Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he expects the new maternity workforce planning tool that he commissioned from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to be ready.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department awarded a grant to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in July 2021 to develop a tool calculate the requirements for the number of obstetricians in maternity units in England. In early 2022, the College will provide detailed information on the number of obstetricians required with the tool to be developed by June 2022.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) midwives and (b) obstetricians there are working in NHS England.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics for England. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but excludes staff working in primary care, general practitioner surgeries, local authorities, and other providers.
As of the end of July 2021, there were 21,942 full time equivalent (FTE) midwives working in National Health Service trusts and CCGs. As of the end of June 2021, there were 6,305 FTE doctors working in the speciality of obstetrics and gynaecology in NHS trusts and CCGs. This includes 2,542 FTE consultants.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
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 that carers have access to breaks from their caring responsibilities.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Care Act 2014 secured important rights for carers, including an assessment of, and support for, their specific needs where eligible. Local authorities have been able to access the £1.49 billion Infection Control Fund which has been used to help day services reopen safely or be reconfigured to work in a COVID-19 secure way. We have also committed at least £6.9 billion in 2021-2022 to the Better Care Fund, which includes funding that can be used for respite services. In addition, we have worked with the Social Care Institute for Excellence to publish guidance for day care managers, commissioners, and providers, to help them make decisions on the safe operation of day services.
We will continue to work with local authorities, in collaboration with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to ensure, where possible, the safe resumption of these services.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to improve the quality of elderly care in care homes across England.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to the sustainable improvement of adult social care, including care for the elderly and will bring forward proposals later this year on plans for reform.
We published a White Paper on 11 February 2021 which sets out proposals to introduce, through the Health and Care Bill, a new duty for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to review and assess local authorities’ delivery of their adult social care duties and publish their assessment. This is alongside powers for the Secretary of State to intervene and provide support where, following review by the CQC, it is considered that a local authority is failing to meet their duties.
These changes will support improved quality of care and access, with improved oversight and transparency providing insight into how good commissioning works, allowing for best practice to be shared and helping to address inefficiencies and poor practice.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to increase support for unpaid carers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Carers Action Plan, announced in 2018, set out a cross-Government programme of work to support carers. We continue to implement and build on the commitments made at that time, including committing in our manifesto to extend the entitlement to leave for unpaid carers to one week.
We have also sought to support carers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We have provided funding to a range of charities including funding to extend the Carers UK’s helpline opening hours so unpaid carers are able to access trusted information and advice. This funding has been extended to March 2021. A further £500,000 was provided to the Carers Trust to provide support to unpaid carers experiencing loneliness during the pandemic
In addition, to help carers and those they care for, we have worked with the Social Care Institute for Excellence, to publish guidance to help providers make decisions on restarting day services. We have also enabled local authorities to use some of the money provided to them through the Infection Control Fund to help services reopen safely or be reconfigured to work in a COVID-19 secure way.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress the UK National Screening Council has made on its review of the potential merits of late pregnancy ultrasounds for undiagnosed breech presentation of babies.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) received a proposal to look at fetal presentation as a new screening topic as part of its annual call for topics in 2019. The proposal suggested that all pregnant women could be screened at around 36 weeks gestation using a handheld ultrasound device at routine antenatal appointments to check the positioning of the baby.
The UK NSC’s evaluation group assessed the proposal as being of relevance within the Committee’s remit and agreed that an evidence map should be commissioned to scope the volume and type of evidence available. This was noted by the UK NSC at its February 2020 meeting. The outcome of this evidence map will be presented at the upcoming UK NSC meeting on the 5 March 2021 to consider and recommend next steps.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of adults with smartphones have downloaded the NHS Covid-19 app as of January 2021.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 6 January 2021, the NHS COVID-19 app has been downloaded 21,258,726 times. It is estimated that 62% of those with a compatible smartphone aged 16 years old and over in England and Wales have downloaded the app and 56% of smartphone users overall aged 16 years old and over.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of NHS staff have experienced bullying and harassment in the workplace in each year from 2010 to 2020.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the percentage of National Health Service provider trust staff, who responded to the NHS Staff Survey, who reported experiencing at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse in the previous 12 months. Prior to 2015 the format of questions posed in the survey changed and as such a longer timeseries is not possible.
| Year | % of NHS staff who have experienced at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse at work from patients / service users, their relatives or other members of the public in the last 12 months | % of NHS staff who have experienced at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse at work from managers in the last 12 months | % of NHS staff who have experienced at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse at work from other colleagues in the last 12 months |
| 2015 | 28.8 | 13.5 | 18.1 |
| 2016 | 28.1 | 12.9 | 17.8 |
| 2017 | 28.3 | 12.8 | 18.0 |
| 2018 | 28.5 | 13.2 | 19.1 |
| 2019 | 28.5 | 12.3 | 19.0 |
Source: Weighted NHS Staff Survey Results for NHS trusts in England- February 2020 NHS England
The annual NHS Staff survey asks NHS staff in England about their experiences of working for their respective NHS organisations. For the 2019 survey, over 1.1 million NHS employees in England were invited to participate in the survey between September and December 2019 and there was a 48% response rate.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have had to sell their homes to pay for care in England in each year from 2010 to 2020.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not collect this information centrally.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of people aged over 65 are paying £100,000 and above for someone’s care.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not collect this information centrally.