Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of publishing a dedicated cancer strategy.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
On 24 January 2023, the Government announced plans to publish the Major Conditions Strategy, which will focus on tackling the six major conditions groups: cancers, mental ill-health, cardiovascular disease including stroke and diabetes, dementia, chronic respiratory diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders, that account for around 60% of ill-health and early death in England. Addressing cancer together with other major conditions will allow the Department and NHS England to focus on similarities in approach, ensuring care is better centred around the patient.
Following the call for evidence for a 10-year cancer plan in 2022, the Department received over 5,000 submissions. These findings are being fed into the development of the Major Conditions Strategy.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of pancreatic cancers were diagnosed at an early stage in the most recent year for which information is available.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Latest figures from NHS Digital for cancers diagnosed between January and December 2021 show that 25% of pancreatic cancers were diagnosed at Stage 1 and 2.
NHS England is developing new dedicated urgent diagnostic pathways for these patients so that every cancer patient with concerning, but non-specific symptoms, gets the right tests at the right time in as few visits as possible. There are now 113 of these pathways live, which are seeing more than 5,500 patients per month.
NHS England is also providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at high-risk due to family history or at-risk genetic mutations and have formed an expert group to consider a pathway for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
NHS England is funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer to increase the consistency of access to treatments and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022 and the first report is expected in October 2024. In addition to this, the Getting it Right First-Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions National Health Service providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
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 increase the rate of diagnosis of pancreatic cancers at an early stage.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Latest figures from NHS Digital for cancers diagnosed between January and December 2021 show that 25% of pancreatic cancers were diagnosed at Stage 1 and 2.
NHS England is developing new dedicated urgent diagnostic pathways for these patients so that every cancer patient with concerning, but non-specific symptoms, gets the right tests at the right time in as few visits as possible. There are now 113 of these pathways live, which are seeing more than 5,500 patients per month.
NHS England is also providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at high-risk due to family history or at-risk genetic mutations and have formed an expert group to consider a pathway for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
NHS England is funding a new audit into pancreatic cancer to increase the consistency of access to treatments and to stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The Royal College of Surgeons began work on this audit in October 2022 and the first report is expected in October 2024. In addition to this, the Getting it Right First-Time team in NHS England is undertaking a deep dive into pancreatic cancer, which will highlight actions National Health Service providers need to take to improve services, as well as gathering examples of good practice to share.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
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 support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of General Practice Nurses.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The Government has committed to increasing the primary care workforce. We are on track to reach 50,000 additional nurses, with over 46,000 more nurses in July 2023 compared with September 2019, including nurses in general practice. We are working to achieve the 50,000 nurses target by improving retention as well as by diversifying our training pipeline and ethically recruiting internationally.
In July 2022, Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May and Em Wilkinson-Brice, National Director of People at NHS England, wrote to trusts to set out the principles and high impact actions that will support the retention of nurses and midwives.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out the ambition to increase adult nursing training places by 92%, taking the number of total places up to nearly 38,000 by 2031/32. To support this ambition, we will increase training places to nearly 28,000 in 2028/29.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to help (a) specialist disability providers and (b) other social care services in Birmingham Erdington constituency (i) recruit and (ii) retain care workers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Adult Social Care Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund is providing £562 million over this financial year, of which £13.1 million is going to the City of Birmingham. Local authorities can choose to use their allocation to address local workforce capacity pressures in adult social care through retention activity.
On 4 April 2023, we published our plans for investing £250 million on workforce reforms to improve career progression and access to learning and development opportunities to help reduce turnover. We will continue to engage with care commissioners and employers to consider how best to support workforce retention and recruitment.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled £500 million to develop the adult social care workforce, published by his Department on 5 April 2022, and in the context of the repeal of the Health and Social Care Levy, what steps he is taking to provide funding for the improvement of (a) recruitment, (b) retention, (c) progression and (d) staff wellbeing in the adult social care sector; and when this funding will be made available.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is making available up to £7.5 billion over two years to support adult social care and discharge, with up to £2.8 billion available in 2023/24 and £4.7 billion in 2024/25.
In spring 2023, the Government will publish a plan for adult social care system reform. This will set out how we will build on the progress so far to implement the vision for adult social care set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper. This includes our plans to reform the social care workforce.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Social Care of 6 December 2022, Official Report, col 188-190, what steps he plans to take to reform the social care workforce.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is making available up to £7.5 billion over two years to support adult social care and discharge, with up to £2.8 billion available in 2023/24 and £4.7 billion in 2024/25.
In spring 2023, the Government will publish a plan for adult social care system reform. This will set out how we will build on the progress so far to implement the vision for adult social care set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper. This includes our plans to reform the social care workforce.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Autumn Statement on 17 November 2022, Official Report, column 850, on what evidential basis the Chancellor said that 200,000 additional care packages could be delivered due to funding made available for the health and social care sector in the next two years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is making available up to £7.5 billion over two years to support adult social care and discharge. Dividing this amount of new funding by the average cost of a long-term care package, which is approximately £37,500, provides an illustration of how many long-term care packages this funding could equate to. Local areas will be responsible for deciding how this funding is best used.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
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 (a) level of prevalence of long covid in the adult social care workforce and (b) impact of long covid on the provision of adult social care.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No assessment has been made. The Department uses estimates provided by the Office for National Statistics on the prevalence of ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 infection in the United Kingdom. Estimates are based on the self-reporting of ongoing symptoms by study participants rather than a clinical diagnosis and data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
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 people living with a severe mental illness are able to receive a flu vaccination in winter 2022-23.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
People with severe mental ill-health are eligible for a free flu vaccine where they have other clinical conditions which would increase the risk of serious complications. Health professionals will make clinical assessments to consider the impact of flu infection on an individual’s pre-existing condition.