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Written Question
Dental Services: Norfolk
Thursday 21st March 2024

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, what her planned timetable is for the deployment of dental vans in (a) Norfolk and (b) North West Norfolk constituency.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We will deploy dental vans offering appointments to patients in targeted rural and coastal communities who have the most limited access to dentistry, including Norfolk. We are currently working with NHS England and the integrated care boards to agree where the vans will be deployed. Dental vans will begin to be implemented later this year.


Written Question
Dental Services: Schools
Thursday 21st March 2024

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, what her planned timetable is for the deployment of mobile dental teams in schools; and what criteria she plans to use to determine their locations.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our plan to recover and reform the National Health Service will ensure that children can access preventative care. We will be deploying dental teams to bring preventative dental services such as fluoride varnish directly to children. Dental teams will visit state primary schools in the most need, with higher levels of child tooth decay, and provide fluoride varnish treatments and advice. Starting later this year, we will deploy mobile dental teams into schools in under-served areas, to provide advice and deliver preventative fluoride varnish treatments to more than 165,000 children, strengthening their teeth and preventing tooth decay.


Written Question
Dental Services: Finance
Thursday 21st March 2024

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, which areas will be included in the first cohort to offer golden hello payments to dentists.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To support practices in areas where recruitment is particularly challenging, we will launch a new Golden Hello scheme. We will implement schemes working with integrated care boards that are struggling to recover their activity levels, and would significantly benefit. A Golden Hello of £20,000 will be offered per dentist for up to 240 dentists. Payments will be phased over three years, requiring a commitment from the dentist to stay in that area delivering National Health Service work for at least three years. We will decide on locations in the coming months.


Written Question
Hospitals: Concrete
Tuesday 19th December 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the Mott MacDonald report commissioned by his Department on RAAC.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government does not plan to publish the full Mott MacDonald report on reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) dated April 2022 on GOV.UK. A redacted copy of the report is attached to this answer. These redactions have been approved by the Information Commissioner, with personal data and commercially sensitive information having been redacted. Some of the information contained in the report has also been superseded by data that National Health Service trusts have subsequently published on RAAC.

The Government confirmed on 25 May 2023 that the hospitals considered in the report will be rebuilt by 2030 as part of the New Hospital Programme.


Written Question
Hospitals: Concrete
Friday 29th September 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent guidance his Department has provided to hospitals affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

Answered by Will Quince

The National Health Service conducts regular surveys of its estate to assess the state of the building fabric. These surveys cover a wide range of structural assessments. With particular reference to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), the National Health Service has been surveying sites and undertaking RAAC mitigation work since 2019 and has had an active national remediation programme since 2021 to mitigate and monitor the risks posed by RAAC across the NHS estate.

NHS England has also issued guidance for trusts nationally on how to establish the presence of RAAC in their estate. There is ongoing engagement with trusts on a national and regional level to ensure RAAC is identified across the NHS estate. Where structural surveys identify RAAC in their estate, trusts are inducted into the national remediation programme.


Written Question
Dental Services
Tuesday 19th September 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there are minimum notice period requirements for dentists to stop providing NHS dental services.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

In accordance with the National Health Service (General Dental Services Contracts) Regulations 2005, the Contractor must provide three months’ notice if they wish to terminate their contract with the National Health Service.


Written Question
Health Services: Waiting Lists
Monday 15th May 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

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 on eliminating waits of more than 18 months for elective care.

Answered by Will Quince

Having met our target to virtually eliminate long waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July 2022, we have now also significantly reduced waits of over 18 months, in line with the targets set out in the elective recovery plan.

As a result of the pandemic, the number of patients waiting over 18 months peaked at almost 125,000 in September 2021. Official NHS England statistics show at the end of March 2023 there were 10,737 patients waiting over 18 months, a reduction of over 91% from this peak.

As with the two year target successfully met in July 2022, we have always been clear that there will be valid reasons why a small number of patients may need to wait more than 18 months, and for the patients that are still waiting local NHS services are working hard to schedule their appointments in line with clinical advice as a priority.


Written Question
Health Services: Private Sector
Thursday 27th April 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to allow patients to recover the cost of privately funded treatment from the NHS where they were not offered the option of treatment at an independent hospital under the NHS Choice Framework.

Answered by Will Quince

There are no current plans to enable patients to recoup costs from the National Health Service via the Patient Choice Framework for individuals’ use of the independent sector. The NHS Constitution allows patients to be treated by an independent sector provider where available as part of their right to choose. We want to make sure this is offered consistently across the country, which is why we will be working with the independent sector, the NHS and primary care to ensure that referral systems include all appropriate independent sector providers, opening up a full suite of available options for patients.


Written Question
General Practitioners
Monday 24th April 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to GPs on including independent providers in shortlists to patients requiring treatment.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

Under the GP contract, a contractor must not advertise the provision of private services, either itself or through another person, using the same written or electronic means used to advertise the National Health Service funded primary medical services it provides.


Written Question
Pharmacy: Contracts
Monday 24th April 2023

Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS contract with pharmacies includes any provisions restricting the publicising of closing times.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

There are no restrictions on pharmacies with National Health Service contracts publicising their closing times. The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 require pharmacies which are not distance selling pharmacies to display a notice specifying the time at which they are open for the provision of drugs and appliances. The 2013 Regulations also require pharmacies to have an accurate profile in the NHS Digital directory of services and on the NHS.UK website. The profile includes information on opening hours and must be updated when there are changes to a pharmacy’s opening hours, either temporarily or permanently.