Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 that gay and bisexual men in Bedford constituency have access to places on the PrEP impact trial.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is currently provided in England through the three-year PrEP Impact Trial. Participation in the trial is on a voluntary basis and it is for clinics and local authorities to decide the number of allocated places they can accept. The PrEP Impact Trial website includes a map showing the distribution of the 154 clinics level 3 Sexual Health Services participating in the trial at the following link:
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of services are retained in each hospital following mergers in NHS Trusts in England in each year since 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Powers under Section 56A and 56AA of the NHS Act 2006 enables a National Health Service foundation trust to merge with another foundation trust or NHS trust. NHS Improvement as the independent regulator does not collate the information requested.
Every merger is different, but each will integrate the services of trusts to ensure the delivery of high-quality NHS services. A successful merger enables trusts to join together to gain the benefits of a larger organisation, such as releasing economies of scale; improving patient care and manage resources more effectively than either organisation can achieve alone.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the planned merger of Bedford Hospital and Luton and Dunstable Hospital, if he will maintain the current level of services at Bedford Hospital.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Powers under Section 56A and 56AA of the NHS Act 2006 enables a National Health Service foundation trust to merge with another foundation trust or NHS trust. The trusts are required to make a joint application to NHS Improvement for any merger to go ahead. Where a merger involves an NHS trust, this must also be supported by the Secretary of State.
It will be for NHS Improvement as the independent regulator to be assured that the integration of services within the planned merger of Bedford Hospital and Luton and Dunstable Hospital ensures the delivery of high-quality NHS services.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's News story, New hospital building programme, published on 29 September 2019, what criteria his Department used to determine which NHS trusts were eligible for funding under that programme to develop new hospitals.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 29 September, the Government announced the largest hospital building programme in a generation as part of a new Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP) that is backed by a long-term programme of investment. The plan’s new, strategic approach will ensure the health service will have world-class facilities for patients and staff for the long term.
The HIP1 and HIP2 schemes were selected through the following process:
NHS England and NHS Improvement conducted a strategic assessment of hospital estates and came up with a list of priority schemes. These were selected on the basis of age and/or where a combination of other metrics that indicated a high need for investment in the estate. This included the consideration of the high value scheme bids submitted by providers as part of previous sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) capital rounds, and other relevant previous representations by trusts and STPs. The other metrics being - Estates and facilities running costs; backlog costs; Critical Infrastructure Risk (a subset of the highest risk elements of backlog with a potential for significant impact e.g. fire safety); unused and functionally unsuitable space; and incidents having an impact on clinical services.
Based on that, a small number of schemes were identified as being suitable to fully fund now, given their advanced level of readiness to deliver in near future. These are the 6 projects for HIP1.
The remaining list of priority schemes was then further filtered based on a combination of criteria, including the level of Critical Infrastructure Risk in the estate and an overall check of the regional breakdown (to make sure no regions were over or under-represented), and engagements through NHS regional teams. This gave us the 21 projects identified to receive seed funding to kick start their schemes, ready for building in HIP2.
HIP scheme selection was not specifically discussed at the NHS Property Board, which did not meet during the period when final decisions were made. However, the underlying principles and issues have been discussed previously by the NHS Property Board and members were involved in discussions that led to the final selection of schemes.
Schemes will be required to submit business cases to provide the required standard assurance on the key features including patient benefits, value for money and commercial terms etc. A number of the six HIP1 schemes have submitted business cases to NHS Improvement previously but these will need to be developed further or revised to align with the current scope of their scheme. The Department is looking to speed up and streamline the business case process and approvals.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the funding announced for the merger of Bedford Hospital Trust and Luton and Dunstable University Hospital Trust will be allocated to improving infrastructure and facilities at Bedford Hospital.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Bedford Hospital Trust and Luton and Dunstable University Hospital Trust were awarded £99.5 million in sustainability and transformation partnerships funding, as one of the 20 hospital upgrades announced in August 2019, for their Merger Enabling scheme.
The proportion of funding to be allocated to improving infrastructure and facilities at Bedford Hospital will be determined as part of the next business case.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been spent on diagnostic equipment for cancer including MRI and CT scanners at Bedford Hospital NHS Trust in each year since 2010; and what the average spend on diagnostic equipment for cancer was per capita year in each of those years.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The organisation-specific per capita information requested is not held centrally.
On 27 September the Government announced a £200 million programme of spending to replace MRI machines, CT scanners and breast screening equipment across the country. The equipment will improve the quality of screening and speed of diagnosis and is part of the Government’s commitment to ensure 55,000 more people survive cancer each year. Recipients of this funding will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group and East London Foundation Trust on plans to reinstate inpatient mental health beds in Bedford.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Bedfordshire clinical commissioning group (CCG) has confirmed to NHS England that the project to provide a mental health inpatient unit is in its early stages and that East London Foundation NHS Trust has made an undertaking to provide a mental health inpatient unit in Bedford.
Bedfordshire CCG has identified a potential site in Bedford town and are progressing options and feasibility for this with National Health Service and local authority partners. The CCG will be appointing an architect when contracts have been formalised. Business cases for capital and commissioned services will then be developed and approved through standard NHS England commissioning processes.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with representatives of local health providers on medical staff vacancies at Bedford Hospital NHS Trust; and how many and what proportion of vacancies there are in each discipline.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It is the responsibility of employers to develop workforce plans to meet their local service needs. As such, there have been no specific discussions regarding medical staff vacancies at the Bedford Hospital NHS Trust between Departmental Ministers and health providers in the Bedford area.
NHS Improvement data shows that in England, approximately 86% of the 11,000 doctor vacancies are filled by bank (49%) and agency (51%) staff. There are over 700 (6%) fewer doctor vacancies than last year. Bank and agency staff are not solely used to fill the vacancies. In addition to the vacancy gap, the bank and agency staff also cover absence due to sickness leave, maternity/paternity and career breaks.
The latest NHS Improvement vacancy statistics are available at the following link:
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the UK will be excluded from European Reference Networks when the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union on 31 October whatever the circumstances. We would prefer to leave with a deal. The details of this partnership, including participation in the European Reference Networks, will be a matter for negotiation with the EU after we leave. We are preparing for that negotiation and will work with a wide range of partners to ensure a successful outcome for UK business and citizens.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 increase the recruitment of doctors from overseas through the Medical Training Initiative.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The Medical Training Initiative enables up to 1,000 international medical and dental graduates per year to enter the United Kingdom to experience training and development in the National Health Service for up to two years before returning to their home country. The Government keeps the number of doctors able to participate in this scheme under regular review.