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.
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 his Department is taking to raise public awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain tumours.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions to support general practitioners (GPs) in diagnosing brain cancer earlier, therefore the Department is not running any additional public awareness campaigns at this stage.
In April 2020, NHS England introduced the “early cancer diagnosis service specification” for Primary Care Networks. This is designed to support improvements in rates of early cancer diagnosis by requiring Primary Care Networks to review the quality of their practices’ referrals for suspected cancer and take steps to improve this.
NHS England is also working with Cancer Alliances and GPs to diagnose more cancers earlier by making funding available to embed clinical decision support tools within general practice and give them access to a wider range of diagnostic tests. This includes brain MRIs, for patients with concerning symptoms, but who fall outside the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline threshold for an urgent suspected cancer referral. These tools and tests are expected to support the earlier detection of a range of cancers including brain cancer.
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 his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of publishing (a) dentistry and (b) other oral health statistics more frequently for the purpose of (i) analysing oral health and (ii) identifying appropriate interventions.
Answered by James Morris
There are no plans to make such an assessment. In England, local authorities are responsible for assessing oral health needs, developing strategies and commissioning oral health improvement programmes for the local population. Dental and other oral health statistics can be used to assess such needs and the Department has published resources to support local authorities with commissioning evidence based oral health improvement programmes.
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, when he will publish the results of the oral health survey of 5-year-old children.
Answered by James Morris
We aim to publish the results of the 2021/22 oral health survey of five year old children in December 2022.
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 full time equivalent (a) locum and (b) agency staff have been paid by NHS England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The table below sets out average full time equivalent (FTE) data on agency use for the medical and dental staff group and for all agency staff. The figures are for agency use in secondary care.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 (YTD Month 1-9 only) |
Medical and dental agency use average FTE | 4,923 | 4,913 | 4,564 | 4,347 | 4,621 |
Total agency use average FTE | 26,632 | 26,674 | 26,137 | 26,012 | 31,350 |
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 international students arriving on UK university campuses, who have had one or more of covid-19 vaccination dose from a MHRA-approved vaccine outside of the UK’s vaccination programme, will be exempt from the requirement to self-isolate in the event that a close contact is a confirmed covid-19 case, in line with the position for their UK peers.
Answered by Maggie Throup
International students vaccinated abroad, including a vaccine approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, are required to self-isolate if identified as a close contact. All those testing positive must self-isolate, regardless of vaccination status or where they were vaccinated.
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 he has made of the potential merits of including inhalers in medical kits.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made.
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 he has made of the potential merits of expanding the official list of covid-19 symptoms which trigger testing.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders MP) on 30 June to Question 25024.
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 21 July 2021 to Question 10360 on Travel: Coronavirus, how many covid-19 testing providers have (a) received a five-day warning and (b) been removed from the list of providers on GOV.UK as a result of poor test turnaround times.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Due to commercial sensitivities, the Department does not publish the specific reasons for organisations being removed from the GOV.UK listing. In the last two weeks, 57 COVID-19 test providers have been removed from the GOV.UK listing and a further 84 have been issued with a warning.
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 he has made of the effectiveness of the processes in place to ensure that providers of covid-19 travel tests meet the targets they advertise for processing tests.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have made no specific assessment.
The Department monitors all providers’ performance, including test turnaround times and those providing inadequate services receive a five-day warning to demonstrate they have rectified their service or they are removed from the list of providers on GOV.UK.