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 estimate she has made of the (a) total and (b) annual cost of increasing dental undergraduate training places in England by 40% by 2031-32.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the Government committed to expanding dentist training places so that there are 1,000 places by 2028/29. No specific estimate is available for the increase in dental undergraduate costs, but along with the other commitments to increase training places for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare roles, it is estimated that this will cost an additional £2.4 billion cumulatively, on top of current education and training budgets. This will support a 27% expansion in training places by 2028/29.
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 the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has an alcohol policy team.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Public health policy to prevent and reduce alcohol related health harms is part of the Health Improvement Directorate, within the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. There are approximately 157.7 full time equivalent people employed in the directorate. Resources are allocated according to priorities to collectively address common behavioural risk factors, which often cluster, such as smoking, obesity and diet related factors, low physical activity, alcohol, and drug use. The directorate also draws on cross-cutting policy, surveillance, and analytical and delivery specialists across the Department to support policy development, including on alcohol related harms.
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 ensure that integrated care boards provide aftercare to eligible patients as set out in section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Monitoring integrated care boards is a matter for NHS England, in line with the NHS System Oversight Framework. With regard to the provision of aftercare as set out in section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the NHS England Who Pays? guide, and the Mental Health Act Code of Practice, set out the framework for establishing which National Health Service commissioner will be responsible for commissioning and paying for an individual’s NHS care.
The recently published statutory guidance on Discharge from mental health inpatient settings includes national guidance on how budgets and responsibilities should be shared to pay for section 117 aftercare. In accordance with this guidance document, all local social service authorities and NHS commissioning organisations must share a responsibility for making section 117 funding decisions for people entitled to aftercare, within a robust quality assurance framework. This should demonstrate effective transparency and accountability when delivering this joint duty and avoid the risk of duplication, delayed transitions, inefficiency, and poor experience of the person in receipt of the care and support. The 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, if she will make an estimate of the number of patients who have not seen a dentist in the last two years; and how many additional appointments does she expect her dentistry recovery plan to provide.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want to encourage all professionals to commit more of their time to National Health Service work and to work in areas of the country with a low provision of NHS dental care, which is why we have brought in the Golden Hello scheme, which will deliver over 400,000 appointments.
The Dentistry Recovery Plan 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 plan sets out a number of actions which will improve access for patients, by helping the sector to recover activity more quickly, address underlying issues, and set out the action needed for longer term reform of the system.
We have also announced that we will raise the minimum units of dental activity (UDA) value to £28. This will mean that almost 1,000 contracts will see an uplift to their UDA rate this year, supporting them and making treatment of NHS patients more sustainable.
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 calls NHS 111 received about dental (a) pain and (b) other problems in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The attached table shows the number of calls received by NHS 111 for patients with dental symptoms for each year from 2019/20 to 2023/24, broken into symptom groups, as well as the yearly and sum total of calls for patients with dental symptoms.
It is not possible to tell from this table how many calls the National Health Service received specifically about dental pain, but in the last five years there have been just under 4.8 million calls to NHS 111 resulting in a disposition of dental symptoms. The majority of these calls, four million, were regarding toothache without a dental injury.
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, with reference to the letter of 7 March 2023 from the then Minister for Social Care to the Chief Executive of the British Liver Trust, whether it remains his policy that fibroscans will be in use at 100 community diagnostic centres by March 2025; how many fibroscans have been delivered to community diagnostic centres since March 2023; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of setting a new target.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is currently no national target specifically relating to the availability of FibroScan equipment, or testing for liver fibrosis, through Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) in England by March 2025.
The CDC modality offer is based on the recommendations in the Sir Mike Richards Review, in which Fibroscans were included as a suitable optional additional test for use in CDCs. Decisions on what modalities are offered outside of the core requirements of CDCs will be based on local need and decisions.
I can confirm there are currently plans for 12 CDCs to offer FibroScan testing, of which seven are operational. A further five CDCs plan to offer this service by the end of March 2024.
However, the Government takes very seriously the importance of preventative action, and of identifying patients at risk of liver disease and diagnosing it earlier. It is a fast-growing cause of mortality and morbidity; and one we want to make progress in tackling.
The Government is working with the National Health Service to support earlier diagnosis of liver disease and identifying patients at risk. This includes plans agreed as part of the £2.3 billion diagnostics transformation programme, including upgrading laboratory digital capabilities to ensure that labs across the country have the capability required to offer Intelligent Liver Function Tests. This test is highly effective as a first line diagnostic test to identify patients at higher risk, who may benefit from a FibroScan, or enhanced Liver function test.
The Government is also working with the NHS to deliver and consider the result from the pilot of the community liver health check programme – which in its first year delivered over 17,000 FibroScans to individuals at particular risk of liver disease, through the use of 40 FibroScanners, 12 of which were located in mobile units, across 19 local areas. This is in addition to wider work on health prevention, including vaccination and alcohol awareness programmes.
The Government will continue to look at options to go further. Over the coming year, NHS England are due to pilot a new diagnostic pathway it has developed for liver disease, which will include Fibrosis scanning in CDCs – we look forward to seeing the results of that pilot.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of total hours police have spent accompanying patients in hospitals in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on the total number of hours police have spent accompanying patients in hospitals.
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 the budget is for the Smile for Life programme, and if she will publish a breakdown of costs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To improve prevention for our youngest children, we will roll out support education targeting one to three year olds in the new Smile for Life programme. We will work closely with local areas to ensure our national advice and educational materials are tailored appropriately for nurseries and other early years settings.
The Dentistry Recovery Plan is fully funded with £200 million, and will deliver new initiatives to address the challenges facing National Health Service dentistry, including an additional 2.5 million appointments.
Overall NHS spending totals will be set at budget in the usual way. We are committed to protecting funding for dentistry purposes and will ringfence dental funding in 2024/25. We will issue guidance to integrated care boards shortly, through NHS England’s 2024/25 revenue finance and contracting guidance.
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 dentists waited (a) less than three weeks, (b) more than three weeks and (c) more than six weeks to receive a response to an application to the Dental Performers List in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Dentists must be listed on the Dental Performers List (DPL), to deliver National Health Service dental services in England. The DPL is managed by NHS England, which does not currently collect data on DPL application processing times in the format requested. NHS England is committed to working to ensure DPL applications are managed as quickly as possible to support the delivery of NHS dentistry.
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 the gross annual budget was for NHS dental services before deductions for (a) underspends and (b) underperformance for each year from 2010-11 to the latest year for which data is available.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst data for dental budgets in prior years is not held centrally, 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 will ringfence the funding in 2024/25. We will issue guidance to integrated care boards (ICBs) shortly, through NHS England’s 2024/25 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.