Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
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 proportion of people aged 50-74 who have not received an invitation for an NHS Health Check from their local authority in the last ten years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No estimate has been made.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to raise awareness of the symptoms of ovarian cancer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To encourage people to get in touch with their general practitioner if they notice or are worried about symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England is running the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns. Multiple phases of the campaign have had a focus on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of ovarian cancer. Also, NHS England funded a series of community engagement events coordinated by a cluster of gynaecological cancer charities, led by Target Ovarian Cancer.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the proportion of the public aged 40-74 who have been invited for an NHS Health Check by their local authority in the past five years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Between January 2018 and December 2022, 10,106,612 people in England were invited for an NHS Health Check by their local authority. This accounts for 59.1% of the total eligible population aged 40 to 74 years old.
Delivery of the programme was largely suspended between April 2020 and February 2022 due to the pandemic, in line with national guidance from NHS England. In the five years prior to the pandemic, April 2015 to March 2020, 13,741,360 people were invited for an NHS Health Check, equating to 87.7% of the eligible population. Data from December 2022 shows that local areas have made good progress recovering the service, with invitations having increased to pre-pandemic levels.
The Department is taking forward a programme of work to modernise the NHS Health Check, including the development of a national digital NHS Health Check to complement the face-to-face service and enable people to self-check at home.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to rollout mental health support teams in schools after 2024.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are investing an additional £3.3 billion in 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the National Health Service in England. Financial plans for those years, including for the further roll out of mental health support teams in schools and colleges beyond 2024, will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of (a) schools and (b) pupils will be served by a mental health support team by the end of (i) 2023 and (ii) 2024.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The information requested is not held centrally. We expect over 500 mental health support teams to be up and running by 2024. Each integrated care system (ICS) is allocated a share of the mental health support teams in each year based on their local population of children and young people, and ICSs are expected to work in collaboration with health and wider local system partners to determine where the new teams will be located. Each team is expected to provide sufficient capacity to deliver services to between 10 and 20 education settings. The rollout of mental health support teams beyond 2023/24 will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
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 number of NHS training places for clinical psychologists.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government is fully committed to attracting, training and recruiting the mental health workforce of the future, including clinical psychologists, and is taking a number of steps to achieve this. To increase the number of trained clinical psychologists available, Health Education England has supported a 99% per cent expansion in clinical psychology training commissions over the past four years. This expansion model is expected to achieve a growth of 2,520 additional practitioner psychologists in the National Health Service workforce by 2025.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people (a) applied for and (b) took up an NHS training place to train as a clinical psychologist, in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department does not hold data on applicants to clinical psychology courses.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) does publish data on students enrolled on higher education (HE) courses. The following table shows the students enrolled onto the first year of a clinical psychology course in the United Kingdom. Enrolments to clinical psychology courses are not available for previous years.
| 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
Undergraduate | 295 | 300 | 275 |
Postgraduate | 1,415 | 1,560 | 1,780 |
All courses | 1,710 | 1,860 | 2,050 |
Source: The HESA HE student enrolments 2023
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
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 reduce the time between a woman first presenting with symptoms of endometriosis to (a) being diagnosed and (b) receiving treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Women’s Health Strategy sets out our ambition for improving care for women and girls with endometriosis, with a reduced diagnosis time for those with severe endometriosis. Patients with symptoms of endometriosis will be prioritised based on clinical need. Endometriosis can only be definitively diagnosed through a laparoscopy under general anaesthetic, and it can be more appropriate to treat mild symptoms of endometriosis without a definitive diagnosis, avoiding the need for an invasive procedure.
To help tackle waiting lists, including in gynaecology and endometriosis related surgery the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion over the next three years, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available to systems last year to drive up elective activity and tackle long waiting lists. The Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the National Health Service in England, enabling rapid action to improve emergency, elective and primary care performance towards pre-pandemic levels.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Children's Hospice Grant will be renewed beyond financial year 2023-24.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England determines the best use of its financial settlement to deliver services. Funding arrangements beyond 2023/24 have not yet been agreed.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has approved the (a) sale and (b) disposal of any NHS assets at below market value since December 2019.
Answered by Will Quince
National Health Service trusts and NHS foundation trusts own their own land and buildings and are responsible for the sale or disposal of identified assets for this purpose. Trusts work with integrated care boards, including the local authority and NHS England, on planning and optimising their estate. The Department does not hold this data.