Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Cumbria Success Regime on consultant-led maternity services at the West Cumberland Hospital.
Answered by Ben Gummer
I lead the Department’s engagement with Success Regime areas. I have had multiple discussions with the West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime leadership since the start of the programme in summer 2015. These discussions have covered all aspects of the programme, including the services provided at West Cumberland Hospital.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department plans to release the funding for Phase 2 of the redevelopment of the West Cumberland Hospital.
Answered by George Freeman
This is a matter for the North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust. The Trust provided an update on progress in relation to delivery of Phase 2 of the re-development of West Cumberland Hospital in a press release issued in June 2015:
NHS Improvement advises that the Trust is continuing work to identify options that will enable it to progress Phase 2 of the development.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times he has visited Copeland constituency in an official capacity in each of the last four years.
Answered by Ben Gummer
The Secretary of State for Health and his Ministerial team have not undertaken any visits in an official capacity to the Copeland constituency in the last four years.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times he has visited West Cumberland Hospital in an official capacity in each of the last four years.
Answered by Ben Gummer
The Secretary of State for Health and his Ministerial team have not undertaken any visits in an official capacity to the West Cumberland Hospital in the last four years.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he next plans to visit West Cumberland Hospital in an official capacity.
Answered by Ben Gummer
I am currently planning to visit the West Cumberland Hospital in the coming months.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of cancer patients in (a) England and (b) Copeland constituency waited six weeks or more for a diagnostic test in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of cancer patients in (a) England and (b) Copeland constituency received their first cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral in 2015-16.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The information is shown in the following table.
Proportion of patients that started first treatment for all cancers within 62 days of an urgent general practitioner referral in 2015-16
England | NHS Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)1 | |
2015-16 | 82.4% | 79.2% |
Source: Cancer waiting times, NHS England
Notes:
1NHS Cumbria CCG is the CCG responsible for commissioning care for the residents of the constituency of Copeland. Data is not available by parliamentary constituency.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the average waiting time between cancer referral and diagnosis in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Department does not hold data on the average waiting time between cancer referral and diagnosis. NHS England collects data on cancer waiting times and these data are published on their website. The data comprise of organisational performance against operational standards that support waiting time commitments laid out in the NHS Constitution. These include the standard that 93% of patients should be seen by a specialist within a maximum of two weeks from urgent general practitioner (GP) referral where cancer is suspected. There are seven other cancer waiting time standards, but not one that measures waiting time between referral and diagnosis.
A national time series can be found at the link below:
The Independent Cancer Taskforce’s cancer strategy for 2015-2020 recommended a new standard that patients should be diagnosed with cancer, or have cancer excluded, within 28 days of being referred by their GP. Test sites for this new standard are in the process of being identified.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2016 to Question 37125, whether his Department has any plans to collect data on the number of student nurses that have already studied for a degree before entering nurse training.
Answered by Ben Gummer
The Department has no plans to introduce a new central data collection on the number of student nurses that have already studied for a degree before entering nurse training.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of patients who travelled for 30 minutes or more in an ambulance to access an accident and emergency department in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Ben Gummer
No such estimate has been made. This information is not collected centrally.
Clinical consensus is that for patient outcomes and mortality what matters is the time from becoming ill to receiving specialist, life-saving care. That is why we are developing ambulance services that act as mobile assessment and treatment services, and networked urgent and emergency care services, to ensure patients are treated in the facility best equipped to provide whatever care is needed. For some patients requiring specialist care this may be in a hospital that is further away.