Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - 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 support local authorities and hospitals providing support to people with autism.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The NHS Long Term Plan was published on 7 January 2019. The Plan has a renewed focus on supporting people with learning disabilities, autism or both by improving diagnostic pathways, reducing over-prescribing of medicines, and by ensuring people have access to high-quality care and support in the community.
The fifth local authority autism self-assessment exercise opened in September 2018 and closed in December 2018. The data received is currently being analysed by Public Health England and a report will be published shortly.
Work is underway by Health Education England to develop an Autism Core Skills and Competency Framework for health and care staff, and staff in organisations with public facing responsibilities. The aim is for the Framework to be completed by July 2019.
On 13 February, we began a consultation on proposals for mandatory learning disability and autism training for staff in health and social care, to ensure staff have the right skills to support people who may need reasonable adjustments made to allow them to access care.
NHS England and NHS Digital are strengthening accessibility through a reasonable adjustment ‘flagging’ project, which will provide a flag on the Summary Care Record to indicate the support needs and associated reasonable adjustments that an individual requires. The NHS Long Term Plan commits that by 2023/24 this will be used in patient records.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to introduce routine screening in pregnancy for Vasa Praevia.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
There are currently no plans to introduce routine screening in pregnancy for vasa praevia.
The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) reviewed antenatal screening for vasa praevia in 2017 and recommended that a population screening programme for vasa praevia should not be offered. This is because there is not enough evidence to suggest that screening every pregnancy for vasa praevia would provide more benefit than harm.
Due to the uncertainty of whether screening all women is the best approach or whether it would be better to test smaller groups of women whose pregnancies are known to be at higher risk of vasa praevia, the UK NSC convened a multidisciplinary group to model the potential impact of some vasa praevia detection strategies. This work will be completed in spring 2019.
The UK NSC will review the evidence for vasa praevia in 2020/21 or earlier in light of new published peer reviewed evidence.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of the level of inflation on the cost of providing services in nursing homes.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government took account of inflationary pressures, including any effects on the cost of providing nursing care, in determining the overall settlement for adult social care at the last Spending Review in 2015.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on the availability of Keppra for people with epilepsy.
Answered by Steve Brine
The United Kingdom’s position on medicines regulation remains clear. We want to retain a close working partnership with the European Union to ensure that medicines remain available to UK patients in a safe and timely manner. We have been clear that this involves us making sure our regulators continue to work together, as they do with regulators internationally. As the Prime Minister has said, we intend to to explore with the EU the terms on which the UK could remain part the European Medicines Agency.
Until we can be certain of the outcome of Brexit negotiations our duty as a responsible Government is to prepare for all eventualities, including ‘no deal’. On 23 August 2018, therefore, the Department wrote to all pharmaceutical companies that supply the United Kingdom with prescription only or pharmacy medicines from, or via, the European Union/European Economic Area, asking them to ensure they have a minimum of six weeks’ additional supply in the UK, over and above their business as usual operational buffer stocks, by 29 March 2019 in the event of a no-deal scenario.
Since then, we have received very good engagement from industry who share our aims of ensuring continuity of medicines supply for patients is maintained and able to cope with any potential delays at the border that may arise in the short term in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
We understand that the medicine Keppra is important to many people in this country. However, the Department recognises that through its medicines supply contingency programme it is requesting sensitive commercial information from pharmaceutical companies. To reassure participating companies, we have committed to treating all information received confidentially, securely and to using it only for the purposes of the Department’s programme. That means not introducing information about a company, specific medicine or their supply routes into the public domain.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - 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 has taken to make it easier for people to receive a GP appointment.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Government has committed to ensuring that by 2019 everyone in the country has easier and more convenient access to general practice services. This includes ensuring that access is available at peak times of demand, including bank holidays and across the Easter, Christmas and New Year periods.
The latest National Health Service planning guidance, published by NHS England in February 2018, brought forward the delivery timescale to 1 October 2018, to ensure additional capacity is in place ahead of winter 2018.
As part of the General Practice Forward View, published by NHS England in 2016, a number of initiatives were put in place to support practices and other providers to improve access to general practice services, building on successful approaches piloted through the GP Access Fund schemes. This includes delivering services at scale with better use of digital technology, using a wider workforce and enabling self-care and direct access to other services.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made on the number of adult social care respite beds provided by local authorities in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The information requested is not centrally held.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - 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 has taken to increase the number of GP's in more populated areas.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England and Health Education England (HEE) are working together with the profession to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why GPs are leaving the profession, and encourage GPs to return to practice.
The number of doctors entering speciality training has been increasing year on year. In 2017/18, there were 3,157 new starters recruited to speciality GP training posts, the highest number recruited ever. A £20,000 salary supplement is also available to selected trainees committing to completing their training in areas of the country which have historically struggled to recruit trainees.
In August 2017 NHS England announced plans to accelerate its international recruitment programme and recruit 2,000 doctors into English general practice over the following three years. To boost retention there is a broad offer available to support GPs to remain in the NHS including the GP Health Service, the GP Retention Scheme, and the recently launched £10 million GP Retention Fund which includes funds targeted at specific areas.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 19 March 2018 to Question 132626, on Social Services: Minimum Wage, whether EU State Aid Rules allow the full provision of back-pay by the Government for sleep-in shifts.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 26 March 2018 to Question 133443.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 19 March 2018 to Question 132626, on Social Services: Minimum Wage, whether EU State Aid Rules allow the full provision of back-pay by the Government for sleep-in shifts.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 26 March 2018 to Question 133443.
Asked by: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the relevant Clinical Reference Group plans to make its decision in relation to NICE guidance on testing for Lynch syndrome.
Answered by Steve Brine
As part of their work programmes during 2018/19, NHS England will be working with clinical commissioning groups pathology service commissioners to determine whether they can jointly develop a policy position relating to genetic testing and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on testing for Lynch syndrome. A specific date has not yet been set for this.