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Written Question
Smoking: Health Services
Thursday 7th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 merits of streamlining the process for making packaging changes on licensed smoking cessation products.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

No assessment has been made.


Written Question
Tobacco: Labelling
Wednesday 6th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled Smokers urged to swap cigarettes for vapes in world first scheme, published on 11 April 2023, when his Department plans to consult on introducing mandatory cigarette pack inserts.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

On 14 August 2023, the Department launched the public consultation on mandating quit information messages inside tobacco packs. The consultation across the United Kingdom will close on 10 October 2023 and more information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/mandating-quit-information-messages-inside-tobacco-packs/mandating-quit-information-messages-inside-tobacco-packs-consultation


Written Question
Bowel Cancer: Young People
Monday 4th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 implications for his Department's policies of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation among younger people in (a) England and (b) Europe.

Answered by Will Quince

No assessment has been made.

The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.

Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.


Written Question
Bowel Cancer: Young People
Monday 4th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening programmes of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation in younger people.

Answered by Will Quince

No assessment has been made.

The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.

Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.


Written Question
Bowel Cancer: Screening
Monday 4th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 effectiveness of faecal immunochemical tests in diagnosing cancer in under-50s in England; and what assessment he has made of levels of adherence to NICE guidelines on the use of those tests.

Answered by Will Quince

No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.

To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS.


Written Question
Anaemia: Bowel Cancer
Monday 4th September 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening protocols of the potential link between (i) iron anaemia and (ii) colorectal cancer.

Answered by Will Quince

No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.

To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS.


Written Question
Public Health: Finance
Monday 13th March 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

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 10 January 2023 to Question 114704 on Public Health: Finance, when his Department plans to inform local authorities of their public health grant budgets for 2023-24.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

We will announce 2023/24 Public Health Grant allocations to local authorities in England shortly.


Written Question
Oral Cancer
Friday 27th January 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many oral cancers were identified at stage (a) 0, (b) 1, (c) 2, (d) 3 and (e) 4 in each year since 2015; and how many and what proportion of those were identified by dentists.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS), part of NHS Digital, collects data on all cancers diagnosed in England. The following table shows the number of diagnoses of oral cancer in England between 2015 and 2020.

Year

Stage at diagnosis

Diagnoses of oral cancer

Number referred by dentists

Proportion referred by dentists

2015

1

1,015

117

12%

2015

2

580

49

8%

2015

3

637

25

4%

2015

4

3,104

176

6%

2015

Not staged

418

12

3%

2015

Unstageable

11

0

0%

2016

1

1,027

111

11%

2016

2

615

53

9%

2016

3

554

27

5%

2016

4

3,392

177

5%

2016

Not staged

417

18

4%

2016

Unstageable

7

0

0%

2017

1

1,061

134

13%

2017

2

613

58

9%

2017

3

620

31

5%

2017

4

3,429

214

6%

2017

Not staged

383

20

5%

2017

Unstageable

9

0

0%

2018

1

1,060

132

12%

2018

2

561

55

10%

2018

3

864

41

5%

2018

4

3,339

235

7%

2018

Not staged

520

19

4%

2018

Unstageable

9

0

0%

2019

1

1,727

162

9%

2019

2

1,063

88

8%

2019

3

918

56

6%

2019

4

1,941

270

14%

2019

Not staged

1,091

63

6%

2019

Unstageable

2

0

0%

2020

1

1,782

131

7%

2020

2

902

73

8%

2020

3

929

49

5%

2020

4

2,065

312

15%

2020

Not staged

742

33

4%

2020

Unstageable

2

0

0%

Source: Cancer Registration Statistics, England 2020


Written Question
Accident and Emergency Departments: Dental Services
Wednesday 25th January 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have attended A&E departments for emergency dental care in (a) London and (b) England each year since 2015.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

The information is not held in the format requested. The following table shows the number of NHS 111 calls per year advised to contact dental services in London and England since records began in July 2017.

Year

England

London

2017 (from July)

363,665

34,378

2018

724,220

73,257

2019

625,533

83,461

2020

858,966

120,720

2021

951,180

144,873

2022 (to November)

793,029

127,119

The number of people attending A&E for emergency dental care is not collected centrally.


Written Question
NHS 111: Dental Services
Wednesday 25th January 2023

Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many calls NHS 111 received on emergency dental care in (a) London and (b) England each year since 2015.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

The information is not held in the format requested. The following table shows the number of NHS 111 calls per year advised to contact dental services in London and England since records began in July 2017.

Year

England

London

2017 (from July)

363,665

34,378

2018

724,220

73,257

2019

625,533

83,461

2020

858,966

120,720

2021

951,180

144,873

2022 (to November)

793,029

127,119

The number of people attending A&E for emergency dental care is not collected centrally.