Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 extend the range of healthcare professionals permitted to administer and prescribe low-risk medicines.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Department has no current plans to extend the range of healthcare professionals permitted to administer low-risk medicines. Under a patient specific direction, a registered prescriber can give a third-party clear instruction to enable them to administer prescribed medicines to a patient. This means of administering medicines is used widely in the health service under current powers.
A range of National Health Service professionals can train to prescribe medicines now including nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, midwives, physiotherapists and optometrists.
The Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, currently before Parliament, will allow us to continue to update the professions who can train to supply medicines or prescribe them where it is safe and appropriate to do so, replacing the European Communities Act 1972. Any regulatory change to supply or prescribing powers would be subject to public consultation.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department provides to veterans in Dudley with mental ill health.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
In Dudley, veterans can access mainstream National Health Service mental health services along with the veteran specific mental health services NHS England and NHS Improvement have put in place, the Transition, Intervention and Liaison Service and the Complex Treatment Service.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 facilitate the return of retired medical professionals to help the NHS during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The General Medical Council (GMC) has powers to temporarily register medical practitioners during an emergency situation with the threat of loss of life and serious illness.
We are working closely with the GMC to ensure they have plans in place to identify, contact and register key groups of staff (including recently retired doctors) using these powers.
The National Health Service in each of the four countries will be responsible for overseeing the deployment of doctors who come forward to provide services in response to COVID-19.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
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 the adequacy of funding for the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust.
Answered by Edward Argar
National Health Service providers (NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts) such as Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, are not funded centrally but instead fund their spending from income mostly received from NHS commissioners in return for the provision of healthcare services to their local population.
The NHS Long Term Plan, backed by the Government’s funding of £33.9 billion in cash terms by 2023-24, has been developed to take the health system forward. As part of this the Government has set clear objectives for the NHS in the form of five financial tests, including a financial sustainability commitment to return the provider sector to balance in 2020-21.