Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Major Conditions Strategy will be delivered by multiple Government departments.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care will deliver the Major Conditions Strategy in consultation with NHS England and other Government Departments.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out a timetable for the publication of the refreshed NHS Long Term Plan.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department and NHS England are working together on an ongoing basis to review progress of commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan. The Hewitt Review is currently looking at the scope and options for national targets and how to empower local leaders to improve outcomes for their populations and the Department looks forward to considering its conclusions. The Government is building on the commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan through the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, the ‘Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services’, the upcoming general practice access recovery plan, as well as the long term workforce plan and the major conditions strategy which will be published in due course.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
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 11 January 2023 to Question 117924 on Life Expectancy, when the Government will set out its plans to reduce health disparities.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government announced on 24 January 2023 that it will publish a Major Conditions Strategy. An interim report will be published in the summer. The strategy will set out a strong and coherent policy agenda that sets out a shift to integrated, whole-person care. Interventions set out in the strategy will aim to alleviate pressure on the health system, as well as support the Government’s objective to increase healthy life expectancy and reduce ill-health related labour market inactivity.
The strategy will tackle conditions that contribute most to morbidity and mortality across the population in England including, cancers, cardiovascular disease, including stroke and diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, dementia, mental ill health and musculoskeletal conditions.
Health disparities exist across a wide variety of conditions from cancer to mental health, and contribute to stark and unacceptable variation in the number of years people live in good health. Therefore, the Major Conditions Strategy will apply a geographical lens to each condition to address regional disparities in health outcomes, supporting the levelling up mission to improve health and reduce disparities. As material for the Major Conditions Strategy will cover many of the same areas as the Health Disparities White Paper (HDWP), we will no longer be publishing the HDWP.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has he made of the potential merits of recognising gambling as a public health issue; and what steps is he taking to address the relationship between gambling and suicide.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government remains committed to tackling gambling-related harms and prioritising gambling as a public health issue. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the lead Government department responsible for gambling policy, is currently leading a review of the Gambling Act (2005). The Department of Health and Social Care continues to work with DCMS to strengthen the current public health approach, including encouraging actions to prevent harms from arising in the first place.
To address the relationship between gambling and suicide, we are focused on ensuring those experiencing harms are able to access the right treatment and support in a timely manner. NHS England remain on track to deliver against their Long Term Plan commitment to create 15 specialist gambling treatment clinics by 2023/24. As at time of writing, there are now eight of these clinics in operation across England.
On 24 January 2023, we announced that we will publish a new National Suicide Prevention Strategy later this year. As part of the development of the strategy, we will consider the changing pattern of risk of suicide associated with issues such as harmful gambling and the Department will engage with key stakeholders, across both the gambling and health sector, during this process.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
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 potential merits of including early intervention measures within the upcoming Mental Health Bill.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government published a draft Mental Health Bill on 23 June 2022. It is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-mental-health-bill-2022
The draft Bill is focused on modernising the Mental Health Act 1983, which provides the legislative framework under which people may be detained and treated for a severe mental disorder. The draft Bill is currently subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint Parliamentary Committee. Information on the Committee is available at the following link:
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/605/joint-committee-on-the-draft-mental-health-bill/
Following pre-legislative scrutiny, the Government will bring forward a Mental Health Bill when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it remains his Department’s policy to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy between areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The ambition to improve healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 and reduce the gap by 2030 remains Government policy. A significant proportion of ill-health is preventable. We are focusing on the major conditions which contribute to early mortality and reduce years of good health and factors such as smoking, poor diet and alcohol which disproportionately impact some communities.
The measures include the ambition for England to be smoke-free by 2030 and addressing obesity through working with the food industry to ensure it is easier to make healthier choices and to increase progress on the reformulation of foods. We will set out more information on plans to address health disparities in due course.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
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 December 2022 to Question 98800 on Memory Clinics: Waiting Lists, how many (a) memory assessment services and (b) patients waiting for an appointment with such a service there were in each NHS Trust in England on 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are waiting for an appointment with a memory assessment service in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England as of 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently two memory assessment services provided by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, with 682 patients currently waiting to attend a first appointment, of which 527 are yet to be offered an appointment date. The data requested for England is not held centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many memory assessment services there are in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England as of 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently two memory assessment services provided by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, with 682 patients currently waiting to attend a first appointment, of which 527 are yet to be offered an appointment date. The data requested for England is not held centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
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 improve the data quality for NHS Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England has made guidance available for services related to specific care pathways to improve the data submitted to the Mental Health Services Dataset and issued guidance for the recording of outcomes data, access data and for the measurement of waiting times for non-urgent access to community children and young people’s mental health services. NHS England is providing additional support to assist local areas to overcome local data flow challenges and to make data products such as dashboards routinely available for services to review. Existing guidance is being improved to support local National Health Service commissioners supporting voluntary and community sector providers to submit data to the Mental Health Services Dataset and question and answer sessions have been delivered to respond to enquiries and examine barriers to submitting the data.