Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department will maintain its commitment to publishing a long-term NHS workforce plan by the end of 2022; and whether that plan will be underpinned by multi-year funding.
Answered by Will Quince
In January 2022, the Department commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan to follow the NHS People Plan. The plan is due for completion by the end of 2022 and its key conclusions will be available in due course. The plan will be used to inform how we can meet the future needs of patients and the National Health Service workforce. Funding plans beyond the current Spending Review period will be subject to the outcome of future Spending Reviews.
Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)
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 (a) podiatry vacancy rates in the NHS in St Austell and Newquay constituency and (b) the impact these vacancies will have on patient treatment for diabetic foot complications.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the exclusion of pharmacists from the shortage occupation list and the effect of that exclusion on the community pharmacy sector.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has regular discussions with the Home Secretary on a range of subjects including immigration policy and its impact on the health and social care sectors.
The Government is committed to ensuring that the National Health Service has the right number of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals that it needs.
Latest NHS Digital data shows there are 4,300 more pharmacists in March 2019 than there were in March 2010.
Asked by: Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will develop a national action plan to (a) provide all NHS hospitals with automated dispensing cabinets integrated with ePMA to improve patient safety and eradicate errors in medicine prescription and administration and (b) deliver on all other aspects of his Department's technology vision.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Funding has been identified (£68 million) to support the acceleration of the introduction of ePrescribing and Medicine Administration (ePMA) systems for which there is evidence to support benefit. Individual trusts are making their own determinations of requirements for technology such as automated cabinets and are introducing as required locally. Work to integrate such systems with ePMA has started and will be reinforced with the advent of medication messaging standards as these are developed.
The Government has created NHSX, a joint unit between the Department, NHS England and NHS Improvement, to deliver the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care's Technology Vision and build on the Long Term Plan for the NHS. NHSX will combine all the levers of policy, implementation and change to allow a single-minded focus on giving the National Health Service the technology that patients and clinicians need.