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Written Question
Dental Services
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many extra (a) appointments and (b) treatments will be delivered through each element of the dentistry recovery plan.

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 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.

The methodology underpinning this modelling has been shared with the Health and Social Care Select Committee and has also been placed in the libraries for both Houses. This includes information on the estimated number of treatments and appointments delivered by each of the interventions in our dentistry recovery plan.


Written Question
Telecommunications: Infrastructure
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 31 January 2024 to Question 11162 on Telecommunications: Infrastructure, how many notices her Department has received from Ofcom of instances of operators not complying with their statutory duties in the last 12 months.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

Ofcom is an independent regulator and, as such, does not discuss open cases with the Department. Where there are issues of non-compliance with statutory duties, Ofcom will deal with these cases directly with the operator. If Ofcom were to find, following an investigation, that any operator had failed to comply with its regulatory obligations it would publish that information on its Enforcement Bulletin.

I would, however, reiterate that I am aware of ongoing concerns about operator compliance with their duties under the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003 (“the 2003 Regulations”) and particularly about new pole installations.

I recently met Melanie Dawes, CEO of Ofcom, to discuss this, and to explore ways DSIT and Ofcom can work together to raise awareness of statutory roles and responsibilities and ensure better compliance. This work is being taken forward by officials and I will be monitoring progress.

I also wrote to all fixed line operators on 14 March, setting out the government’s concerns and emphasising the importance of infrastructure sharing. Specifically, I have asked them to do everything possible to share existing telegraph poles before installing new ones. You can find a copy of the letter here.

The government has already taken steps to support this through measures in the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 making it easier for operators to upgrade and share the use of existing infrastructure.

Separately, DSIT will be meeting with operators in the near future to discuss revisions to the Cabinet Siting and Pole Siting Code of Practice and how these can be delivered to promote better working practices.

I also met with interested MPs on Monday 25 March 2024. I remain keen to hear and understand the concerns shared by MPs and their constituents, to inform our ongoing work, as well as to keep you informed of the progress that is being made and the next steps we have planned.


Written Question
Dental Services: Finance
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what mechanism she plans to use to ringfence NHS dentistry budgets in financial year 2024-25.

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

We currently invest more than £3 billion in National Health Service dental services each year. We are committed to protecting this funding for dentistry purposes and we will ringfence this funding in 2024 to 2025. We will issue guidance to integrated care boards (ICBs) shortly through NHS England’s 2024 to 2025 revenue finance and contracting guidance. To ensure compliance against this requirement, and to strengthen oversight of funding that is used to deliver access to NHS dental care, NHS England will meet with and collect monthly returns from all ICBs to establish current and planned spend against the ringfenced dental allocations budget.


Written Question
Hospitals: Homelessness
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

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 prevent patients (a) experiencing and (b) at risk of homelessness from being discharged from hospital to no fixed abode.

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

The Department is committed to promoting safe and timely discharge for people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, to appropriate accommodation. Between 2020 and 2022, the Department delivered £16 million to 17 local sites, to pilot Out of Hospital Care Models to people experiencing homelessness following a hospital stay. These models provide interim accommodation, care, and support while full assessments of individual needs are carried out. There are positive preliminary findings, and a final evaluation is due next month. From this we will share learning to encourage local areas to adopt similar models.

Improving how discharges are arranged for people experiencing, or at risk of homelessness, is also supported by our wider work to improve discharge processes. We have ensured every acute hospital has access to a care transfer hub to manage discharge for people with more complex needs, who need extra support. Furthermore, in January 2024 the Department published guidance on discharging people at risk of or experiencing homelessness to support staff involved in planning safe and supportive discharge of these patients from hospital. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/discharging-people-at-risk-of-or-experiencing-homelessness/discharging-people-at-risk-of-or-experiencing-homelessness


Written Question
Dental Services: Finance
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much additional funding will be provided to integrated care boards through the dentistry recovery plan by area.

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

We currently invest more than £3 billion in National Health Service dental services each year. Our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry is backed with £200 million, delivering new initiatives to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry.

The amount spent by each integrated care board (ICB) will depend on a number of factors, including how many new patients are seen in each ICB, whether any practices in the ICB will benefit from the increase to the minimum Unit of Dental Activity value, and where Golden Hello payments are offered.


Written Question
Dental Services
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much (a) NHS and (b) private work was completed by GDC registered dentists who qualified (i) in the UK, (ii) overseas and (iii) in total in each of the last 10 years.

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

Primary care dentistry in the National Health Service is delivered through contracts structured around Units of Dental Activity (UDAs). Each treatment is allocated a number of UDAs in proportion to the complexity and amount of work required. The following table shows the number of UDAs delivered by dentists who have qualified within the United Kingdom and outside thereof whilst working in the NHS in England for 2016/17 onwards:

Year

UK Qualified UDA Delivered

Non-UK Qualified UDA Delivered

Other UDA Delivered

Total UDA Delivered

2016/17

48,825,392

26,394,403

10,644,608

85,864,403

2017/18

48,640,153

26,323,343

8,363,069

83,326,565

2018/19

49,482,862

27,192,292

6,528,618

83,203,772

2019/20

48,144,326

27,032,548

4,666,855

79,843,728

2020/21

15,260,168

8,265,064

927,591

24,452,823

2021/22

35,781,811

20,777,093

1,210,218

57,769,122

2022/23

43,918,652

25,763,340

486,695

70,168,687

Source: NHS Business Services Authority

Notes:

  1. The dentist’s region of qualification is based on that as provided on the General Dental Council (GDC) register. It is important to note that not all dentists have a country of qualification on the GDC register as supplied to the NHS Business Services Authority, and so these dentists are placed into “other” as their region of qualification.
  2. The Department does not hold data on how much private dental work was completed in the last 10 years.

Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Sales
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

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 tackle the sale of illegal vapes on the black market.

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

The Government is concerned about the worrying rise in vaping among children, with youth vaping tripling in the last three years, and one-in-five children having now used a vape. Underage sales and illicit vapes are undermining the work the Government is doing to protect our children's health.

To address this, in April 2023, the Government announced a £3 million investment over two years to enhance work on illicit vape enforcement. Led by National Trading Standards, this builds on existing work by local trading standards officers across the country to ensure that vapes sold in the United Kingdom comply with The Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, as well as other relevant legislation that applies to vaping products. Activities include data collection and analysis to understand the scale of illegal products and sales, and market surveillance work. Through this work, they identified that 2.1 million illicit vapes were seized across England by trading standards from 2022 to 2023.

To strengthen our enforcement activity, the Government will also provide an additional £30 million of funding per year for enforcement agencies, including trading standards. This increase in investment will help to stamp out criminal activity by boosting the enforcement of illicit tobacco and vapes.


Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes and Tobacco
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether trading standards officers are required to share information on seized non-compliant (a) tobacco and (b) vaping products with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

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

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) works in collaboration with a number of enforcement and regulatory agencies to share intelligence, support strategic planning, produce guidance, and review emerging issues. There is no legal requirement for Trading Standards to share seizure data with the MHRA, however this data is shared in cases where the MHRA can provide evidence to support ongoing compliance and enforcement investigations.


Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes and Tobacco: Smuggling
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full time equivalent staff are dedicated to the work of the Illicit Tobacco Taskforce; how often will the taskforce meet; has the taskforce met to date; whether illicit vaping products will be included as part of its remit; and what recent estimate has he made of losses in tax revenue from the illicit trade in (a) tobacco and (b) vaping products in each of the last 10 years.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

We plan to establish the taskforce during 2024/25. We are not yet able to give details on meeting frequency or staff numbers.


Written Question
Trading Standards: Staff
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the average number of full time equivalent trading standards officers per local authority over each of the last 10 years.

Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

The department does not collect this information centrally.