Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide an update on the status of the Thalidomide Health Grant; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is committed to meeting the additional health needs of thalidomiders and to give them the same opportunities that others enjoy. The provision of the Thalidomide Health Grant is a central element of this. The current multi-year settlement continues for a further three years running until the end of the 2022/23 financial year.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
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 improve access to treatment for people with eating disorders.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, the National Health Service commits to testing and rolling out waiting time standards for adults in selected areas. Twelve areas in England have received over £70 million of transformation funding in 2019/20 and 2020/21 to test new integrated models of primary and community mental health care for adults.
Eight of these sites are implementing innovative service models that will improve access and quality for adults and older adults with eating disorders in line with new national guidance on adult eating disorder care.
For children and young people, we have introduced a waiting time standard with the aim for 95% of children (up to 19 years old) with eating disorders to receive treatment within a week for urgent cases and four weeks for routine cases. We are on target to meet this aim by 2020/21.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made in tackling the shortage of Hormone Replacement Therapy drugs.
Answered by Jo Churchill
We are aware of ongoing supply issues with some hormone replacement therapy (HRT) preparations due to a range of issues including manufacturing issues, regulatory issues and problems accessing the raw pharmaceutical ingredient as well as commercial decisions made by some companies to divest these products.
We have been working closely with all suppliers of HRT preparations to maintain overall supply to patients. We have shared relevant information about the supply situation and availability of HRT products with the National Health Service and are having discussions with organisations such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and the British Menopausal Society.
We continue to work with all stakeholders to ensure relevant information about the HRT products affected by supply issues and the products that remain available is shared with the NHS on a regular basis.
We anticipate the supply situation will improve from February 2020.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional (a) nursing and (b) clinical positions will be funded in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group as a result of Spending Round 2019.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Spending Round 2019 did not determine the number of posts at clinical commissioning groups or healthcare providers. Staffing levels are not determined centrally; it is for autonomous NHS employers to determine the workforce numbers required to meet their local NHS service requirements. The National Health Service settlement that was confirmed in January 2019 secured additional funding for clinical commissioning groups to commission the services their populations need. Healthcare providers determine the staffing levels they require in order to provide the services they have been commissioned.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rt. hon. Sajid Javid MP) announced through the Spending Round a £210 million package specifically to support the NHS workforce. This is additional funding investment in training and professional development for our NHS staff. This is part of a wider drive to improve recruitment, retention and staff morale through the development of the first ever NHS People Plan, led by NHS Improvement Chair Dido Harding and NHS Chief People Officer, Prerana Issar.
In January 2019 Government confirmed a £33.9 billion cash terms increase in the NHS budget by 2023/24, compared to 2018/19. This Spending Round reaffirms that commitment, which includes a £6.2 billion increase in NHS funding next year.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions officials in his Department have had with representatives of (a) businesses and (b) academia on the introduction of artificial intelligence for the provision of clinical services.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Officials started formally engaging with business and academia on the topic of the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the provision of clinical services in January 2018 when the programme of work for developing the NHS Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health and Care Technologies began. Since then there has been an open dialogue between the Department, NHSX, academia and both large and small businesses to support the National Health Service to become the world leader in AI for healthcare.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of funding allocated to (a) NHS Trusts and (b) Clinical Commissioning Groups for eating disorder treatments; and what steps he is taking to ensure the effectiveness of the use of that funding by (i) NHS Trusts and (ii) Clinical Commissioning Groups.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The NHS Long Term Plan committed at least a further £2.3 billion a year to mental health services by 2023/24. This investment will transform and expand services for people with mental health conditions, including eating disorders, building on our current targets.
The mental health investment standard (MHIS) requires clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to increase the amount spent on mental health by at least as much as their overall budget. In 2018/19 it is expected all CCGs will achieve the MHIS level of investment.
We have set up the first waiting times standard to improve access to eating disorder services for children and young people with the aim that 95% of children with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases by 2020/21. The latest available waiting times figures against this standard, indicate that NHS England is on track to meet it by 2020/21. Data from the quarter 4 January to March 2019 shows 80.6% of all patients started urgent treatment within one week and 82.4% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks.
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to testing four-week waiting times for adult and older adult community mental health teams, in selected local areas. The exact scope and timelines of these pilots are yet to be finalised.
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the use of funds allocated for mental health treatment by NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups; and what steps his Department takes to ensure that such Trusts and Groups use such funds efficiently and effectively.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Mental Health Investment Standard requires clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to increase mental health investment in line with overall growth in their allocations. The guidance noted “Each CCG must meet the Mental Health Investment Standard (MHIS) by which their 2018/19 investment in mental health rises at a faster rate than their overall programme funding. CCGs’ auditors will be required to validate their 2018/19 year-end position on meeting the MHIS”. It is for CCGs to plan on how these funds should be deployed to develop mental health services locally.
NHS England recently published an updated Mental Health Five Year Forward View dashboard, which brings together key data from across mental health services to measure the performance of the National Health Service in delivering our plans to improve mental health services. The dashboard provides the greatest transparency ever in how the NHS is performing, alongside detail on how mental health services are funded and delivered at CCG level. As such it gives a good indication of the effectiveness with which the increased finds are translating into improved services. The dashboard can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/mental-health-five-year-forward-view-dashboard/
Further detail on funding and investment tracking can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/
Asked by: Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the effect that regular and long-term use of antiseptic hand gel for infection control has on the health of NHS employees.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department does not hold this information. The effect of regular and long-term use of antiseptic hand gel on the health of National Health Service employees is an occupational health issue. Information would be held on confidential individual staff records in organisations.