Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people on waiting lists for dentistry appointments in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. Therefore, neither Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB) nor NHS England hold any information regarding waitlists for dentistry appointments.
To facilitate access for patients, Additional Access sessions have been commissioned in this ICB since 2020, where practices deliver sessions above the contracted activity levels normally commissioned to help patients access care if they have an urgent treatment need. There are three practices taking part in this scheme in Hampshire based in Eastleigh, Gosport, and Portsmouth.
We are currently working on a plan for dentistry, to improve access to dental care across England. There are several fronts where we need to take further action to support and recover activity in NHS dentistry, to improve access to care for all ages.
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan will build upon the first package of reforms agreed in July 2022, which included changes to banding and the introduction of a minimum Units of Dental Activity value. Our plan will include addressing how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to dentistry services in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. Therefore, neither Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB) nor NHS England hold any information regarding waitlists for dentistry appointments.
To facilitate access for patients, Additional Access sessions have been commissioned in this ICB since 2020, where practices deliver sessions above the contracted activity levels normally commissioned to help patients access care if they have an urgent treatment need. There are three practices taking part in this scheme in Hampshire based in Eastleigh, Gosport, and Portsmouth.
We are currently working on a plan for dentistry, to improve access to dental care across England. There are several fronts where we need to take further action to support and recover activity in NHS dentistry, to improve access to care for all ages.
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan will build upon the first package of reforms agreed in July 2022, which included changes to banding and the introduction of a minimum Units of Dental Activity value. Our plan will include addressing how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
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 access to (a) GP services and (b) dentistry services in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions to improve access, both nationwide and in Portsmouth South: to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice; and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.
We will achieve this by modernising telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. All practices have now signed up to transition to new digital systems. The plan will empower patients to do more themselves, cutting bureaucracy for general practitioners and building capacity to deliver more appointments. We are investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce.
In July 2022 we announced a package of reforms to improve access to National Health Service dentistry, which outlined the steps we are taking to meet oral health need and increase access to dental care. The changes that have been implemented include improvements to ensure dentists are remunerated more fairly for more complex work. We expect to publish our Dental Recovery Plan shortly for further reform to make improvements.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to GP services in Portsmouth South constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions to improve access, both nationwide and in Portsmouth South: to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice; and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.
We will achieve this by modernising telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. All practices have now signed up to transition to new digital systems. The plan will empower patients to do more themselves, cutting bureaucracy for general practitioners and building capacity to deliver more appointments. We are investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce.
In July 2022 we announced a package of reforms to improve access to National Health Service dentistry, which outlined the steps we are taking to meet oral health need and increase access to dental care. The changes that have been implemented include improvements to ensure dentists are remunerated more fairly for more complex work. We expect to publish our Dental Recovery Plan shortly for further reform to make improvements.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what modelling his Department has conducted to estimate that the steps outlined in the Minister for Primary Care and Public Health's Written Statement of 11 April 2023 on Achieving Smokefree 2030: cutting smoking and stopping kids vaping, UIN HCWS710, will help reduce smoking rates to 5% or less in England by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Annex 1 of ‘Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation’ sets out the modelling used to forecast changes in smoking prevalence over time based on legislating for a smokefree generation. This modelling is preliminary and will continue to be further refined ahead of publication of a full impact assessment.
Annex 1 is available at the following link:
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on reducing adult smoking rates to 5% or less in England by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Smoking rates in England have been consistently falling and are currently at the lowest rate on record at 12.7%, based on 2022 data.
The Government remains firmly committed to the ambition of England being Smokefree by 2030, namely a smoking prevalence of 5% or less, and recognises that progress must be accelerated to meet this bold ambition. On 4 October 2023, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to introduce a new law to stop children who turn 14 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, in a bid to create the first ‘smokefree generation’. This announcement was accompanied with additional funding including £70 million extra per year to fund local stop smoking services and £5 million this year and then £15 million per year thereafter to fund national stop smoking marketing campaigns.
This is in addition to a range of other measures which we announced in April 2023. The measures included a new national swap to stop scheme to provide vapes to one million smokers to help them to quit, and an evidence-based financial incentives scheme to help all pregnant smokers to quit.
We are confident that these new measures, in addition to the actions we are already taking, will set us on course to achieve our Smokefree 2030 ambition. We will continue to monitor progress.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department plans to allocate to the roll out of the national cross-government strategy on preventing suicide.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We recently launched our Suicide Prevention Grant Fund, which makes £10 million available over the next two years to support suicide prevention activities delivered in England by voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations.
The fund will help non-profit organisations in meeting the increased demand seen in recent years and assist a range of diverse and innovative activity that can prevent suicides, both at a national and community level. It will especially support those organisations working with groups of concern identified in the new suicide prevention strategy for England.
Wider investment includes £57 million being spent on suicide prevention and suicide bereavement services in all local areas to March 2024 via the NHS Long Term Plan and the £150 million capital investment being made available to improve mental health urgent and emergency care pathways.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to (a) improve awareness of pelvic organ prolapse and (b) increase support for those suffering with that condition.
Answered by Will Quince
Improving awareness of women’s health conditions is a priority in the strategy. In July, a women’s health area was created on the National Health Service website, bringing together over 100 topics including pages on pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence. In addition, a pelvic organ prolapse patient information leaflet has been produced by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to support patients with information and aims to help them better understand their health and their options for treatment and care.
We are working to improve services for pelvic floor dysfunction. We are investing £25 million to establish at least one women’s health hub across every integrated care system. The core specification for these hubs, published on 21 July, sets out pessary fitting and removal as a key service to provide in hubs. It recommends that local systems consider building further pelvic organ prolapse care into their hub model, including assessment, conservative management such as pelvic floor physiotherapy and, if needed, referral to specialist services.
The NHS Long Term Plan also set out a commitment to ensure that women have access to multidisciplinary pelvic health clinics and pathways across England. NHS England is currently rolling out Perinatal Pelvic Health Services, which aim to improve prevention, identification and access to physiotherapy for pelvic health issues antenatally and postnatally. Full rollout across England is expected by March 2024.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
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 30 June 2023 to Question 190974 on Prescription Drugs: Side Effects, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of conducting an assessment of the potential impact of prescribed medications that have a known side-effect of weight gain on trends in the level of (a) adult and (b) child obesity.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department will respond to the consultation entitled Down Syndrome Act 2022 guidance: call for evidence which closed on 8 November 2022; and if he will publish (a) the complete set of responses to the call for evidence and (b) a breakdown of respondents by profession.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are undertaking analysis of the responses received from the Down Syndrome Act guidance call for evidence to inform the draft guidance and will issue a report after the summer Parliamentary recess. This report will include a detailed breakdown of respondents and information about what capacity individuals or organisations were responding in, and the area they work in, such as healthcare, social care or local Government.
The draft Down Syndrome Act guidance will be issued for consultation in due course.