Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce waiting times for elective surgeries in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including in Wirral West. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A proportion of this funding will be invested in workforce capacity and training and we have committed to invest £5.9 billion for new beds, equipment and technology.
The target to eliminate waiting times of two years or more for elective procedures was met in July 2022 and we aim to eliminate waiting time of eighteen months or more by April 2023. This will be achieved through increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector and engaging with patients to understand choices made regarding their care.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many children under the age of (a) four and (b) 11 were admitted to hospital for a tooth extraction due to decay in Wirral West constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
This information is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of trends in rates of perinatal mortality in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made. The Government’s national maternity safety ambition aims to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries in babies occurring during or soon after birth, by 2025. Since 2010, the rate of stillbirths has reduced by 19.3%, the rate of neonatal mortality for babies born over 24 weeks gestational age of viability has reduced by 36% and maternal mortality has reduced by 17%.
We have introduced targeted interventions to accelerate progress, such as the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle and the Brain Injury Reduction Programme. NHS England has also invested £127 million in National Health Service maternity workforce and improving neonatal care. This is in addition to the £95 million investment made in 2021 to fund the establishment of a further 1,200 midwifery and 100 consultant obstetrician posts. NHS England is offering funding and support to trusts to recruit an additional 300 to 500 overseas midwives in the next 12 months.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help support young people with eating disorders in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In September we announced ‘Our Plan for Patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Wirral West. Ensuring easier access to general practice will expand this route to access mental health services.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Wirral West. We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of GPs in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
We are working with NHS England, Health Education England and the profession to increase the general practice workforce in England, including in Wirral West. This includes measures to improve recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encourage them to return to practice.
The updated GP Contract Framework announced a number of new schemes, alongside continued support for existing recruitment and retention schemes for the general practice workforce. This includes the GP Retention Scheme, the GP Retention Fund, the National GP Induction and Refresher, the Locum Support Scheme, the New to Partnership Payment and the Supporting Mentors Scheme.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) financial and (b) other steps her Department is taking to help tackle NHS workforce shortages in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will consider the number of staff and the roles required and will set out the actions and reforms needed to improve workforce supply and retention, including in Wirral West.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of FTE Fully qualified GPs excluding GPs in Training Grade practicing in Wirral West constituency (a) on 21 October 2022 and (b) in 2013.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not collected in the format requested.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GP appointments there were in Wirral West constituency in (a) the last 12 months and (b) in 2013.
Answered by Will Quince
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Wirral South on 18 October 2022 to Question 61077.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has provided additional (a) financial and (b) other support to help tackle (i) patient backlogs and (ii) increased workloads in GP surgeries in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, published in February 2022, stated the ambition to reduce patient backlogs for planned National Health Service treatments and the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. We made £520 million available to expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This was in addition to at least £1.5 billion announced in 2020 by 2024 which includes supporting increased workloads in general practitioner (GP) surgeries, including in Wirral West. In September 2022, ‘Our plan for patients’ announced measures to support GP practices increase access and manage workloads, such as the provision of 31,000 phone lines and funding to expand the staff roles working in general practice, including in Wirral West.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the NHS dentist provision in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No specific assessment has been made. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Wirral West.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.