Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
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 (a) increase capacity and (b) improve infrastructure in the NHS to help tackle dementia.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2019 we committed to doubling funding for dementia research, to £160 million per year by 2024/25. This will span all areas of research from causes and prevention to treatment and care, delivering evidence to help prevent, diagnose and treat dementia, enabling the best possible care and quality of life for people with dementia.
NHS England are assessing the additional scanning, treating and monitoring capacity which would be required if potential new Alzheimer’s treatments are approved and determined to be both cost and clinically effective. This includes securing additional diagnostic capacity, for instance through magnetic resonance imaging, lumbar puncture, and positron emission tomography and computed tomography.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to help people with ADHD to access medication they need.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has no current plans to create a long-term strategy specifically for access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication, nor for raising awareness of ADHD or preventing misdiagnosis of ADHD in women and young girls.
It is the responsibility of local commissioners to make appropriate provisions available to meet the health and care needs of their local population. With respect to assessment, diagnosis and treatment for ADHD, integrated care boards, NHS trusts and health professionals should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG87: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management.
This guideline aims to improve recognition and diagnosis of ADHD, specifically highlighting the importance of recognising ADHD in women and girls, and to improve the quality of care and support that people of all ages who are diagnosed with ADHD receive.
The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting health outcomes for women and girls and improving how the health and care system listens to women. Improving information provision for women and girls is a priority. In July 2023, we launched a women’s health area on the National Health Service website. This brings together over 100 topics, including ADHD, and our ambition is for the NHS website to be the first port of call for women and girls seeking information.
The NICE guideline also covers considerations on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for ADHD. The guideline states that for children aged five years old and over and for adults, medication should be offered if ADHD symptoms are still causing a significant impairment in at least one domain, after environmental modifications have been implemented and reviewed. Overall, the decision and timescale for initiating medication should be a clinical decision based on the individual patient.
We are aware of current disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to some other medicines which should be largely resolved by April 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy for raising awareness of ADHD in women and young girls.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has no current plans to create a long-term strategy specifically for access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication, nor for raising awareness of ADHD or preventing misdiagnosis of ADHD in women and young girls.
It is the responsibility of local commissioners to make appropriate provisions available to meet the health and care needs of their local population. With respect to assessment, diagnosis and treatment for ADHD, integrated care boards, NHS trusts and health professionals should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG87: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management.
This guideline aims to improve recognition and diagnosis of ADHD, specifically highlighting the importance of recognising ADHD in women and girls, and to improve the quality of care and support that people of all ages who are diagnosed with ADHD receive.
The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting health outcomes for women and girls and improving how the health and care system listens to women. Improving information provision for women and girls is a priority. In July 2023, we launched a women’s health area on the National Health Service website. This brings together over 100 topics, including ADHD, and our ambition is for the NHS website to be the first port of call for women and girls seeking information.
The NICE guideline also covers considerations on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for ADHD. The guideline states that for children aged five years old and over and for adults, medication should be offered if ADHD symptoms are still causing a significant impairment in at least one domain, after environmental modifications have been implemented and reviewed. Overall, the decision and timescale for initiating medication should be a clinical decision based on the individual patient.
We are aware of current disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to some other medicines which should be largely resolved by April 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to help prevent misdiagnosis of ADHD amongst women and young girls.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has no current plans to create a long-term strategy specifically for access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication, nor for raising awareness of ADHD or preventing misdiagnosis of ADHD in women and young girls.
It is the responsibility of local commissioners to make appropriate provisions available to meet the health and care needs of their local population. With respect to assessment, diagnosis and treatment for ADHD, integrated care boards, NHS trusts and health professionals should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG87: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management.
This guideline aims to improve recognition and diagnosis of ADHD, specifically highlighting the importance of recognising ADHD in women and girls, and to improve the quality of care and support that people of all ages who are diagnosed with ADHD receive.
The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting health outcomes for women and girls and improving how the health and care system listens to women. Improving information provision for women and girls is a priority. In July 2023, we launched a women’s health area on the National Health Service website. This brings together over 100 topics, including ADHD, and our ambition is for the NHS website to be the first port of call for women and girls seeking information.
The NICE guideline also covers considerations on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for ADHD. The guideline states that for children aged five years old and over and for adults, medication should be offered if ADHD symptoms are still causing a significant impairment in at least one domain, after environmental modifications have been implemented and reviewed. Overall, the decision and timescale for initiating medication should be a clinical decision based on the individual patient.
We are aware of current disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to some other medicines which should be largely resolved by April 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will create a long-term strategy to ensure supply of key medication for ADHD.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. The Department has been working closely with the respective manufacturers, and some issues have now been resolved. However, we know that there continue to be disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, which should be largely resolved by April 2024. We have also added ADHD products to the list of medicines that cannot be exported from, or hoarded in, the United Kingdom, to protect supplies for UK patients. We understand how frustrating and distressing medicine supply issues can be and want to assure you that we are working with the respective manufacturers to resolve the issues with ADHD medicine supply in the UK as soon as possible, and to help ensure patients are able to access these medicines in the short and long term.
While we cannot always prevent supply issues from occurring, the Department has a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and help mitigate risks to patients. There is a team within the Department that deals specifically with medicine supply problems and which works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England, devolved administrations, and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans she has to implement the recommendations of the Law Commission's report Building families through surrogacy: a new law, HC1236, on (a) establishing a new pathway for surrogacy in which intended parents can be recognised as legal parents from birth, when supported by Regulated Surrogacy Organisations, (b) establishing a surrogacy register to enable people born through surrogacy to find out about their origins, (c) removing the need for surrogates’ partners to consent to parental orders and (d) introducing up to date guidance on what counts as a reasonable expense within a surrogacy agreement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government is giving consideration to all the recommendations in the Law Commission report, Building families through surrogacy: a new law, and will publish a full response in due course.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment the Government has made of the impact of postponing the implementation of the TV and online unhealthy food advertising restrictions to October 2025 on (a) rates of childhood obesity and (b) meeting the 2030 ambition to halve childhood obesity.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
A full impact assessment for the policy was published in June 2021 providing detail on the expected impact of the restrictions. We do not expect a short-term delay to the implementation to have a significant impact on the substantial benefits in the longer term.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason the Government made the decision to postpone the implementation of the TV and online unhealthy food advertising restrictions to October 2025; and whether new evidence was used to make that decision.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds North West Arfon on 10 January 2023 to Question 114808.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason he has delayed the introduction of a watershed of 9pm for television advertisements for food high in fat, salt and sugar.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leeds North West Arfon on 10 January 2023 to Question 114808.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which countries listed on the World Health Organisation's Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List currently have agreements with the UK to allow the recruitment of individuals from such countries to fill vacancies in the UK health and social care sectors; and which countries on that list the Government is currently seeking to negotiate such an agreement with.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Of those countries listed on the World Health Organization's Health Workforce Support and Safeguards List, the United Kingdom currently has a memorandum of understanding on the recruitment of healthcare workers with Nepal.
We are unable to provide information requested on countries we are currently in discussion with as it would be likely to prejudice relations between the UK and other states. When signed, Government-to-Government agreements are published to ensure transparency.