Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether self-employed physiotherapists providing patient-facing services under contract to GPs will have access to the covid-19 vaccination in the same priority cohort as NHS employees.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) consists of independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccine/s the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level. The JCVI has advised that the first priorities for any COVID-19 vaccination programme should be the prevention of COVID-19 mortality and the protection of health and social care staff and systems.
Therefore, in line with the recommendations of the JCVI, the vaccine will be initially rolled out to priority groups, including frontline health and social care workers who are at increased personal risk of exposure to infection with COVID-19 and of transmitting that infection to susceptible and vulnerable patients in health and social care settings.
The COVID-19 chapter in the Green Book: Immunisation against infectious disease sets out further information defining those groups of health and social care workers that should be offered the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes physiotherapists and other healthcare staff providing direct patient care in independent, voluntary and non-standard healthcare settings. The COVID-19 chapter in the green book is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-the-green-book-chapter-14a
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether community nurses working with patients who have tested positive for covid-19 will be given the same priority and access to the covid-19 vaccination as nurses working in a hospital setting.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccine/s the United Kingdom should use, including prioritisation at a population level. For the first phase, the JVCI has advised that the vaccine be given to care home residents and staff, as well as frontline health and social care workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors.
The JCVI considers frontline health and social care workers who provide care to vulnerable people a high priority for vaccination. The definition of frontline healthcare staff includes those involved in direct patient care. This includes staff who have frequent face-to-face clinical contact with patients and who are directly involved in patient care in either secondary or primary care/community settings.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what comparative assessment he has made of the suitability of the personal protective equipment made available to community nurses working with patients who have tested positive for covid-19 and nurses working in a hospital setting.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requirements for personal protective equipment (PPE) for community nurses and for nurses working in a hospital setting are set out in the national Infection Prevention and Control manual practice guide. It is consistent with World Health Organization guidance for protecting health and social care workers from COVID-19 and includes the PPE requirements as part of both standard infection control precautions and transmission-based precautions to prevent the risk of transmission of infection, protecting patients and staff alike.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
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 publishing an updated National Carers Strategy.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In June 2018, the Government published its two-year ‘Carers Action Plan 2018 – 2020 supporting carers today’ which sets out a cross-Government programme of targeted work to support all carers in England until the end of 2020.
The Action Plan puts a focus on practical actions to support carers, recognising and supporting unpaid carers to provide care in a way that protects their own health and wellbeing, employment and other life chances.
We plan to produce a final evaluation of the Action Plan next year. Alongside this the Department, with others across Government and carers, will consider next steps to build on the work initiated through the Carer’s Action Plan.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
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 ensure that patients with musculoskeletal health conditions can continue to access (a) NHS, (b) private and (c) voluntary sector physiotherapy during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Private or voluntary sector care decisions on access to care are a matter for the individual provider as these services are independent of the Government.
For NHS services guidance has been issued by NHS England and NHS Improvement on what services should be available. The NHS England and NHS Improvement guidance on COVID-19 prioritisation within community health services, updated August 2020, sets out advice for local commissioners in prioritising the return to near normal for most of their NHS services. This includes physiotherapy. The guidance sets out that commissioners should take into account where care is urgent and where care can take place remotely or may be patient-initiated. The guidance is available at the following link:
www.england.nhs.uk/publication/implementing-phase-3-of-the-nhs-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason routine covid-19 testing is not being made available to asymptomatic private practitioner physiotherapists treating people in care homes.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the need to ensure professionals are able to visit care homes safely. Regular asymptomatic testing is currently being rolled out to all patient-facing National Health Service staff.
While this will cover the majority of professionals visiting care homes, we recognise the important role played by professionals who visit care homes who are not included in the NHS staff testing, such as private practitioner physiotherapists. We are using our learning from our previous ‘Visiting Professionals’ pilot to determine the best approach for asymptomatic testing professionals who are not NHS staff.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department provides to non-NHS physiotherapy services to ensure that those services can access suitable personal protective equipment.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements for non-National Health Service physiotherapists are set out in the COVID-19 infection prevention guidance, which is published on GOV.UK. This recommends that where possible and clinically appropriate remote consultations rather than face-to-face should be offered to patients. Where this is not possible, guidance on what PPE is required in different settings is set out. Non-NHS physiotherapists are essentially commercial enterprises and are able to procure PPE from their normal suppliers.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to review anticoagulation guidelines for women who have undergone a caesarean section.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Multiple guidelines cover use of anticoagulants for women who have undergone caesarean section.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guideline CG132 contains a recommendation on thromboprophylaxis for caesarean section. NICE is currently developing a new guideline on caesarean section, which will update and replace current the guideline. NICE expects to publish this on 31 March 2021.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women have died as a result of blood clots and related complications post-caesarean sections without having received anticoagulants in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to prioritise residents of care settings to receive a covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who advise Government on which vaccine/s the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level. The JCVI published interim advice on 25 September 2020 stating the vaccine should first be given to care home residents and staff, followed by people over 80 and health and social workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and risk. The latest recommendations on the priority groups for a COVID-19 vaccine can be found at the following link:
We will consider the Committee’s advice carefully as we continue to plan for a vaccination campaign.