Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the level of funding provided for dementia care and research.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want a society where every person with dementia, and their families and carers, receive high quality, compassionate care, from diagnosis through to end of life. Everyone with dementia should have meaningful care following their diagnosis. This includes information on local services and access to relevant advice and support on what happens next. Local authorities are required to provide or arrange services that meet the social care needs of the local population, including carers, under the Care Act 2014. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision of dementia care services, and NHS England expects ICBs to commission services based on local population needs. It is for individual ICBs to distribute funding at a local level.
The Government is strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and has committed to doubling the funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by the end of 2024/25. The Department delivers research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and in 2022/23, the most recent year we have data for, we estimate that the total Government spend on dementia research was £96.9 million. The Department via the NIHR has instigated momentous new programmes of work, such as investing almost £50 million over five years into the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration Trial Network which will expand the United Kingdom’s early phase clinical trial capabilities in dementia, speeding up the development of new treatments.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to support access to dentists in (a) Penrith and The Border constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want to make sure that everyone needing a National Health Service dentist can access one. Our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry in England will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. This is especially important for those who live in rural or coastal communities where we know access can be particularly challenging.
Our plan includes a new Golden Hello scheme for dentists who want to move to those areas which persistently struggle to attract dentists into NHS work. A Golden Hello of £20,000 will be offered per dentist, for a total of up to 240 dentists.
There are other measures in our Dentistry Recovery Plan which will help to improve access across all areas of the country. The new patient premium is designed to support dentists to see patients who may not have seen an NHS dentist for some time, and is offered in recognition of the additional time that may be needed for practices to assess, stabilise, and manage patients’ oral health needs. We will also raise the minimum Unit of Dental Activity rate from £23 to £28, supporting practices across the country to deliver more NHS care.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 help improve access to care homes in rural communities.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Care Act, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market to meet the diverse needs of all local people. Last year we launched Care Quality Commission assurance of local authorities’ delivery of their Care Act duties, and all local authorities will be assessed over the next two years. We have also committed to setting national standards for commissioners and are investing in a pilot training programme for senior commissioners to improve practice and drive more consistency at local level.
The Government has also made available up to £8.6 billion in additional funding over two years to support adult social care and discharge. This includes nearly £2 billion over two years specifically through the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) and MSIF Workforce Fund. Both are designed to support increased adult social care capacity and improvements to adult social care services.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 reduce waiting times for (a) urgent and (b) non-urgent referrals of patients from General Practice to hospitals in (i) Cumbria and (ii) England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting waiting lists is one of this Prime Minister’s top priorities. We are making good progress on tackling the longest waits, and ensuring patients get the care they need when they need it. That is why we have published the elective recovery plan, which sets clear ambitions to eliminate long waits for planned National Health Service treatment. The overall vision is to eradicate waits of longer than a year for elective care by March 2025.
To facilitate this across elective services, we are increasing activity, with plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. This will expand capacity though creating a new network of community diagnostic centres, including three in Cumbria, and maximising all available independent sector capacity. We are managing demand through specialised advice in primary care and giving patients more control over where they receive their care. We are also increasing productivity through transforming outpatient services, developing new surgical hubs to increase theatre productivity, and working actively with trusts to support and challenge their performance.
The latest published figures show that the 62-day backlog has fallen 36% since its peak in the pandemic. The NHS introduced the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS), which aims to ensure patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of urgent suspected cancer referral from a general practice or screening services. Latest FDS performance was at 71.9% in November 2023 against the national standard of 75%.
To achieve the FDS target, NHS England are streamlining cancer pathways, including timed cancer pathways, to speed up diagnosis in the three key cancer pathways: lower gastrointestinal, prostate, and skin.
We are also implementing non symptom specific pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms, or combinations of non-specific symptoms, that can indicate several different cancers.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 support General Practices at risk of closure.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
General Practices (GPs) close for a variety of reasons, including mergers or retirement. A reduction in GP numbers does not mean a reduction in the quality of care. When a GP does close, patients are informed of the closure and advised to register at another local practice of their choice within their area.
The closure of a GP surgery is an issue that is considered and decided upon by local commissioners, following an application from a GP provider. It is for local commissioners to determine what services and care pathways are put in place, in order to best serve the needs of their patient population.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to support hospices.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission, which will ensure a more consistent national approach and support commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care, including from hospices.
The majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services. However, we also recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people at end of life and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing services within the National Health Service. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
At a national level, NHS England supports children’s hospices through the Children and Young People’s hospice grant. It has confirmed that it will be renewing the grant for 2024/25, once again allocating £25 million of grant funding for children’s hospices using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
The Government has provided additional funding to help deliver the one-off payments to eligible staff employed by non-NHS organisations, which employ their staff on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts. Organisations, such as hospices, were able to apply for the funding if they were able to show they had been negatively financially impacted by the pay deal, and that their staff are employed on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that General Practices have adequate funding in (a) Penrith and The Border constituency and (b) Cumbria.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The majority of the Department’s funding is allocated to NHS England. In turn, NHS England allocates funding to integrated care boards (ICBs) for primary care, taking account of nationally agreed contracts, such as general practitioner (GP) contracts. The Department and NHS England set the contract and associated funding for GPs each year in consultation with the profession. ICBs have delegated responsibility for commissioning healthcare services, including GP services, for their populations.
In 2022/23, practices in NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB received £171.07 per registered patient and practices in NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB received £173.00 per registered patient. This is higher than the England average of £163.50 per registered patient.
Spending on GPs has risen by almost a fifth in real terms, or 19%, between 2017/18 and the most recent data in 2021/22, from £11.3 billion to £13.5 billion. The Government continues to invest in GPs to ensure it is sustainable in the long-term.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to support General Practices in rural areas.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care outlines how we will support general practices (GPs), including in rural areas, by empowering patients to manage their own health, implementing the Modern General Practice Access model, expanding community pharmacy services, and cutting bureaucracy to reduce workload.
We acknowledge that some areas of the country are experiencing recruitment and retention issues with regard to National Health Service GPs, and we are taking steps to address this. In 2016, the Government launched the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme, which has attracted hundreds of doctors to train in hard to recruit locations, including many rural areas, by providing a one-off financial incentive of £20,000.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 the risk of cardiac arrest among young people.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme tests for 11 specific physical conditions including congenital heart disease. All parents are also offered a physical examination of their baby within 72 hours of giving birth, which includes checking the baby for heart murmurs.
To improve survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases, on 29 December 2022 the Government announced a new £1 million one-off fund that will expand defibrillator access in the community. The Government is acting on the drivers of cardiovascular diseases, including smoking. We have set out plans to create the first smokefree generation and announced significant new funding to support current smokers.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department have taken to support the NHS to mitigate the impact of (a) flooding and (b) storms on the provision of healthcare.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Health Service has well established measures in place to prepare for, and respond to, flooding and storms. The Department for Health and Social Care works closely with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Met Office and the Environment Agency to monitor risks from storms and flooding. This information is shared with NHS England to support their planning and response activity.
Prior to flooding or storm events, notice is given through Environment Agency and Met Office warning systems. The Department for Health and Social Care coordinates with NHS England, the Environment Agency, and other cross-Government partners to monitor impacts and coordinate the response.