Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 19 July 2022 to Question 33936 on Radioligand Therapy, whether NHS England will undertake an expansion programme for radioligand therapy to help meet anticipated demand in the next two years.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England reviews service provision when new treatments are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) through technology appraisals or due to the development of new clinical commissioning policy.
NICE is currently considering the use of lutetium vipivotide tetraxetan to treat certain types of prostate cancer after two or more treatments. Draft guidance published in October 2022 states that the treatment is not recommended and a final decision is expected in March 2023. If the treatment is recommended, this will inform any decisions on the provision of radioligand therapy, subject to demand and other access considerations.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report by the Royal College of Radiologists entitled RCR Clinical oncology census report 2021, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the level of the clinical oncology workforce shortfall in Yorkshire and the Humber on patient access to radiotherapy.
Answered by Will Quince
There are no plans to make a specific assessment. Health Education England is addressing the priorities identified in the cancer workforce plan phase 1. It is investing an additional £50 million in 2022/23, including expanding the postgraduate medical training of cancer-related medical professions, such as clinical oncologists. We have also funded an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students in England, which was completed in September 2020.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to help tackle health inequality in Rotherham constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government is committed to supporting individuals to live healthier lives, and at the heart of this is improving access to and levelling-up health and care across the country, including in Rotherham. The Department continues to review how health disparities can be addressed and further information will be available in due course.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities also works with services in Rotherham to support programmes to reduce health inequalities, including providing evidence and intelligence.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has provided additional (a) financial and (b) other support to help tackle (i) patient backlogs and (ii) increased workloads in GP surgeries in Rotherham constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, published in February 2022, stated the ambition to reduce patient backlogs for planned National Health Service treatments and the government plans to spend more than £8bn from 2022/23 to 2024/25. We made £520 million available to expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This was in addition to at least £1.5 billion announced in 2020 by 2024 which includes supporting increased workloads in GP surgeries, including in Rotherham. In September 2022, ‘Our plan for patients’ announced measures to support GP practices increase access and manage workload such as the provision of 31,000 phone lines and freeing up funding rules to widen the types of staff that work in general practice, including in Rotherham.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the 10-year cancer plan will include provisions to expand radiotherapy services.
Answered by Will Quince
Further details of the 10 year cancer plan, committed to by the Prime Minister on September 7, will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 help improve access to mental health services in Rotherham constituency.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
In September we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health services, including in Rotherham. Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand NHS mental health services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Rotherham. We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 dental practices were rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in Rotherham constituency as of June 2022.
Answered by Will Quince
The Care Quality Commission does not currently rate providers of primary dental care services.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 help improve access to NHS dental services in Rotherham constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Rotherham.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the radiotherapy capacity required to reduce waiting times for cancer treatment.
Answered by Will Quince
In July 2022, 92.3% of cancer patients requiring radiotherapy received it within 31 days of a decision to treat. In 2022/23, NHS England will provide additional support to local systems to plan service provision, which will take into account the impact of fewer fraction treatment protocols and investment in newer, faster treatment machines.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of bringing forward new policies to tackle period poverty.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
No specific assessment has been made. However, since 2019 the National Health Service has offered period products to every hospital patient who needs them and people in custody are provided with health and hygiene products for free, including period products.
Since January 2020, a Department for Education scheme provides free period products in schools and educational institutions for 16 to 19 year olds in England. In addition, since 1 January 2021, a zero rate of VAT has applied to all period products. The Period Poverty Taskforce was established in 2019. In March 2020, the work of the Period Poverty Taskforce was paused to focus on the response to the pandemic.