Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to secure value for money from the additional funds allocated to the NHS for 2022-23.
Answered by Edward Argar
The new Health and Social Care Levy provides £23.3 billion for the National Health Service over the Spending Review period. We will ensure that this investment is provided for frontline care in England, increasing efficiencies and using reforms to improve productivity. This will include prioritising diagnosis and treatment, transforming the delivery of elective care and providing better information and support to patients.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out the range of assumptions of virus spread and severity of illness used in his covid-19 response planning.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides advice to the Government on its response to the COVID-19 epidemic. Its operational subgroup, Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O), modelled potential scenarios for the Omicron variant using a range of assumptions on indicators. These include parameters such as the transmission advantage and intrinsic severity of the Omicron variant over the Delta variant. SPI-M-O modellers use contemporaneous academic studies when setting their assumptions.
Such modelling is regularly updated to reflect changes in assumptions as and when more detailed studies are released. Where there is uncertainty in a parameter value, sensitivity analysis is used to explore the range of impact and inform the Government’s response. Given the large number of assumptions made for the parameters that feed into the modelling, the latest underlying assumptions used by SPI-M-O academic groups is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spi-m-o-chairs-statement-on-covid-19-19-december-2021
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also informs the scientific advice presented to the Government. The UKHSA undertakes studies and risk assessments on selected emergent variants, assessing transmissibility, immune evasion, growth advantage and infections severity based on available data from the UKHSA and academic partners. Variants are selected for assessment on the basis of growth, and the number and type of genetic mutations present. Risk assessments are updated regularly until stable assessments are reached and are available at the following link:
Detailed analyses of the indicators are published in the Technical Briefings, which are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefings
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of covid-19 test kits are imported.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Currently 90% of lateral flow device tests are imported although we expect this to decrease to approximately 70 to 80%.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he is making on improving air extraction, air filtration and UV cleaning in NHS properties.
Answered by Edward Argar
The ‘Health Technical memorandum - Specialised ventilation for healthcare buildings (HTM 03-01)’ was issued on 22 June 2021, which includes updates guidance on ventilation to manage infection risks and the technology available. The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/specialised-ventilation-for-healthcare-buildings/
All trusts must have an Authorising Engineer (Ventilation) designated by the trust management to provide independent auditing and advice on ventilation systems, to review documentation on verification and validation and witness the process as necessary.
In April 2021, updated guidance on the cleaning of National Health Service facilities was provided in ‘National standards of healthcare cleanliness 2021’, which is available at the following link:
While ultraviolet (UV) cleaning has been considered, it does not replace the need to physically clean the environment and therefore it has not been recommended instead of physical cleaning. In addition, it cannot be used in occupied rooms, therefore its applicability in an operational healthcare environment is challenging. However, we understand that some NHS trusts deploy UV cleaning based on local cleaning needs. As new research and technology becomes available, the NHS will update existing or provide additional guidance.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the estimated annual increase is in funding for local government for social care as a result of the introduction of the new social care tax.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
On 7th September we announced £5.4 billion over three years for Adult Social Care, and this investment in adult social care is being funded from the new Health and Social Care Levy. This includes over £3.6 billion to reform the social care charging system and enable all local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair rate for care, and over £1.7 billion to begin major improvements across the care system in England, including at least £500 million investment in the workforce.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the current annual total budget is for public sector contributions to residential social care covering central and local government.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Budget data is not collected for the residential part of the adult social care sector. NHS Digital publishes statistics on social care expenditure, with the latest available statistics from the Adult Social Care Finance Return available at the following link.
According to these statistics the Net Current Expenditure by local authorities on long-term support in nursing and residential care was £5.7 billion in 2020-21.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are training to become (a) doctors and (b) nurses in the UK.
Answered by Edward Argar
Health Education England estimates that in the 2021/22 academic year there are over 72,000 student nurses in training in England.
In the 2019/20 academic year there were 45,605 undergraduate medical students in the United Kingdom, of which 32,745 were training in England, according to data provided to the General Medical Council (GMC) by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
Student medics register with GMC when they begin their course, because of that there are more accurate numbers available for the numbers training to be doctors.
These figures include anyone at any point in their degree. Nursing degrees are usually three years, medical degrees four to six years.
Asked by: Lord Redwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the detailed budget plans for reducing NHS waiting lists in England.
Answered by Edward Argar
The NHS 2022/23 Operational Planning Guidance confirms £2.3 billion has been allocated to support the recovery of elective services. This is in addition to £1.5 billion over three years via core budgets to support new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment. National Health Service systems are currently developing individual plans for elective services in 2022/23.