Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will (a) list the amount of funding allocated to each children's hospice for the 2024-25 financial year and (b) outline her Department's timescale for distributing this funding to each hospice.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Last year, NHS England confirmed that it will be renewing the funding for Children and Young People’s hospices for 2024/25, once again allocating £25 million of funding, using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as in 2022/23 and 2023/24. This prevalence-based approach ensures that the funding matches local need.
The distribution of the 2024/25 funding to children’s hospices will be via integrated care boards (ICBs), in line with the wider move to a devolved National Health Service, in which ICBs are best placed to meet the health and care needs of their local population. The Department and NHS England hope to be able to provide the greater clarity that the sector is seeking on this important funding stream shortly.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening Unit is taking as part of the breast screening improvement plan; what the timeline is for their delivery; and how much funding has been allocated for their delivery.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England Midlands is the responsible commissioner for the NHS Breast Cancer Screening Programme delivered across the Warwickshire, Solihull, and Coventry locality. The Warwickshire, Solihull, and Coventry service is one of the largest breast screening services in England, inviting approximately 55,000 people for screening each year.
NHS England Midlands has advised that for the breast screening improvement plan, work has begun on reviewing coverage for the Warwickshire, Solihull, and Coventry breast screening services. The service continues to collaborate with primary care practices to promote uptake for patients in low uptake areas, and staff facilitate local community events to educate on the importance of breast screening, for instance at the Godiva and Pride Festivals in Coventry.
In 2024/25 the service will receive a contract value in excess of £3 million, to ensure that cancer is detected early through screening. The service has also received capital investment during the last two years, which has supported additional imaging equipment to increase overall screening capacity within the service and pathway.
Work continues to ensure the current breast screening provision is improving, and once coverage has returned to pre-pandemic levels, NHS England Midlands hope to go further on ambitions to decrease inequity across all cancer screening programmes.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the data published by the Royal College of Nursing on 8 February 2024 on the proportion of general practice nursing staff that received a pay uplift for 2023-24.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We hugely value and appreciate the vital work carried out by general practice (GP) nurses. The Government accepted the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body’s recommendation on salaried GP staff pay, and increased the 2023/24 GP contract to provide funding for them to receive a 6% pay rise. We expect all practices to pass this on to staff. As self-employed contractors to the National Health Service, it is for GPs to determine employee pay.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the National Institute for Health Research is funding research projects relating to thyroid disorders as of 26 February 2024.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government funds research on thyroid disorders via the Department through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds and supports research into thyroid disorders through its research infrastructure, namely facilities, services and research workforce, and its research programmes. This includes research on the broad range of conditions that may affect the function of the thyroid gland, including hypo- and hyper-thyroidism, thyroid cancer and thyroid removal following surgery.
An example of NIHR research is a study investigating the risks of developing obesity, cardio-metabolic conditions, and risk of death in a cohort of 25,000 newly diagnosed patients with hyperthyroidism, and to compare the risks of these outcomes between all three modalities used to treat hyperthyroidism.
The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health including thyroid disorders and applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made based on the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. It is not usual practice for the NIHR to ring fence funds for particular topics or conditions.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to increase the number of students enrolling in nursing higher education courses.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are working closely with NHS England, the Department for Education, and universities, to ensure everyone who wants to pursue a rewarding healthcare career in nursing, has the support and opportunities to do so.
To support students training in clinical roles, we provide eligible students with a grant of at least £5,000 a year through the NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF). This includes additional incentives for priority specialisms, such as mental health, with further funding available depending on personal circumstances. The Government continues to widen access to nursing careers through blended learning and apprenticeship routes. Apprenticeships provide an alternative route for people to earn as they learn and we now have a complete apprentice pathway for nursing, from entry level to postgraduate advanced clinical practice.
The number of applicants to nursing degrees continues to outstrip the places on offer. Nursing training places are competitive, and lead to an attractive and important career in the National Health Service. There are record numbers of nurses now working in the NHS, and the first ever NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, backed by over £2.4 billion, will add 24,000 more nurse and midwifery training places by 2031.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with officials in the Department for Education on steps to support student nurses.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are working closely with NHS England, the Department for Education, and universities, to ensure everyone who wants to pursue a rewarding healthcare career in nursing, has the support and opportunities to do so.
To support students training in clinical roles, we provide eligible students with a grant of at least £5,000 a year through the NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF). This includes additional incentives for priority specialisms, such as mental health, with further funding available depending on personal circumstances. The Government continues to widen access to nursing careers through blended learning and apprenticeship routes. Apprenticeships provide an alternative route for people to earn as they learn and we now have a complete apprentice pathway for nursing, from entry level to postgraduate advanced clinical practice.
The number of applicants to nursing degrees continues to outstrip the places on offer. Nursing training places are competitive, and lead to an attractive and important career in the National Health Service. There are record numbers of nurses now working in the NHS, and the first ever NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, backed by over £2.4 billion, will add 24,000 more nurse and midwifery training places by 2031.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she plans to take to help increase the (a) stock of colonoscopy equipment, (b) number of colonoscopy facilities and (c) number of trained staff; and what other steps she plans to take to increase the use of colonoscopies in detecting bowel cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is not currently planning to take steps to increase the stock of colonoscopy equipment. £2.3 billion was awarded at the Spending Review 2021 to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Within this funding, NHS England is delivering an expected net increase uplift of 67 endoscopy rooms in acute trusts or in non-community diagnostic centre (CDC) developments. In CDCs, current plans are for 46 sites to be delivering endoscopies from March 2025, of which, 39 will deliver colonoscopies. This will help to support integrated care boards not currently meeting the optimal capacity of 3.5 rooms per 100,000 people over 50 years old, to do so.
NHS England will continue to deliver initiatives to train around 100 clinical endoscopists per annum to be capable of delivering colonoscopies and other gastrointestinal procedures. In addition to this NHS England is also training doctors, such as gastroenterologists, in the same procedures and continuing to develop, implement and improve immersive and rapid colonoscopy training through endoscopy academies.
As of October 2023, there are over 3,200 full-time equivalent doctors working in the specialty of gastroenterology within National Health Service trusts and other core organisations in England. This is over 100, or 4.3%, more than in 2022, over 500, or 20.1%, more than in 2019, and almost 1,400, or 75.2%, more than in 2010.
To improve bowel cancer diagnosis, the NHS has implemented timed cancer pathways for gastro-intestinal (GI) disease. This includes the implementation of Faecal Immunochemical Testing for those with symptoms in the lower GI, to prevent these patients from having unnecessary colonoscopies, freeing up capacity for these procedures and ensuring the most urgent symptomatic patients are seen more quickly.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she plans to take to (a) help ensure equality of access to radiotherapy, (b) recruit more staff, (c) acquire more equipment and (d) otherwise increase radiotherapy capacity.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and NHS England are already taking steps to ensure that cancer patients can receive high quality radiotherapy treatment across England. This includes supporting advances in radiotherapy using cutting-edge imaging and technology to help target radiation doses at cancer cells more precisely.
Despite the impact of the pandemic and recent industrial action, 340,530 people received their first cancer treatment in the 12 months to November 2023, a record high. Between 2016 and 2021, the Government invested £162 million to replace or upgrade around 100 radiotherapy treatment machines. This is in addition to funds invested by National Health Service trusts from their capital budgets or donations. However, responsibility for investing in radiotherapy machines has sat with integrated care boards since April 2022, with guidance advising systems to replace the majority of radiotherapy equipment at 10 years of age.
NHS England is supporting the growth of the cancer workforce, including radiotherapy, through the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan to ensure that we have staff to meet the projected growth in demand for cancer treatment. In October 2023 there were over 34,900 full-time equivalent staff in the cancer workforce, an increase of over 12,400, or 55.3%, since October 2010.
NHS England is expanding diagnostic capacity for cancer, including through the roll-out of our new community diagnostic centres (CDCs). These have delivered over six million tests since July 2021, including vital cancer checks. CDCs will deliver up to 17 million tests by March 2025, with capacity for nine million more a year once all are fully operational.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she plans to take to help ensure adequacy of funding for cancer research over the next ten years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £121.8 million in 2022/23 and the NIHR spends more on cancer than any other disease group.
In terms of future funding, the NIHR funds research both in response to proposals received from scientists and by identifying areas, like brain cancer, where we want to see more research. It is not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics or conditions. All research applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition.
Future investment in research and innovation is a priority for the Government. We know developments in areas including genomics and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform the experience of cancer, informed by research. The United Kingdom, with its extensive experience of delivering innovative cancer trials, is well placed to integrate research and treatment for the benefit of cancer patients. Innovative trials such as the Galleri blood test and cancer vaccines are already ongoing, and we are investing in crucial research into new treatments, diagnostics, and medical technologies through the NIHR and research funding partners to transform the future of cancer.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that people with Lynch Syndrome are (a) informed of their condition and (b) made aware of their increased risk of bowel cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England, through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service, has launched a national transformation project to ensure more patients with Lynch syndrome are identified and benefit from regular check-ups, earlier interventions, and more targeted treatment, such as combinations of immunotherapy, chemotherapy and surgeries.
People aged between 25 and 75 years old identified as having Lynch Syndrome will be included in the surveillance arm of the National Health Service bowel cancer screening programme, and will be offered a colonoscopy every two years.
The national programme ensures all people diagnosed with bowel and endometrial are offered genomic testing, with a diagnosis for Lynch syndrome not only helping to guide more personalised cancer treatment but enabling their families and relatives to be offered testing too.