Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he expects patients to be able to access their own full medical records online.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
From 1 April 2016, the NHS Mandate required all general practitioner (GP) practices to offer patients online access to their medical record which includes items such as allergies, adverse reactions, medications, test results, problems and diagnoses and immunisations. Approximately 95% of GPs are able to offer this service to patients subject to appropriate safeguards to ensure compliance with information governance legislation.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what criteria he plans to use to allocate the funds announced in the Spring Budget 2017 for GP surgery co-location in hospital accident and emergency departments.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department will manage the approval of funding to accident and emergency (A&E) departments based on recommendations from NHS England and NHS Improvement, according to the merit of individual bids according to the impact they will have on managing A&E pressures. This may include, for example, bids from trusts to provide additional permanent or temporary buildings and/or better use of existing space to allow general practitioners to locate next to A&Es. The allocations for successful bids will be agreed in the next five weeks.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to assist hospital trusts to reduce or restructure costs borne as a result of private finance initiatives.
Answered by Philip Dunne
We are providing the seven worst affected trusts with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes, access to a £1.5 billion support fund over a period of 25 years; funding started from 2013-14.
One of the first things this Government did in 2010 was to launch a review of the previous Government’s PFIs and begin an initiative to extract savings and better value for money at all the PFI contracts they had signed and are now open. In 2014 it was reported that trusts had negotiated validated savings worth over £250 million on their contracts. This savings work is ongoing, with Departmental officials helping local trusts as required.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his future policies of the NHS Ambulance Response Programme trial undertaken by the South West Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Ambulance Response Programme is part of NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review, which will transform ambulance services from a service based on a model of transportation to one of clinical assessment and treatment. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP surgeries are planned to be co-located in accident and emergency units in the next three years.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The information is not held centrally. There are several different models of co-located services (Urgent Care Centres, Walk-in Centres, Minor Injuries Units, other clinics) which exist across the National Health Service in England, and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with all systems to ensure there is streaming to primary care (and other specialities) from emergency departments as standard. The specific models implemented will vary depending on local circumstances.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP surgeries are co-located in accident and emergency units.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The information is not held centrally. There are several different models of co-located services (Urgent Care Centres, Walk-in Centres, Minor Injuries Units, other clinics) which exist across the National Health Service in England, and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with all systems to ensure there is streaming to primary care (and other specialities) from emergency departments as standard. The specific models implemented will vary depending on local circumstances.