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, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2024 to Question 381 on Liver Diseases: Screening, where the 12 Community Diagnostic Centres planned to have fibroscans are located; and what further plans she has to roll out fibroscans by March 2025.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently eight community diagnostic centres (CDCs) offering FibroScan testing, which are:
- Andover CDC in Andover, Hampshire;
- Bexhill CDC in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex;
- Ely CDC in Ely, Cambridgeshire;
- Gloucestershire Quayside CDC in Gloucester, Gloucestershire;
- New QEII Hospital CDC in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire;
- Poole Dorset Health Village CDC in Poole, Dorset;
- St Helens CDC in St Helen’s, Merseyside; and
- Woking Community Hospital CDC in Woking, Surrey.
There are six additional CDCs planning to offer Fibroscan testing in 2024/25, which are:
- Bolton CDC in Bolton, Lancashire;
- Bradford District and Craven CDC in Bradford, West Yorkshire;
- Northern Care Alliance Oldham CDC in Oldham, Greater Manchester;
- Peterborough CDC in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire;
- Wisbech CDC in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire; and
- Wood Green CDC in Haringey, London.
In total, NHS England plans to have rolled out FibroScan testing to 14 CDCs by 2024/25, and continues to explore further rollout of Fibroscans by March 2025.
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 and what proportion of patients who smoke have received very brief advice on smoking cessation in NHS hospitals.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Plan includes a commitment that all people admitted to hospital who smoke, will be offered National Health Service-funded tobacco treatment services. However, the requested information on the numbers of patients receiving Very Brief Advice is not captured or reported.
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, when she plans to publish a response to her Department's consultation on Mandating quit information messages inside tobacco packs, which closed on 10 October 2023.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is responsible for approximately 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom, and causes around one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year, and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service. Alongside creating the first smokefree generation in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, we are also scaling up our efforts to support existing smokers in quitting. We have provided an additional £70 million per year to local authority led stop smoking services, and we are investing in a new incentives programme to support pregnant women to quit. We are also providing £15 million a year to fund anti-smoking campaigns.
The Government ran a consultation on mandating informative messages about quitting smoking inside tobacco packs, which was open from 14 August 2023 to 10 October 2023. This included proposed inserts on a number of themes related to stopping smoking, such as benefits to physical and mental health, financial benefits, and how to access stop-smoking aids. We will aim to publish the response to this consultation in this parliamentary session.
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 NHS Inpatient Detox units there are by location.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are eight NHS inpatient detoxification units in England. They are listed below:
Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust (London),
Bridge House, Kent and Medway NHS Trust (Maidstone, Kent),
Dame Carol Black Unit, Midlands Foundation NHS Trust (Fareham, Hampshire),
Acer Unit, Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (Bristol),
Edward Myers Unit, Staffordshire Combined NHS Trust (Stoke),
New Beginnings, Rotherham, Doncaster, South Humber Foundation NHS Trust (Doncaster), Chapman Barker Unit, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust (Manchester),
Topaz Ward, Essex Partnership NHS Trust (Chelmsford, Essex).
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, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 16199 on Alcoholic Drinks: Health, whether the post of (a) Head of Alcohol Policy and (b) Senior Policy Manager for Alcohol is (i) occupied and (ii) combined with other policy areas.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Health Improvement Directorate leads on public health policy to reduce alcohol-related health harm. Within the directorate, the Head of Alcohol and Gambling and the Head of Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery, which have direct responsibility for aspects of alcohol policy, are occupied. There are several policy and programme leads working directly on different aspects of alcohol policy and programme delivery. There are two live vacancies in the alcohol and gambling policy and programme team, and we are recruiting staff to fill them.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2024 to Question 19659 on NHS 111: Dental Health, if she will provide breakdown of calls by symptom group by region.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2024 to Question 13013 on NHS 111: Dental Health, how many calls NHS 111 received relating to the categories of (a) Toothache without Dental Injury, (b) Dental Problems, (c) Other Dental Problems- Fillings, Crowns Bridges, Appliances etc, (d) Dental Module, (e) Dental Bleeding, (f) Toothache After Dental Injury, (g) Dental Injury and (h) Total volume of Triages with a Dental Symptom in each financial year since 2010-11.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 7 February 2024, we published Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients across the country, and to address the challenges facing National Health Service dentistry.
The following table shows how many NHS 111 calls were received, broken down into the mentioned categories, each year since 2018, the earliest year this data is available:
Symptom Group | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Toothache | 625, 582 | 629, 306 | 928,000 | 794,024 | 868, 527 |
Dental Problems | 2,270 | 16, 533 | 34, 377 | 54,738 | 58, 512 |
Other Dental Problems, such as fillings, crowns, bridges, appliances, etc. | 84,095 | 67, 876 | 101,822 | 72,474 | 70,380 |
Dental Module | 67 | 30 | 738 | 955 | 139 |
Dental Bleeding | 14, 166 | 13, 362 | 17, 962 | 13, 916 | 16, 736 |
Toothache after Dental Injury | 12,047 | 11,621 | 12, 584 | 13, 863 | 15, 154 |
Dental Injury | 184 | 205 | 558 | 484 | 118 |
Total Triages with a dental symptom | 738, 611 | 738, 933 | 1,096,041 | 950, 454 | 1,029,566 |
The above table provides the same information as for PQ13013, with one error to be corrected shortly on Hansard.
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.
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:
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.