June 2020, concluded that there is currently no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to reduce the risk and severity of COVID-19. My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was referring to these publications when he responded to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Rupa Huq MP).
Public Health England will keep this topic under review and will consider updating this assessment if emerging high-quality evidence suggests a change to existing conclusions, and advise the Government accordingly.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 ensure that Minor Injuries Units are signposted where appropriate to callers to the 111 service in Worcestershire.
Answered by Edward Argar
Patients using the NHS 111 online service or calling NHS 111 will speak to a trained adviser, or if required a clinician, who will ask questions about the injury and any symptoms the patient is experiencing to identify the most appropriate treatment. This includes being invited to attend a face-to-face appointment at their local minor injuries unit.