Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to improve access to affordable dentistry services.
Answered by David Mowat
Overall access to National Health Service dentistry continues to increase. 22 million adults were seen by dentist in the 24 month period ending 30 September 2016 and 6.7 million children were seen by a dentist in the 12 month period ending 30 September 2015, this represents 51.3% of the adult population and 57.9% of the child population. The latest GP patient survey (January - March 2016) also showed that nationally 93% of patients who had tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the last 24 months were successful.
New ways of providing care are being trialled to further improve oral health and increase access, by preventing as well as treating disease, so freeing up resource. Alongside this a new programme, the Starting Well Programme, is being developed to work in 13 high needs areas to improve access to dental services for children known to be at greater risk of dental disease.
NHS dental treatment remains affordable. All children receive free NHS treatment. Charges for NHS treatment for adults remain heavily subsidised and there is also partial help with charges for those on low incomes.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average length of hospital waiting time was in 2016 for those who suffered a stroke.
Answered by David Mowat
The information requested is not available centrally.
The vast majority of admissions following a stroke are emergency admissions rather than elective admissions. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data for elective waiting times from decision to admit to admission is not available for stroke patients. HES publishes waiting times data for a first diagnosis in accident and emergency, however, stroke data is not available.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many stroke patients were offered speech therapy (a) nationally and (b) in Worcestershire in 2016.
Answered by David Mowat
The Stroke Sentinel Audit Programme (SSNAP) collects data on the rehabilitation that patients get in hospital and when they are discharged in to the community, including on speech and language therapy (SALT).
The following data is taken from SSNAP.
Nationally, during the 11 months from January 2016 to November 2016, 74,488 patients were hospitalised with stroke; of these 37,207 received input from SALT (49.9%).
For South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), 310 patients were admitted with 105 receiving SALT (34%). For Redditch and Bromsgrove CCG, 171 patients were admitted with 58 receiving SALT (34%). For Wyre Forest CCG, 122 patients were admitted with 45 receiving SALT (37%).
This data is available on the SSNAP website at:
www.strokeaudit.org
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to promote enrolment in mental health training of training medical practitioners.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Health Education England is working in partnership with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, to ensure that all foundation programme trainee doctors have up to date Mental Capacity Act training as part of the Foundation Programme Curriculum.
HEE will publish a workforce strategy shortly laying out how to implement the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and Future in Mind.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with NHS trusts on their recruitment plans for filling vacant posts.
Answered by Philip Dunne
My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health meets with National Health Service partners on a regular basis to discuss a range of issues, including ensuring that trusts have enough doctors and nurses to ensure they can deliver safe, high quality care.
On 25 August 2016, NHS Digital published the NHS Vacancy Statistics for England, which shows number of full time equivalent advertised vacancies placed on NHS Jobs, the online recruitment service for the NHS. The publication showed that at 31 March 2016 the total number of full time equivalent advertised vacancies was 26,424. It is important to note that an advert might cover multiple vacancies or an ongoing recruitment programme and adverts can also be placed by NHS sub-contractors and local authorities so not all adverts will be for jobs in the NHS. Therefore, the data should be seen as a proxy as it only shows the minimum number of vacancies advertised.
The latest workforce data published by NHS Digital on 20 December 2016 showed that as at September 2016 there are 561,839 professionally qualified clinical staff working in the NHS, an increase of over 29,300 (5.5%) since May 2010.
The Department set up Health Education England (HEE) to deliver a better health and care workforce for England. HEE is responsible for ensuring that there is a secure workforce supply for the future by balancing need against demand and taking into account factors such as the age profile of the existing workforce, the impact of technology and new drugs.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will issue guidance on whether the winter pressures on the NHS will be taken into account in the development of sustainable transformation plans.
Answered by David Mowat
The National Health Service faces higher demand every winter, and its staff are experienced in advance planning to meet the challenges this brings.
With Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), the NHS and local authorities have come together to develop proposals for health and care in their area over the next few years, helping them to tackle growing demand. With services feeling the strain, collaboration between organisations will give doctors, nurses and care staff the best chance of success.
STPs are based on local knowledge about the priorities in each part of the country, including those relating to local winter pressure. Each was asked to tackle strategic challenges and to make progress on national priorities, including the Urgent and Emergency Care Review chaired by Sir Bruce Keogh.
To help with this, local STP leaders received practical guides from NHS England and NHS Improvement describing what success in 2020 would look like and giving suggestions about how they could approach implementation. These included subjects relevant to winter pressures like urgent and emergency care.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that frail or elderly people are not disproportionately affected by winter pressures on accident and emergency services.
Answered by David Mowat
We recognise that the frail and elderly are particularly vulnerable during this time of year and we are determined to ensure that the National Health Service is focused on delivering for these patients.
Under the seasonal flu immunisation programme, the flu vaccine is offered to everyone over the age of 65 to help them keep well during the winter. Already over 69% of people aged over 65 have received the flu vaccination.
In October 2016, NHS England and Public Health England launched ‘Stay Well This Winter’, a major prevention and advice campaign to encourage people to stay well over winter and access the most appropriate services at the right time.
In addition, the establishment of the Better Care Fund (BCF), to better manage care for the elderly and those with complex health and care needs, will help join up health and care services to improve care and reduce accident and emergency admissions. In 2016/17, the BCF has increased to a mandated minimum of £3.9 billion and local areas have pooled more, taking the total to approaching £6 billion.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions Ministers of his Department have had with their Ministerial counterparts at the Department for Education on how schools and child and adolescent mental health services can work more closely together.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department of Health and Department for Education are working closely together to deliver the vision set out in Future in Mind, published jointly by both Departments, to improve children and young people’s mental health. This includes work with NHS England in 2015-16 on a £3 million pilot to provide joint training to schools and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) staff and to test how having single points of contact in both schools and CAMHS can improve referrals to specialist services
The Prime Minister announced on 9 January that later this year the Departments will jointly produce a Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health and that we will support schools and the National Health Service in developing closer working by evaluating models and approaches, to explore the impact closer working can have.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of potential changes in the level of support for families where children or young people suffer from vision impairment or sight loss so that they can receive habilitation services.
Answered by David Mowat
The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to work with children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND), including those with visual impairment, and their parents to develop a Local Offer of the services they have or expect to be available. It is for local authorities, in consultation with children and young people with SEND and their families, to decide which services they offer in their area, which can include habilitation training.