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 improve access to NHS dental services 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.
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 midwives in Wirral West constituency.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
NHS England retains oversight of local workforce plans and is updated on vacancy rates. However, recruitment and retention is undertaken at trust level.
In 2022, an additional £127 million has been invested in the National Health Service maternity workforce and improving neonatal care, including in Wirral West. This is in addition to the £95 million invested in 2021 to fund a further 1,200 midwives and 100 consultant obstetricians. The NHS People Plan focuses on improving the retention of NHS staff by prioritising staff health and wellbeing. In 2022/23, £45 million has been allocated to support the continuation of 40 mental health hubs, the Professional Nurse Advocates programme and expanding the NHS Practitioner Health service.
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 estimate he has made of the staffing hours required by health and social care providers to submit data to his Department under new requirements arising from the Health and Care Act 2022.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
It is estimated that the staffing hours required would be less than one hour per month per provider.
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 estimate he has made of the proportion of care home residents who have an essential care giver; what assessment he has made of whether that proportion has increased during the covid-19 outbreak; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of adults in England who have a close relative in a care home who has been informed that care home residents are entitled to visits from an essential care giver in the event that that home is in lockdown.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No specific estimate has been made as the Government’s guidance no longer refers to essential care givers. The Government's updated guidance now states that residents should receive visits from loved ones, including during outbreaks of infectious diseases within a home or when a resident is in isolation, where the guidance states each resident may have at least one visitor.
However, in the week ending 29 June 2022, 95.4% of care homes in England accommodated residents receiving visitors.
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, with reference to the Answer of 6 September 2021 to Question 38295 on Accident and Emergency Departments, whether integrated care boards' (ICB) core responsibilities will have been expanded to ensure that each ICB is responsible for everyone in its area who needs emergency care as of 1 July 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The National Health Service (Integrated Care Boards: Exceptions to Core Responsibility) Regulations 2022” imposes additional responsibilities on an integrated care board (ICB) for certain specified persons. The instrument sets out circumstances where an ICB would have additional responsibility for commissioning health services for certain individuals, in addition to the persons where it has core responsibility. The circumstances include commissioning emergency ambulance services or accident and emergency services for any person present within the ICBs’ area.
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 his Department has plans to amend the NHS Constitution and Handbook to the NHS Constitution to reflect changes in policy and legislation as a result of the Health and Care Act 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In line with statutory requirements, the NHS Constitution in England will be updated every 10 years, with the involvement of the public, patients and staff. The accompanying Handbook to the NHS Constitution is updated every three years. The next scheduled updates are due for publication in January 2025 to reflect changes in policy and legislation as a result of the Health and Care Act 2022.
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 assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Health and Care Bill on which body or individual would have responsibility for ensuring any person who needed emergency care would receive it after April 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Health and Care Bill proposes the establishment of integrated care boards (ICBs) which will take on the commissioning functions and responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) as well as some of those held by NHS England. Once statutory ICBs are established, they will be responsible for arranging for the provision of emergency care for everyone for whom they are responsible. Regulations will be made to expand ICB core responsibility to ensure that each ICB is responsible for everyone in its area who needs emergency care, to recreate the duty currently on conferred on CCGs.
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 assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Health and Care Bill on which body or individual is responsible for providing (a) secondary medical care and (b) ophthalmic services after April 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Health and Care Bill proposes the establishment of integrated care boards (ICBs) that will take on the commissioning functions and responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups, as well as some of those held by NHS England. Once statutory ICBs are established, they will be responsible for arranging the provision of secondary medical care. For ophthalmic services, the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to directly confer commissioning functions for ophthalmic services on ICBs at an appropriate time. NHS England will have the ability to delegate those functions to, or exercise them jointly with, ICBs.
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, with reference to the announcement of the delay until 1 September 2021 of the implementation of the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) service, what the new date is by which patients can opt out.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We confirmed on 19 July that data extraction will not now begin until a number of tests have been met. These include creating the technical means to allow general practitioner data that has previously been uploaded to be deleted when someone registers a type 1 opt-out. For that reason, patients will have the ability to opt-in or opt-out and the dataset will always reflect their current preference.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What steps he is taking to ensure that the NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all and free at the point of use.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Further to the £33.9 billion settlement for the NHS Long Term Plan, we will be providing an additional £3 billion this year, to ensure all patients have access to the care they need as the National Health Service recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.