Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is providing financial support for psychological and emotional treatment for Ukrainian refugees.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel MP) on 9 June 2022 to Question 11851.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to increase support for emotional and mental health and wellbeing in primary schools.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
In 2021/22, we provided an additional £79 million to increase children’s mental health services, including expanding the availability of mental health support teams in schools and colleges. These teams now provide support in approximately 25% of the country and we aim for this to increase to more than 500 teams or 35% of pupils by 2023/24.
Mental health support teams integrate with existing measures, such as counselling, educational psychologists, school nurses, pastoral care, educational welfare officers, local authority provision and National Health Service children and young people’s mental health services. The Department for Education also provided more than £17 million in 2021/22 to increase existing mental health support in education settings. This includes £9.5 million to enable up to a third of schools and colleges to train a senior mental health lead, through the Government’s commitment to fund training for leads in all schools and colleges by 2025.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has plans to increase (a) research into and (b) treatment of personality disorders.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) we have funded or supported studies into the causes and treatments of personality disorder. This includes a study to evaluate dialectical behavioural therapy skills for employment for individuals with a personality disorder and a randomised controlled trial of structured psychological support for people with a personality disorder. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including personality disorder. The NIHR’s funding is available through open competition and we encourage researchers to submit applications in this area.
We will invest an additional £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness by 2023/24. This will allow a further 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illnesses, including personality disorders, greater choice and control over their care and to live well in their communities.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make additional funding available for the provision of child and adolescent mental health services in patient hospitals in north Cheshire.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
It is for local commissioners to allocate funding to meet the needs of children and young people in the local population, including in Cheshire. Through the Mental Health Investment Standard (MHIS), local National Health Service organisations must increase the planned spending on mental health services by a greater proportion than its overall increase in budget allocation each year. All clinical commissioning groups met the MHIS in 2020/21.
We have also committed to invest an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24 to ensure an additional 345,000 children and young people will have access to mental health services.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has plans to increase funding for mental health and wellbeing support in disadvantaged areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are investing at least £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023/24 to allow an additional two million people in England to access National Health Service-funded mental health services. The funding and provision of health services, including mental health services, are the responsibility of integrated care systems, which can allocate funding according to local need. Through the COVID-19 Recovery Action Plan, we made £15 million available to invest in activity to promote positive mental health in the most deprived local authority areas in England.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to increase (a) funding for research into and (b) accessibility of treatment for adolescent eating disorders or potential eating disorders.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In 2020/21, the NIHR’s expenditure on mental health research was £109 million. While it is not usual practice for the NIHR to ring-fence funding for particular topics or conditions, it welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including eating disorders.
Since 2016, we have increased investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services, with an additional £53 million per year from 2021/22 to enhance the capacity of the 70 new or improved community eating disorder teams in England.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government has communicated the right to claim from the England Infected Blood Support scheme to veterans who were infected with hepatitis C and/or HIV in a British Military Hospital.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There have been no specific communications. Information about the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS), including eligibility, is available on the NHS Business Service Authority’s website. The NHS Business Services Authority also works with a range of charities which support those infected with HIV or hepatitis C to signpost potential beneficiaries to the EIBSS. The ongoing Infected Blood Inquiry may also direct potential beneficiaries to the Scheme. Medical professionals within the National Health Service have also been made aware of the EIBSS to inform patients who may be eligible.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to respond to the consultation on changing the qualifying age for free prescriptions in England to 66 years of age.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The consultation on increasing the upper age exemption for free prescriptions to align it with the state pension age closed on 3 September 2021. No decisions on the proposals have yet been made. We will respond to the consultation and announce our next steps in due course.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
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 provide additional support to the ambulance service amid (a) staff shortages and (b) high demand during the current covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
NHS England and NHS Improvement are supporting to ambulance trusts in England with an investment of an extra £55 million to increase staff numbers for the winter, including over 700 additional staff in control rooms and on the frontline. This includes £1.85 million to place more hospital ambulance liaison officers at the most challenged hospitals to address ambulance queues and £4.4 million to maintain an additional 154 ambulances.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether additional mental health support is being made available to people affected by the contaminated blood scandal.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
This Government is committed to providing mental health support for people affected by the contaminated blood tragedy. In England funding is available via the English Infected Blood Support Scheme for infected and affected individuals and their families to access counselling in addition to National Health Service-provided services. In May 2020 a significant change was made to the application process for this support so that beneficiaries can now receive funding for counselling without general practitioner approval or the need to access NHS waiting lists. The devolved administrations, who each run their own Infected Blood Support Schemes, also offer psychological support.