Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the interim report of the Cass Review, if the Government will adopt the interim advice of reforming the approach to providing gender identity services for children and young people, replacing it with a system where local centres become direct service providers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
NHS England is currently considering the interim report of the Cass Review. The Department continues to work with NHS England on how the review’s recommendations can be implemented.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
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 help tackle inequalities in women's health.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Our Vision for the Women’s Health Strategy, published in December, set out our ambitions for improving the health and wellbeing of women across England and reducing disparities. It is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-vision-for-the-womens-health-strategy-for-england. We will publish the full Women’s Health Strategy later this year.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) was established to reduce health disparities, including those which affect women. OHID will publish a Health Disparities White Paper with impactful measures to address health disparities at each stage they arise.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the interim report of the Cass Review, published in February 2022, if the Government will adopt the advice set out in that report on reforming the approach to providing gender identity services for children and young people and introduce a system in which local centres become direct service providers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We welcome Dr Cass’ report and look forward to the publication of the full review, which will provide further detail on an improved model of care for children and young people with gender dysphoria.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to include provisions for improving access to treatment for the menopause in the forthcoming Women’s Health Strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The menopause is a priority topic in Our Vision for the Women’s Health Strategy, which we published on 23rd December 2021, alongside the analytical report of the call for evidence survey. In due course we will publish the full Strategy which will set out our full ambitions in this area.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's long term strategy is to attract, recruit and retain neurology professionals.
Answered by Edward Argar
This Government is committed to supporting staff and investing in the wider neurological workforce, including nurses and allied health professionals. The NHS People Plan, published in July 2020, sets out measures to support and grow the workforce and strengthen retention in the NHS. We have set up a comprehensive work programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify our training pipeline, and ethically recruit internationally.
Health Education England (HEE) determines the number of medical specialty training posts that are made available each year based on considerations including spending review allocations, strategic priorities for training the medical workforce and an annual process whereby local teams submit recruitment plans for specialty training programmes. Neurology is a popular specialty and generally achieves 100% fill rate for training places.
In July 2021 the Department commissioned HEE to work with partners to review, renew and update the existing long-term strategic framework for the health workforce.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
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 guidance for medical exemptions for mandatory covid-19 vaccinations for those who work in care homes.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
We will shortly publish further guidance on vaccination as a condition of deployment in care homes. This will provide further detail around medical exemptions and information on how individuals can check their exemption status.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to further reduce from eight weeks the length of time between the first and second dose of the covid-19 vaccine due to increasing rates of infection.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Currently, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommends an interval of eight weeks between doses of all the available COVID-19 vaccines.
It should be noted that current evidence shows that a longer dose interval produces a better immune response. As such, the JCVI has advised against reducing the dose interval further in order to maximise the effectiveness of the vaccination programme. The JCVI regularly reviews its advice in relation to COVID-19 vaccination programme, taking into account new data and evidence on the effectiveness of the programme and epidemiological situation.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has plans to accelerate the covid-19 vaccination programme in the North East as a result of rising infection rates in that area.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has implemented surge vaccination in areas with rising infection rates to protect communities supported with an Enhanced Response Package (ERP) which includes Test and Trace measures, enhanced self-isolation support and guidance. On 20 May, North Tyneside Council received this support and we will continue to monitor whether other areas within the North East might require an ERP.
South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group continues to work closely with South Tyneside Council and other partners to provide wide access to vaccination to all their population, including walk-in pop-up services and a vaccine bus.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to prioritise people with (a) asthma and (b) other respiratory conditions for the covid-19 booster vaccination.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published interim advice on a potential COVID-19 booster vaccination programme on 30 June, which is available at the following link:
The JCVI advises a two staged approach, with individuals in stage one offered a booster and flu vaccine, as soon as possible from September. Individuals in stage two should be offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine as soon as practicable after stage one, with equal emphasis on deployment of the flu vaccine where eligible. The JCVI suggests those aged 16 to 49 years old who are in an influenza or COVID-19 at-risk group, such as sufferers of chronic respiratory conditions and asthma are included in stage two.
Final decisions on the timing and scope and cohort eligibility, will be confirmed once the JCVI has provided their final advice.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What steps he is taking to tackle backlogs in cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Cancer is a priority. As well as a £325 million investment in National Health Service diagnostic machines, with plans to increase endoscopy and computerised tomography capacity, we have provided an additional £1 billion to the NHS to tackle the elective backlog.
This will ensure there is sufficient capacity in place to diagnose and treat the additional people coming into the system and reduce the number of people waiting over 62 days on cancer pathways with a focus for those who have had their care delayed.
To encourage patients to come forward to their general practitioner (GP) if they have worrying symptoms we launched the successful ‘Help us Help you’ campaign, with latest March 2021 data showing urgent GP cancer referrals to be 190% higher than in April 2020.