Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government's publication A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation, published on 29 March 2023, how much and what proportion of the budget of each regulator in their Department was spent on regulation of artificial intelligence in the latest period for which information is available; how many staff in each regulator worked (a) wholly and (b) partly on those issues in the latest period for which information is available; and whether those regulators plan to increase resources for their work on artificial intelligence.
Answered by Will Quince
Through the NHS AI Lab programme, the Department has provided £11,774,263.82 of funding to regulatory and evaluator organisations to streamline regulation to make it easier for the health and care system to deploy safe AI technologies as well as improving the route for AI vendors into the system, including funding for:
- A regulatory taskforce of four people from the main regulators overseeing how AI products in health and are regulated;
- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Health Regulation Authority (HRA) and Care Quality Commission to create an AI and Digital regulations service;
- The HRA to streamline data driven research to simplify the approach to accessing research consent and increasing awareness of where such consent is needed amongst researchers and innovators;
- The MHRA to explore the potential of synthetic data for the training and the validation of AI;
- The MHRA to enhance the ‘post-market surveillance’ of healthcare products, by transforming the Yellow Card system; and
- The MHRA for the AI Rigour project to develop a suite of guidance to help standard practices for the development of AI-driven technologies that will increase the safety and robustness of AI models.
As part of the AI regulation White Paper consultation, we are engaging closely with regulators across the wider landscape and their sponsoring government departments to understand the organisational capacity they need to regulate AI effectively.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
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 of the level of UK-produced steel procured by his Department and associated departmental public bodies and agencies in (a) 2019-20 and (b) 2020-21.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department does not frequently procure capital assets or other contracts that require the direct procurement of steel. The Department does not hold centrally any data on the procurement of steel in the National Health Service or its arm’s length bodies.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of health visitors (a) in England, (b) regionally and (c) in each local authority area in each year since September 2009.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England. These include only staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers. Some other organisations also provide health visiting services, so the data held by the Department only reflects part of the picture on overall health visitor numbers.
The following table shows the full time equivalent (FTE) figures for health visitors for England and for each Health Education England region as at 30 September in the specified years:
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
England | 8,100 | 7,849 | 7,802 | 7,687 | 8,304 | 9,162 | 10,236 | 9,521 | 8,497 | 7,884 |
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East Midlands | 619 | 615 | 631 | 630 | 685 | 741 | 826 | 791 | 742 | 619 |
East of England | 784 | 778 | 698 | 522 | 594 | 668 | 777 | 744 | 663 | 628 |
Kent, Surrey and Sussex | 553 | 518 | 507 | 420 | 469 | 550 | 671 | 635 | 562 | 519 |
North Central and East London | 384 | 403 | 389 | 406 | 433 | 553 | 670 | 630 | 443 | 427 |
North East | 488 | 501 | 571 | 596 | 659 | 673 | 672 | 422 | 346 | 166 |
North West | 1,386 | 1,329 | 1,317 | 1,414 | 1,463 | 1,602 | 1,793 | 1,733 | 1,674 | 1,586 |
North West London | 298 | 237 | 237 | 351 | 425 | 470 | 511 | 506 | 498 | 510 |
South London | 444 | 434 | 430 | 361 | 334 | 388 | 458 | 420 | 366 | 328 |
South West | 663 | 663 | 599 | 452 | 599 | 565 | 619 | 412 | 370 | 312 |
Thames Valley | 337 | 324 | 307 | 348 | 336 | 347 | 389 | 364 | 324 | 275 |
Wessex | 326 | 308 | 323 | 360 | 394 | 457 | 554 | 514 | 489 | 446 |
West Midlands | 889 | 872 | 895 | 918 | 1,039 | 1,197 | 1,287 | 1,237 | 1,091 | 1,027 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 929 | 867 | 898 | 908 | 875 | 953 | 1,009 | 1,113 | 929 | 1,041 |
Source: NHS HCHS monthly workforce statistics, NHS Digital
NHS Digital began to collect and publish data on staff, including health visitors, in some English independent sector healthcare organisations, from September 2015. These statistics are collected biannually and published as experimental statistics. The following table shows the FTE figures of health visitors employed by Independent Healthcare Providers in England who provide valid data, as at 30 September each year since 2015 and the latest data available:
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 31 March 2018 |
England | 957 | 1,132 | 1,240 | 1,187 |
Source: Independent Healthcare Provider Workforce Statistics, England, March 2018, NHS Digital
Information is not held centrally on number of health visitors in each local authority area.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
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 and proportion of babies that had not received the mandatory 12-month health check when they were (a) 12 months, (b) 15 months, (c) 18 months and (d) 24 months old in (i) England and (ii) in each local authority or Clinical Commissioning Group area in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Health visitor service delivery metrics are published by Public Health England (PHE) on a quarterly and annual basis. This collection is based on a voluntary submission of aggregate data by local authorities.
As regulations require that the one year review is completed by the time the child turns 15 months, information on 12 months old and 15 months old is available. There is no national data collection for reviews which are carried out late (such as 18 months or 24 months).
The attached tables show the number of children who had not received their one year health check at 12 months and 15 months in England and in each local authority. This is based on data received by PHE covering the period April to June 2018 (Quarter 1 2018/19).
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) online and (b) offline bullying on the incidence of suicide among children and young people.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department does not hold information on the number of suicides by people aged 10-19 years of age as a result of online bullying.
However, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, which is commissioned by NHS England and supported by the Department, published a thematic review in 2016, Suicide by Children and Young People in England. A copy of the report is available at the following link:
http://www.hqip.org.uk/resources/report-suicide-by-children-and-young-people-in-england/
The report identified ten common themes relating to suicides by people under 20 years of age between 2014 and 2015, including bullying (online and face-to-face) and suicide-related internet use.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of how many suicides involving (a) 10 to 14-year olds and (b) 15 to 19-year olds were the result of online bullying.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Department does not hold information on the number of suicides by people aged 10-19 years of age as a result of online bullying.
However, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, which is commissioned by NHS England and supported by the Department, published a thematic review in 2016, Suicide by Children and Young People in England. A copy of the report is available at the following link:
http://www.hqip.org.uk/resources/report-suicide-by-children-and-young-people-in-england/
The report identified ten common themes relating to suicides by people under 20 years of age between 2014 and 2015, including bullying (online and face-to-face) and suicide-related internet use.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the role of school and nursery milk in the Government's Childhood Obesity Plan.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Where the school food standards apply, milk must be available during school hours and offered free to disadvantaged pupils, and free milk is also available to infants if served as part of their lunch.
As part of the Childhood Obesity Plan, the Government will publish and promote example menus for early year’s settings in England later this year. This will help settings to meet the latest Government dietary recommendations, including the consumption of milk and dairy products.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the role of school and nursery milk in supporting the health of children in deprived communities.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Where the school food standards apply, milk must be available during school hours and offered free to disadvantaged pupils, and free milk is also available to infants if served as part of their lunch.
As part of the Childhood Obesity Plan, the Government will publish and promote example menus for early year’s settings in England later this year. This will help settings to meet the latest Government dietary recommendations, including the consumption of milk and dairy products.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of healthcare research funding was allocated to each region in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department does not hold this information.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many full time equivalent health visitors there were in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each local authority in (i) May 2015 and (ii) the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Health visitors are employed by a range of organisations, including National Health Service trusts, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), local authorities and private providers. Current data collections do not cover the complete range of these organisations. As a result, it is not possible to provide accurate data on the total size of the health visitor workforce.
NHS Digital’s NHS Hospital and Community Health Service workforce statistics capture the total number of health visitors directly employed in NHS trusts and CCGs in England and by Health Education England region.
NHS Digital used to collect data on health visitors employed by local authorities and other organisations through the Health Visitors National Minimum Dataset however this collection ceased at the end of September 2015.