Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women received Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception following a medical abortion between 30 March and 30 November for each of the last five years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women received Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception between 30 March and 30 November for this year after having (a) a home medical abortion and (b) a medical abortion where one or both pills were taken in a clinic.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not collected or held centrally.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
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 false positive test results from covid-19 testing in England and Wales.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In June 2020 the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published a briefing paper on the impact of false positives and false negatives in the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing programme, which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gos-impact-of-false-positives-and-negatives-3-june-2020
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department is offering to people who are required to self-isolate as a result of the Test and trace notification and who are only eligible for statutory sick pay.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Test and Trace Support Payment is available in all local authorities in England. The Department works closely with the devolved administrations which run similar schemes.
To be eligible for the Test and Trace Support Payment, an individual must be employed or self-employed, unable to work from home, and currently receiving Universal Credit, Working Tax Credit, income-based Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit and/or Pension Credit.
Where an individual is not in receipt of one of the qualifying benefits but meets the other eligibility criteria and may face financial hardship if they have to self-isolate, local authorities can make a £500 discretionary payment.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on ensuring NHS and care staff are able to access covid-19 tests in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
National Health Service and care staff in Northern Ireland can book a test through the Government’s online self-referral portal, which allows them to register for a home test kit or to book a drive-through test at a regional test site. Three regional testing sites have been set up in Northern Ireland; in Belfast, Derry and Craigavon. We recognise that each devolved administration will have its own eligibility criteria and testing priorities in their region, however we are working closely to align our approaches.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on increasing staffing levels within the NHS in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS England has published a suite of documents to support National Health Service organisations with the management of their workforce. All of the documents can be found on NHS England’s website at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/workforce/
The NHS has also run a campaign asking for recently retired doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to return to practice. Further details can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/returning-clinicians/
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
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 with UK companies to support the development of a vaccine for covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 17 April 2020 the Government announced a new Vaccines Taskforce (VTF) to drive forward the rapid development and production of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The VTF is supporting efforts to rapidly develop a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible by providing industry and research institutions with the resources and support they need. This includes reviewing regulations and scaling up manufacturing, so that when a vaccine becomes available, it can be produced quickly and in mass quantities.
The taskforce is also working closely with the Bioindustry Association which has set up an industry-led group, to accelerate vaccine development and manufacturing.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have signed up to volunteer through the NHS Volunteer Responders scheme to date.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Over 750,000 people have signed up to the NHS Volunteers Responders programme in England against an initial ask of 250,000 volunteers. 607,054 volunteers have completed the necessary identity checks to begin helping those most vulnerable, more than double the original target. As of 28 April, 63,683 tasks have been completed by volunteers.
The programme is now accepting self-referrals and hon. Members are also able refer vulnerable people to the programme to receive support from the NHS Volunteer Responders. This can be done by completing an online referral form via the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) website or by calling the RVS call centre.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to test, track and trace people infected with covid-19.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We are developing an integrated contact tracing and testing programme to support the next phase of our COVID-19 response. The programme will combine innovative technology, an app which uses Bluetooth technology to detect proximity contacts between app users, with more traditional web and phone-based contact tracing techniques. Alongside this there will be swab testing for those reporting COVID-19 symptoms.
The contact tracing app is currently undergoing testing and we are recruiting 18,000 contact tracers to support the wider programme. This integrated programme will play an important role in helping us to minimise the spread of the virus in the future.
Asked by: Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim)
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 people traveling into UK airports are not carriers of covid-19.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
On 12 March 2020 the Prime Minister announced that the COVID-19 response was moving from the contain to delay phase. This phase has been initiated as there is now community transmission of the virus in the United Kingdom, i.e. transmission not directly related to travel; this has made interventions in ports of less relative importance. With the shift to the delay phase and commensurate policy changes the Public Health England port health approach has changed to a ‘warn and inform focus’.