Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the administrative cost to the NHS of collecting prescription charges.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The annual cost to the NHS Business Services Authority of administering National Health Service prescription charges is around £75,000 per year. This figure covers the work of NHS Prescription Services, which includes the reimbursement and remuneration of dispensing contractors in England on behalf of the Department and NHS England. It does not include the work of the NHS Business Services Authority’s ‘Loss Recovery Service’ which involves checking prescription form exemption declarations, issuing Penalty Charge Notices and managing associated customer contact.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
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 (a) establishing regional social prescribing steering groups, (b) holding regional social prescribing workshops and (c) facilitating a cross-government social prescribing workshop in relation to the Government's loneliness strategy.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Seven Regional Social Prescribing Steering Groups, covering the country, have now been established. Each steering group comprises key stakeholders that work together to maximise impact of social prescribing in their region. Two social prescribing network/workshop events were held in each region in 2018/19, and between April and June 2019, an additional event was held in each region aimed at commissioners and other key stakeholders. These additional events were designed to support the development of shared local plans to recruit and embed link workers in Primary Care Networks and align with existing local social prescribing schemes
In November 2018 the first meeting of the cross-Government social prescribing taskforce took place. Meeting are usually held every two months and involve a range of Government departments and agencies. The taskforce brings together those with a shared interest in social prescribing to discuss how policy in a range of areas, including work on the loneliness strategy, can support work to maximise its impact.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a response to Early Day Motion 2173, on World Glaucoma Week and access to effective treatments.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Government is committed to further reducing avoidable sight loss and ensuring that patients have access to timely treatment and support in line with clinical need and best available evidence.
Latest data from the Public Health Outcome indicator, which is tracking rates of sight loss due to age related macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, shows that sight loss due to these conditions has dropped slightly. The latest statistics can be found on the GOV.UK website at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-health-outcomes-framework-may-2019-data-update
NHS England is taking forward initiatives to help ensure that patients have access to high quality and timely eye care services. This includes NHS England’s EyesWise, a collaboration with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists which aims to support the development and local implementation of new ways of delivering ophthalmology outpatient services to best meet the growing demands on Hospital Eye Service Departments. This work focuses on supporting the needs of glaucoma patients and those at risk of glaucoma.
It builds on actions undertaken by all hospital eye services and clinical commissioning groups in England to deliver the Elective Care Transformation Programme’s High Impact Intervention for Ophthalmology, improving the timely assessment and follow-up of the people at highest risk of sight loss.
Further information is available on the NHS England website at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/elective-care-transformation/best-practice-solutions/eyeswise/