Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 reduce waiting times for cancer treatment.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support elective recovery and reduce waiting times, including for cancer treatment, the Government has taken steps by working with NHS England to publish the 'Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care' in February 2022. To deliver this plan, the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity. This will further be supported by the additional £3.3 billion of funding in each of the next two years announced at the Autumn Statement to support the National Health Service.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 introduce dietary guidelines to improve awareness of ultra-processed foods.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy balanced diet in line with the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods high in fat, salt or sugar should be eaten less often or in small amounts.
UK Government dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN is currently carrying out a scoping review of the evidence on processed foods and health and aims to publish its initial assessment in the summer of 2023.
There is currently no universally agreed definition of ultra-processed foods. However, a diet high in foods classified as processed is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, fruit and vegetables, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity and developing chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
The Good Choice badge helps people identify healthier options using the NHS Food Scanner app and when shopping in store and online. The app helps families to see what is in their food and drinks and suggests healthier alternatives, where these exist, that can help them cut down on sugar, saturated fat and salt. The Good Choice badge is underpinned by nutrition criteria that determine which products can display the badge.
The app and wider Better Health campaign supports families on their journey towards having a healthier diet, as making the step to the healthiest option may be too far for many people in one move.
The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), funds a range of important research on obesity. This includes a project in the NIHR Obesity Policy Research Unit investigating how families in areas of low income experience food environments and another project investigating factors that drive parental decisions regarding food provision for infants across socio-economic position.
The Healthy Start Scheme supports eligible low-income families to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Recipients are also eligible for free Healthy start vitamins, boosting the long-term health of their children. The value of these vouchers was increased from £3.10 to £4.25 a week in April 2021, ensuring more families can have access to healthy and nourishing foods.
The Department for Education spend over £1 billion each year on free school meals. This includes around £600 million on Universal Infant Free School Meals, where the per meal rate has been increased to £2.41, backdated to April 2022 in recognition of recent cost pressures.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a percentage reduction target for ultra-processed food consumption levels.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy balanced diet in line with the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods high in fat, salt or sugar should be eaten less often or in small amounts.
UK Government dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN is currently carrying out a scoping review of the evidence on processed foods and health and aims to publish its initial assessment in the summer of 2023.
There is currently no universally agreed definition of ultra-processed foods. However, a diet high in foods classified as processed is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, fruit and vegetables, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity and developing chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
The Good Choice badge helps people identify healthier options using the NHS Food Scanner app and when shopping in store and online. The app helps families to see what is in their food and drinks and suggests healthier alternatives, where these exist, that can help them cut down on sugar, saturated fat and salt. The Good Choice badge is underpinned by nutrition criteria that determine which products can display the badge.
The app and wider Better Health campaign supports families on their journey towards having a healthier diet, as making the step to the healthiest option may be too far for many people in one move.
The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), funds a range of important research on obesity. This includes a project in the NIHR Obesity Policy Research Unit investigating how families in areas of low income experience food environments and another project investigating factors that drive parental decisions regarding food provision for infants across socio-economic position.
The Healthy Start Scheme supports eligible low-income families to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Recipients are also eligible for free Healthy start vitamins, boosting the long-term health of their children. The value of these vouchers was increased from £3.10 to £4.25 a week in April 2021, ensuring more families can have access to healthy and nourishing foods.
The Department for Education spend over £1 billion each year on free school meals. This includes around £600 million on Universal Infant Free School Meals, where the per meal rate has been increased to £2.41, backdated to April 2022 in recognition of recent cost pressures.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 improve mental health provision for (a) babies, (b) toddlers, (c) children and (d) young people.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
At the 2021 Autumn Budget the Government committed to improving support for families by announcing around £300 million to fund a new three-year Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. A significant proportion of this funding has been allocated to support perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships. We are committed to ensuring that parents and carers can access timely and seamless mental health and relationship support from a baby’s conception.
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to increasing investment into mental health services by at least an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24. This will allow an extra two million people by 2023/24, including 345,000 more children and young people, to access National Health Service funded mental health support.
We also provided an additional £79 million in response to the pandemic to expand children’s mental health services in the 2021/22 financial year. This allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
There are currently 287 mental health support teams, covering 26% of pupils, in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issue. Over 500 support teams are planned to be up and running by 2024.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 improve the provision of bereavement support in Ealing Central and Acton constituency for parents and families following baby loss.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government funded the Stillbirths and Neonatal Death charity (SANDs) to work with other baby loss charities and Royal Colleges to produce and support the roll-out of a National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP). The pathway covers a range of circumstances of a baby loss including miscarriage, stillbirth, termination of pregnancy for medical reasons, neonatal death and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). As of 1 January 2023, 108 NHS England Trusts (84%) have committed to adopting the nine NBCP standards. 21 Trusts, including London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, are yet to do so, and NBCP England continue to push for their inclusion.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 improve bowel care for people with spinal cord injuries.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support improved bowel care for people with spinal cord injury (SCI) NHS England has published a service specification setting out what providers must have in place to deliver SCI services. This includes specialist multidisciplinary teams providing advice and care in bowel management, including promoting and manging continence.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 primary and community care settings in offering ear wax removal services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department does not have plans to intervene in locally-led arrangements for the provision of ear wax removal services. Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning ear wax removal services in local areas in line with the recommendations for ear wax removal as set out in guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng98/chapter/Recommendations
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 help improve breast cancer screening rates in (a) the UK and (b) Ealing Central and Acton constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Steps being taken to help improve breast cancer screening rates in the United Kingdom include continuation of investment and planning to promote the use of text message alerts to remind women of upcoming appointments, roll out of local and national media campaigns to raise awareness of the breast screening programme as required, development of improved inclusive information for women and delivery of 29 new breast cancer screening units, 58 remote access upgrades and nearly 70 life-saving service upgrades.
Specifically, in North West London (including the London Borough of Ealing), the following initiatives have been implemented to improve breast cancer screening rates: a campaign ran in October 2022 to encourage women to attend their breast screening and reminded them to book an appointment if they had been invited; multilingual breast screening reminder calls were made to non-responders; screening improvement facilitators were commissioned to develop and implement local plans to improve screening uptake and coverage; and posters and leaflets on breast screening were shared in community spaces across North West London.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of a review of carer’s assessments.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 7 February 2023 to Question 136784.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
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 reduce the time taken to access appointments for autism assessments.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We expect integrated care boards (ICBs) to have due regard to relevant best practice guidelines when commissioning services, including for autism assessments. The waiting time standard recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is for a maximum waiting time of 13 weeks between a referral for an autism assessment and a first appointment.
NHS England are developing a national framework to support the delivery of high quality autism assessment pathways for children, young people and adults. The aim of this work is to improve access to and the quality of these assessment processes and to reduce waiting times. The framework will be published in due course.
Building on the 2021/22 investment of £13 million, through the NHS Long Term Plan and COVID-19 Mental Health Recovery Plan, we are investing £2.5 million in 2022/23 to support local areas to make improvements to autism assessment pathways.
We are also investing £600,000 into expanding an autism early identification pilot to at least a hundred schools in the Bradford area over five years. This programme will help with the early identification of neurodivergent children.