Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has provided additional (a) financial and (b) other support to help tackle (i) patient backlogs and (ii) increased workloads in GP surgeries in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, published in February 2022, stated the ambition to reduce patient backlogs for planned National Health Service treatments and the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. We made £520 million available to expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This was in addition to at least £1.5 billion announced in 2020 by 2024 which includes supporting increased workloads in general practitioner (GP) surgeries, including in Walsall South. In September 2022, ‘Our plan for patients’ announced measures to support GP practices increase access and manage workloads, such as the provision of 31,000 phone lines and funding to expand the staff roles working in general practice, including in Walsall South.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of GP surgeries were rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in Walsall South constituency in each six month period of the last three years.
Answered by Will Quince
The information requested is shown in the following table.
Date | Number of practices | Proportion of practices |
3 October 2022 | 19 | 79.2% |
4 April 2022 | 19 | 79.2% |
1 October 2021 | 18 | 75% |
5 April 2021 | 18 | 75% |
1 October 2020 | 17 | 75% |
6 April 2020 | 18 | 72% |
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of care homes were rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in Walsall South constituency in each six month period of the last three years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The following table shows the number and proportion of care homes in Walsall South constituency rated as ‘good’ by the Care Quality Commission in each six month period in the last three years.
Date | Number of care homes | Proportion of care homes |
3 October 2022 | 12 | 54.5% |
4 April 2022 | 13 | 61.9% |
1 October 2021 | 13 | 61.9% |
5 April 2021 | 13 | 61.9% |
1 October 2020 | 11 | 55% |
6 April 2020 | 11 | 57.9% |
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
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 help support young people with eating disorders in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
In September we announced ‘Our Plan for Patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Walsall South. Making it easier to access general practice through our ABCD priorities will expand this route as a gateway to mental health care.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Walsall South.
We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
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 help improve access to mental health services in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Caroline Johnson - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
In September we announced ‘Our Plan for Patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Walsall South. Making it easier to access general practice through our ABCD priorities will expand this route as a gateway to mental health care.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Walsall South.
We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of residential care homes that have closed in Walsall South constituency in each six month period in the last two years.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
There has been one care home deactivation in Walsall South constituency in the last two years, which took place between 1 April and 30 September 2021.
The Care Quality Commission records care homes which have closed as ‘deactivated’. The ‘deactivated’ locations exclude care homes where the provider continues to operate under a new, separate registration. This could be due to a legal entity change or a change in the provider.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
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 help reduce waiting times for elective surgeries in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including in Walsall South. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A proportion of this funding will be invested in workforce capacity and training and we have committed to invest £5.9 billion for new beds, equipment and technology.
The target to eliminate waiting times of two years or more for elective procedures was met in July 2022 and we aim to eliminate waiting time of eighteen months or more by April 2023. This will be achieved through increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector and engaging with patients to understand choices made regarding their care.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of social care capacity in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
No specific assessment has been made. Local authorities’ have a responsibility under the Care Act 2014 to ensure that the care needs of the local population are met.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the NHS dentist provision in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Walsall South. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Walsall South.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
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 help improve access to NHS dental services in Walsall South constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Walsall South. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Walsall South.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.