Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when NHS England plans to publish the outcome of its review of adult eating disorder services.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The national review of adult eating disorder services that NHS England commissioned in 2017 is now complete.
Data collected on activity, investment and workforce is being reviewed with stakeholders to inform NHS England’s understanding of current provision and existing levels of parity with eating disorder services for children and young people. The data is informing modelling in support of the development of the National Health Service’s long term plan, which will be launched soon.
Any plans for publication of the NHS benchmarking data will be determined in due course.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many meetings he had with his Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser between 1 September and 30 November 2018.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Between 1 September and 30 November 2018 my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has had eight formal meetings the Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) Professor Chris Whitty, and the CSA has seven meetings with other Health Ministers.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
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 NHS trusts provide early support for the mental wellbeing of patients with (a) rheumatoid arthritis and (b) adult juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government recognises that long-term conditions, such as arthritis, can have an impact on a person’s mental wellbeing. The guideline ‘Rheumatoid arthritis in adults: management’, updated by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2018, sets out best practice in the diagnosis, treatment, care and support of people with rheumatoid arthritis. The guidance recommends that patients should be offered psychological interventions (for example, relaxation, stress management and cognitive coping skills to help them to adjust to living with their condition). The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng100
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to publish the results of the most recent Children and Young People’s Mental Health prevalence survey.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Mental Health of Children and Young People Survey will be published by NHS Digital shortly.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
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 by (a) Health Education England and (b) Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust on (i) legal fees and (ii) other costs associated with defending legal action brought by Dr Chris Day.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department is aware that Dr Chris Day took legal action against Health Education England (HEE) and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, between 2014-18, which was settled on the basis of him withdrawing the claim.
HEE spent a total of £433,000.00 on legal fees and costs, which includes £55,000, which was previously agreed legal costs to Dr Chris Day.
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust spent a total of £285,500.00 plus VAT in legal fees and does not have any other associated costs.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the announcement in Budget 2018, what his Department's timescale is for implementing school-based mental health support teams; and by what date he plans for mental health support teams to be extended across the country.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Work on developing mental health support teams for schools forms part of the work to implement the proposals set out in the Green Paper, ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision’. The first wave of recruitment for the Educational Mental Health Practitioners who will form part of these teams is now under way and 210 people will take their places on specialist training courses from January 2019. These trainees will start working in schools during 2019. The initial local areas, or trailblazer sites, that will trial the Green Paper proposals will be announced by the end of the year. As stated in the Green Paper, we plan to roll out the teams to between a fifth and a quarter of the country by 2022/23.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 5.10 of the Budget 2018 Red Book, what the (a) composition and (b) structure will be of the children and young people’s mental health crisis teams.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We are not currently able to provide the details requested about the composition and structure of the children and young people’s mental health crisis teams.
The Government has asked the National Health Service to develop a long-term plan which will set out a vision for the health service and we have been clear that better access to mental health services, to help achieve the Government’s commitment to parity of esteem between mental and physical health, is one of the principles which must underpin the plan. The 2018 Budget set out some aspects of what the long-term plan will contain, and further details will follow when the plan is published.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
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 number of additional (a) child and adolescent psychiatrists, (b) psychotherapists and (c) mental health nurses that will be required to deliver school-based mental health support teams throughout England.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We are setting up new Mental Health Support Teams to deliver mental health interventions for those with mild to moderate needs in or close to schools and colleges, referring those with more severe needs on to specialist services. The teams will support and join up with existing professionals such as educational psychologists, school nurses and health visitors. We expect the teams to comprise a mix of more junior and more senior staff; there will be funding available to support the teams and will also support the cost of supervision from qualified staff in National Health Service children’s mental health services. There will also be a new role, Educational Mental Health Practitioner, with the recruitment for this role currently underway and 210 places available across the country.
There are no ready-made answers about the overall make-up of teams and how they should operate, and we are clear that we do not want to impose a model that does not take account of the existing local context. It will therefore be important to design national roll-out on the basis of the experience from the trailblazer programme. The trailblazer sites will be announced shortly.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 24 October to Question 183290 on Rehabilitation, when the review of community performance reporting was commissioned; who is undertaking that review; and what the (a) terms of reference and (b) time frame are for that review.
Answered by Steve Brine
There was no national data collection of the activity and outcomes of healthcare that takes place out of hospital, and so it was agreed via the National Information Board (NIB) and NHS England’s Data Co-ordination Group in 2016 to develop a community services dataset, which has had two distinct phases.
The process that has been followed by NHS England is as follows.
In the first phase, now completed, the Community Services Data Set (CSDS) was developed by removing the age cap from the Children and Young People’s Health Services dataset and has been collecting data since November 2017. NHS England continues to work with NHS Digital to encourage community service providers to complete their statutory obligations to submit data to improve the knowledge and information we have available nationally on services delivered locally.
The CSDS will be further enhanced with a phase two development that will broaden the scope including outcome measures, and work is scheduled to begin on the scope shortly with plans to deliver in the autumn of 2020. Further work is also ongoing in NHS Digital to establish connectivity across national data sets to give longitudinal intelligence to support future planning processes.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the effect of smoking cessation treatments on health inequalities in the UK; and if he will make an estimate of the relative uptake of smoking cessation treatments by socio-economic group.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Tobacco Control Plan 2017-2022 published last year commits the Government to reduce the inequality gap in smoking prevalence between those in routine and manual occupations and the general population. Smoking cessation treatment is one part of the comprehensive approach to tobacco control required to achieve this ambition.