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Written Question
Ophthalmic Services
Friday 8th March 2024

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

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 19 June 2023 to Question 188964 on Ophthalmic Services, what recent progress her Department has made on developing standard service specifications for enhanced eye care services.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The new standard of clinical specification for community eye care services, both minor and urgent, was published by the Local Optical Committee Support Unit on 23 February 2024. The specification will help local commissioners in getting the best outcomes, if they choose to commission these services as part of their local eye care provision. The specification is available at the following link:

https://locsu.co.uk/what-we-do/pathways/community-minor-and-urgent-eye-care-clinical-specification/


Written Question
Ophthalmic Services
Friday 8th March 2024

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to ensure that appropriately-qualified optometrists are able to access NHS prescription forms to help reduce the onward referral of patients with eye health conditions.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

When commissioning community enhanced eye care services, we would expect integrated care boards to consider the need to give appropriately qualified optometrists access to National Health Service prescription forms.


Written Question
Nurses: Pay
Friday 8th March 2024

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

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 ensure all general practice nursing staff will receive a pay uplift for 2023-24.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We hugely value and appreciate the vital work carried out by general practice (GP) nurses. The Government accepted the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body’s recommendation on salaried GP staff pay, and increased the 2023/24 GP contract to provide funding for them to receive a 6% pay rise. We encourage all practices to pass this on to staff. As self-employed contractors to the National Health Service, it is for GPs to determine employee pay.


Written Question
NHS: Pay
Thursday 7th March 2024

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions she has had with the NHS Pay Review Body on its potential recommendations on the 2024-25 pay round.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has had no discussions with the NHS Pay Review Body on its potential recommendations for the 2024/25 pay round.

My officials have regular engagement with the Pay Review Bodies (PRB) secretariat, however as independent bodies the PRBs will not discuss their potential recommendations with stakeholders, these are received alongside their report.


Written Question
Ophthalmic Services
Wednesday 17th January 2024

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

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 (a) reduce waiting times and (b) improve patient outcomes in NHS opthamology services.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are taking action to recover elective services, including ophthalmology, by working towards the targets set out in the Elective Recovery Plan and providing the National Health Service with record levels of staffing and funding. We plan to transform the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity, including through dedicated and protected surgical hubs, focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. These hubs will initially focus on driving improvement in six high volume specialties, one of these being ophthalmology.

Most recent published data from NHS England shows the average wait time for referral to treatment for ophthalmology was 11.7 weeks, below the national average of 14.4 weeks.

NHS England is currently considering how eye care services should be commissioned to ensure future sustainability. This includes looking at how more patients can be triaged and managed in the community, freeing up capacity for those that need face to face specialist care.


Written Question
Respiratory Diseases: Health Services
Thursday 7th December 2023

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the impact of Acute Respiratory Infection hubs on (a) GP appointments and (b) emergency department attendance levels since their creation.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

During winter 2022/23, 363 Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) hubs were implemented by systems. There is no central target on ARI hubs for 2023/24 and for local systems to implement and decide where and how many as part of their plans locally this winter.

Evaluations from NHS England suggest that ARI hubs may save general practitioner appointments and accident and emergency attendances.


Written Question
Respiratory Diseases: Health Services
Thursday 7th December 2023

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Acute Respiratory Infection hubs were operating in winter 2022-23; and how many are planned to be operating in winter 2023-24.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

During winter 2022/23, 363 Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) hubs were implemented by systems. There is no central target on ARI hubs for 2023/24 and for local systems to implement and decide where and how many as part of their plans locally this winter.

Evaluations from NHS England suggest that ARI hubs may save general practitioner appointments and accident and emergency attendances.


Written Question
Brain: Tumours
Wednesday 15th November 2023

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of (a) accepting the recommendations of the report by the APPG on Brain Tumours entitled Pathway to A Cure, published on 28 February 2023, and (b) providing additional funding for multidisciplinary research into brain tumours.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care welcomes the All-Party Parliamentary Group report, recommendations of which continue to be worked through with the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, and UK Research and Innovation and the Medical Research Council (MRC), and with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

The Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission (TJBCM) recently announced two appointments to the inaugural Tessa Jowell Fellowship programme. These 12-month fellowships will support high quality training in neuro-oncology clinical practice and research, to ensure clinicians are equipped with the relevant research skills needed to lead neuro-oncology trials that change practice. Additionally, the TJBCM have designated 28 adult Tessa Jowell Centres of Excellence within the National Health Service, which has created a world-class network of brain tumour treatment and research centres to provide the best care and share best practice. These actions will help grow capacity for brain cancer research, attracting new researchers from multiple relevant disciplines and developing the community.

In May 2018, the Government announced £40 million for brain tumour research as part of the TJBCM through the NIHR. The £40 million funding will remain available; if we can spend more on the best quality science, we will do.


Written Question
NHS: Agency Workers
Monday 26th June 2023

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

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 8 June 2023 to Question 187216, what proportion of NHS Bank Staff will receive a non-consolidated payment.

Answered by Will Quince

The information requested is not held centrally. Bank staff are employed on locally managed contracts, the terms of which differ by individual trust. It is therefore not possible to determine how many will be eligible to receive the non-consolidated payments.


Written Question
Brain: Tumours
Thursday 15th June 2023

Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve diagnosis times for those affected by brain tumours.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department has taken steps to significantly invest in diagnostics through additional funding for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography capacity across all National Health Service healthcare settings over this Spending Review period. This includes the acceleration of the Community Diagnostic Centres programme which will further release imaging capacity to reduce the waiting times for all patients including patients with clinical indication of a brain tumour. There has also been investment in MRI Acceleration technology which will improve the daily throughput per upgraded MRI scanner by reducing the scan times required per patient and improve the patient experience by reducing the scan times for patients.

Improvements to GP Direct Access pathways will support general practitioners referring directly for MRI brain scans, where they have concerns about symptoms that could indicate an incidental finding of a brain tumour. In addition, all patients referred for an imaging diagnostic scan with the clinical indication of cancer/tumour would be treated as an urgent cancer referral. These referrals are triaged, appointed and reported within two weeks of referral.