Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to improve ambulance response times in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group area.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group area, three Hospital Ambulance Liaison Officers are supporting patient handover at acute hospitals. Agency staffing is supporting front line paramedics on the clinical support desk, providing additional clinical triage to help avoid unnecessary ambulance responses. Staff have been redeployed to the Bristol clinical hub as appropriate to work as call takers, dispatch support clinicians and clinical validation. There has been engagement with acute trusts on handover delay issues, including monthly and daily meetings and information on pressures at acute hospital has been used to inform where ambulance patients are transported to.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of offering covid-19 antiviral treatments as a pre-exposure prophylaxis to people classed as clinically extremely vulnerable.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The RAPID C-19 collaboration has enabled multi-agency oversight of national and international trial evidence as it emerges for COVID-19 therapies for potential treatment and prophylactic indications. To date, the evidence has strongly supported treatment use, although the evidence on prophylactic use will be kept under review.
As part of the PANORAMIC national study, there will be a post-exposure prophylaxis sub-study which is expected to begin later in spring. This will investigate the effect of prescribing oral antivirals to those who are a household contact of a COVID-19 positive individual. In addition, the PROTECT-V study is trialling sotrovimab and niclosamide as prophylactic drugs administered over a six-month period in vulnerable renal and immunosuppressed patients.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact on young people's mental and physical health of lack of spaces in specialist services for young people with eating disorders.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
While no formal assessment has been made, we continuously monitor access to services. NHS England and NHS Improvement work with system leaders and regions to prioritise service delivery and investment for vulnerable young people. We are investing £79 million in 2021/22 to enable 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Government plans to bring forward its proposed consultation on nutritional information labelling for alcoholic drinks.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The consultation will be launched in due course.Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many care home residents are yet to receive a covid-19 booster vaccine.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
As of 6 February 2022, 15,215 or 4.5% of residents in all adult care homes were reported as yet to receive two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and 42,163 or 12.1% were reported as yet to receive the booster dose. A proportion of these residents will be medically exempt from vaccination or may not currently be eligible due to COVID-19 infection or other practical reasons. Residents may also have received their vaccination or booster dose, but it may not yet have been reported.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to support councils to deliver social care services for older and disabled people.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We will invest £5.4 billion over the next three years to reform adult social care. This includes more than £3.6 billion to reform the social care charging system, enabling local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair rate for care and over £1.7 billion to begin improvements across the social care system in England.
The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement proposes an additional £3.5 billion for councils - an increase in local authority funding for 2022/23 of over 4% in real terms. As part of this settlement, local authorities will have access to over £1 billion specifically for social care in 2022/23.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the level of unmet demand for specialist beds for young people with eating disorders in (a) the South West and (b) Bristol.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No formal assessment has been made. NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to work with system leaders and regions to prioritise service delivery and investment to meet the needs of vulnerable young people.
We are investing a further £79 million extra in 2021/22, which will allow 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services. NHS England and NHS Improvement are also investing £40 million in 2021/22 to address the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people’s mental health. Of this, £10 million capital funding is providing extra beds at units which provide care for young people with the most complex needs, as well as £1.5 million for additional facilities for children under 13 years of age, including for those with eating disorders.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Government plans to make an announcement on the provision of covid-19 vaccination to children aged five to 11 who are clinically extremely vulnerable or a close family member of someone who is immunosuppressed.
Answered by Maggie Throup
General practitioners (GPs) and hospital consultants are currently identifying eligible children and the National Health Service will contact their parents or carers. GPs will contact immunosuppressed individuals to advise that their family member is eligible for vaccination. We expect deployment to begin by the end of January 2022 with appointments offered by the NHS locally.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the NHS app will be updated to register when an immunosuppressed person has had a third primary covid-19 vaccination dose, rather than a booster.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Third vaccinations are currently recorded in the same section as booster doses in the NHS App. The functionality was immediately available at the start of the booster vaccination programme and is clinically accurate in recording details of the vaccine received. This information is updated on general practitioner records and the NHS COVID Pass.
More than 87% of the severely immunosuppressed cohort has received a third primary dose. An assessment of retrospectively updating records in the immediate future was made and it was determined that this could risk data quality issues. We are reviewing plans to record third primary doses via the NHS App in the longer term.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
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 ensure that frontline medical staff are able to get a vaccine exemption recorded on their NHS covid pass in cases where those individuals have a legitimate health reason for not having the covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Individuals can apply for a medical exemption through the NHS COVID Pass Service via 119. The guidance on medical exemptions sets out that applications will be clinically reviewed by a general practitioner, specialist clinician or midwife. The domestic NHS COVID Pass does not distinguish on the basis of COVID-19 status. Individuals should use their medical exemption confirmation letter to evidence their medical exemption status for vaccination as a condition of deployment purposes.