Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reform mental health treatment.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We are committed to our ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan to expand and transform mental health services in England. We are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023-24, so that two million more people will be able to access mental health support. We are introducing new models of care which will give 370,000 adults with serious mental illness greater choice and control over their care and treatment, supporting them to live well in their communities.
We have published the Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, with a one-off targeted investment of £500 million, part of which will be used to accelerate key commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan. The Government published its white paper on Reforming the Mental Health Act on 13 January, to give people greater control over their treatment and receive the dignity and respect they deserve. Legislation will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the role of genomic sequencing in tackling the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England (PHE) analyses COVID-19 genomic data together with epidemiological data to derive information on mutation, variants and transmission.
This analysis is fed into health protection activities such as local outbreak management, detection and characterisation of novel variants permitting more accurate predictions of the trajectory of the pandemic, output into policy including the border risk assessment and the roadmap tests and the vaccination programme. In addition, PHE’s data and analysis contribute to international control activities.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 procuring saliva tests to detect covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are working with a number of United Kingdom suppliers to increase production capability for lateral flow devices (LFDs). We expect to increase the proportion of UK-produced self-test LFDs by the summer, while saliva tests remain at a trial stage.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 increasing the proportion of lateral flow covid-19 tests being used that are UK-made.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are working with a number of United Kingdom suppliers to increase production capability for lateral flow devices (LFDs). We expect to increase the proportion of UK-produced self-test LFDs by the summer, while saliva tests remain at a trial stage.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 (a) help tackle obesity and (b) encourage people to live healthier lives.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We published ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’ in July 2020. The strategy demonstrates an overarching campaign to reduce obesity, takes forward actions from previous chapters of the childhood obesity plan and sets out measures to get the nation fit and healthy, protect against COVID-19 and protect the National Health Service.
In July 2020, Public Health England launched the Better Health Campaign which promotes evidence-based tools and advice to help people look after their mental and physical health. The campaign shows adults the simple steps they can take to eat more healthily, increase their physical activity, care for their mental wellbeing and quit smoking. Change4Life and Start4Life programmes support families to eat well and move more with resources to motivate and encourage behaviour change including simple healthy eating messages, recipes and more.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle eating disorders; and what plans his Department has to implement service improvements.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We remain committed to providing treatment based on an evidence-based model and to delivering the waiting time standard of 95% of children with an eating disorder to receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases. Since 2016, extra funding is being provided for children and young people's community eating disorder services every year, to continue to enhance the development of more than 70 new or improved community eating disorder teams covering the whole of the country
In addition, under the NHS Long Term Plan, by 2023/24, we will invest almost £1 billion extra per year in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, such as eating disorders. A four-week waiting standard for adult community mental health services, including eating disorder services, is being piloted and considered as part of the clinically led review of National Health Service access standards. Further information on the definition of a potential standard will be shared in 2021/22
We have also announced that in 2021/22 the NHS will receive around an additional £500 million, which will support people with a variety of mental health conditions, including eating disorders. As part of this £79 million of this extra funding will be used to significantly expand children’s mental health services, including allowing 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services and £58 million will be invested to bring forward the expansion of integrated primary and secondary care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 procuring saliva tests to detect covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 increasing the proportion of lateral flow tests being used that are UK-made.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to increase the affordability of incontinence items.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Clinical commissioning groups are responsible for the commissioning of continence services.
Individuals who have bladder or bowel continence problems should seek help from their general practitioner and a referral to specialist bladder and bowel continence services for assessment and treatment. These specialist services aim to help patients regain continence, improve quality of life and to reduce reliance on products. Incontinence appliances such as catheters and stoma items are provided by prescription, although absorbent incontinence products are not. For those people who require incontinence products, eligibility and numbers of products which are provided free of charge are decisions for individual trusts.
Individuals who apply for Personal Independent Payments (PIPs) or Attendance Allowance should list bladder and bowel continence problems as this will be taken into consideration when allocating payments to help with the cost of products.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether latex-free flu vaccines are available; how many have been distributed to (a) GP surgeries and (b) pharmacies in winter 2020; and whether latex-free covid-19 vaccines will be available.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information contained in the patient information leaflets for flu vaccines suggests none of the vaccines for the 2020/21 flu vaccination programme include latex as an ingredient in the vaccine.
The Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, which began to be deployed on 8 December has no latex within the vaccine product. Its packaging is also free of latex. The vaccine comes in a clear vial (type I glass) with a synthetic rubber (bromobutyl) stopper and a flip-off plastic cap with aluminium seal. Information about the product specifications of future vaccines, should others be deployed, will be available on the Medicines Healthcare products and Regulatory Authority website.