Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 18 July 2023 to Question 194110 on Locums: Nurses, for what reasons locum junior doctors are able to contribute to existing NHS pension funds but nurse practitioners cannot.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS Pension Scheme is an occupational scheme, and both locum junior doctors and locum nurse practitioners cannot access the scheme if they are employed via an agency or are self-employed.
Junior doctors who perform additional work via a National Health Service staff bank can access the scheme, as they have a NHS contract of employment for this work. It would be possible for longer-term locum nurse practitioners to become substantively employed on fixed term contracts as a flexible resource, for instance by primary care organisations. In doing so, they would then hold a contract of employment which would allow them to access the NHS Pension Scheme.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2023 to Question 192241 on Cancer: Research, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure an adequate (a) level and (b) coordination of cancer research, in the context of the closure of the National Cancer Research Institute.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government is monitoring the situation through the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council to ensure that the National Cancer Research Institute’s (NCRI) valuable assets, such as data, and activities, such as research groups, are not lost to the community.
The Government will also take necessary steps to support the cancer research ecosystem, in discussion with NCRI partners, if additional support is needed.
Funders will continue to work with the research community to deliver cancer research that meets the needs of patients and the public.
We recognise the leadership role that Cancer Research UK has in this area and will work in partnership with them and the patient community to improve care and outcomes for all.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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 potential merits of allowing locum nurse practitioners to contribute to existing NHS pension funds.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS Pension Scheme is an occupational scheme, and locum nurse practitioners cannot access the scheme if they are employed via an agency or are self-employed.
No assessment has been made of the impact of allowing locum nurse practitioners to join the scheme.
It would be possible for longer-term locum staff to become substantively employed on fixed-term contracts as a flexible resource, for instance by primary care organisations. In doing so, they would have access to the scheme.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to implement fully the restrictions on advertising of unhealthy food and drink in the Health and Care Act 2022.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
We will be implementing restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on television and paid-for advertising of less healthy products online from 1 October 2025.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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 ensure (a) consistency and (b) adequate monitoring of care standards in care homes.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for health and adult social care in England. The CQC monitor, inspect and regulate services, including care homes. To ensure consistency in their approach to regulating providers, the CQC assess all providers against the fundamental standards of quality and safety.
Where concerns on quality or safety are identified, the CQC have a wealth of enforcement powers available and will take swift action to ensure the safety of service users. This could include publishing actions a provider must take to make improvements, restricting a service’s operation or in cases of significant concern, taking action which would lead to the closure of a service. All of these are designed to ensure providers act quickly to improve the quality of care they are delivering.
CQC will continue to engage with providers to monitor services and will act on feedback received from people who use services, their families and other stakeholders when concerns are raised about the quality of care.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 April 2023 to Question 182114 on Prescriptions, whether his Department plans to issue guidance to pharmacies to help ensure that prescriptions for residents of care homes are dispensed and dispatched promptly.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
Community pharmacies are already legally required to provide ordered medicines with ‘reasonable promptness’. Pharmacies may need to order medicines from the wholesalers before fulfilling the order and should notify the patient or the patient’s representative when the medicines will be in stock. A toolkit and supporting documents for setting up proxy access for ordering repeat prescriptions for care home residents is available on the NHS England website.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government's planned response to the Hewitt Review will set out (a) his Department's policy on the proposed health improvement strategy, (b) his Department's policy on the proposed establishment of a health, social care and wellbeing board, (c) what steps he is taking to provide long-term funding for ICBs and (d) whether he plans to implement that review's recommendation of a ten-year NHS capital plan from 2024.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government has received the Hewitt Review and its wide-ranging recommendations. It is now considering them and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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 number of providers of respite care that have closed since January 2022; and what steps he is taking to support those providers and ensure local respite care provision is protected.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Department does not hold data for the number of respite care providers that have been deregistered.
Local authorities are best placed to assess local resources and need, distributing their funding based on local population needs and regional issues. They should have contingency plans in place where needed, particularly if services are to close. If services close, local authorities should provide information and advice on alternative care to support people affected by any service changes. We continue to work closely with local authorities and the adult social care sector to understand the impact of cost and demand pressures on service delivery.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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 reduce delays to the (a) dispensing and (b) delivery of prescriptions to care homes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
Community pharmacies are private businesses that receive funding to provide services in the National Health Service, including dispensing. Some pharmacies choose to offer additional services to their customers, either for free or for an additional fee beyond those commissioned and funded by the NHS. This includes private services such as delivery of prescription medicines to care homes, the details and expectations of which are detailed in individual Service Level Agreements agreed between the care provider and the pharmacy contractor.
As part of providing NHS pharmaceutical services, pharmacy contractors are required to dispense prescriptions reasonably promptly. This recognises that they might have to order the medicine in. When they do not have the medicine in stock, they need to inform the patient or carer when they expect to be able to fulfil the prescription. If there is a delay to the original date given, they should update the patient if requested to do so on what the new supply date might be. However, there are occasions when it is not possible to dispense a medicine with reasonable promptness, for example if the product is discontinued or if there is a national supply issue.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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) retain junior doctors in the NHS after their F1 and F2 training and (b) ensure there are enough core medical trainee positions available to retain junior doctors after their foundation training.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government is delivering a range of initiatives to support the retention and wellbeing of junior doctors in the National Health Service, for example through the Enhancing Junior Doctors’ Working Lives programme led by NHS England.
In addition, the NHS Retention Programme, also led by NHS England is working to understand why staff, including junior doctors, are leaving, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst supporting their health and wellbeing.
The Government has also taken action to increase the number of speciality training places, include core positions. For those who applied to begin training in 2022, Health Education England (HEE) invested in more than 750 additional training posts across all speciality programmes, including core positions. In January this year, HEE announced that nearly 900 additional medical specialty training posts have been created for this year.