Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) reduce national waiting times for GP appointments and (b) increase the number of GPs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We have made £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This is in addition to £1.5 billion announced in 2020 to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024. In April 2022 45.2% of appointments took place on the same day as the booking was made, with 72.8% taking place within seven days. We have also put in place a short-term solution to assist practices to provide additional capacity to respond to telephone calls from patients, while a long-term approach is developed.
We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encourage them to return to practice. In March 2022, there were 1,462 more full-time equivalent doctors in general practice compared to March 2019.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce GP waiting times in Bath.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is developing a communications plan to assist patients to select the most appropriate service to meet their needs and self-care where appropriate. Each Primary Care Network (PCN) is recruiting staff through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to increase capacity. Reception staff undertake training to direct patients to the appropriate member of the practice’s multi-disciplinary team. The CCG has commissioned Lantum to create a pool of multidisciplinary primary care staff to support PCNs to increase workforce capacity in general practice and enable local general practitioners to work flexibly.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
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 (a) private and (b) NHS dentists across the country broken down by Clinical Commissioning Groups.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The information requested on the number of private dentists is not held. A table showing the number of dentists undertaking National Health Service activity in each clinical commissioning group in England in 2020/21 is attached.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
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 impact of calorie labelling on people with eating disorders.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Department published an impact assessment and an equalities impact assessment on the likely effect of calorie labelling for out of home food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways. As part of these assessments, we have considered the available evidence around eating disorders and displaying calorie information. The Department will continue to evaluate the impact of the out of home calorie labelling Regulations, including on people living with eating disorders. We will review the Regulations and publish a post-implementation review within three to five years.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' position statement on Equitable access to maternity care for refugee, asylum seeking and undocumented migrant women, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to high quality interpretation services in maternity care in order to reduce disparities in maternity outcomes for migrant women.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ ‘Language interpreting and translation: migrant health guide’ provides advice for healthcare practitioners on the health needs of migrant patients, which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/language-interpretation-migrant-health-guide
The guidance states it is the responsibility of National Health Service providers to ensure that interpreting and translation services are made available to patients free at the point of delivery.
On 6 September 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement published ‘Equity and equality: Guidance for local maternity systems’, which is available at the following link:
It asks local maternity systems to consider the impact of language on women’s needs and ensure personalised care and support plans are available in a range of languages. The guidance directs staff to resources to support communication between healthcare staff and ethnic minority pregnant women, including the ‘Help us help you’ maternity campaign, a communications toolkit and the interpretation and translation services framework.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What steps he is taking to help ensure that ambulance services meet their response time targets.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to supporting the ambulance service to manage the pressures it is facing.
Investments in the ambulance workforce have increased the number of NHS ambulance and support staff by 38% since July 2010, and boosted 999 call handler numbers to over 2,400 at the end of March, 500 more than in September.
Ambulance trusts receive continuous central monitoring and support through NHS England’s National Ambulance Coordination Centre and there is targeted, intensive support to the most challenged hospitals to improve patient handovers, helping ambulances get swiftly back on the road.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
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 Monday 14 March 2022 to Question 119826, if he will specify (a) the source and sum of the funds allocated to the care providers and (b) the criteria for selection of the care providers.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information is not held in the format requested. Specialist care for children and young people from a non-white ethnic background with serious mental health problems is funded by local and national commissioners. Services are provided in the same way for people from all ethnic backgrounds and by a range of providers in England.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the volume of plastic waste that has been generated as a result of the use of (a) PCR and (b) lateral flow covid-19 tests.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We have no plans to make such an estimate as information on used later flow device and polymerase chain reaction tests is not held. The UK Health Security Agency is committed to reviewing options for minimising testing related wastage.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether an assessment was made during the design stage of the covid-19 testing system of the environmental effects of plastic waste generated as a result of (a) PCR and (b) lateral flow covid-19 tests.
Answered by Maggie Throup
No assessment was made. However, work on improving the environmental and sustainability aspects of all testing products is continuing.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to Answer of 20 January 2022 to Question 105579 on Coronavirus: Travel, when digital covid-19 recovery certificates will be available to people aged 12 and over.
Answered by Maggie Throup
From 3 February 2022, children aged 12 years old and over can access a digital NHS COVID Pass for international travel. The travel digital NHS COVID Pass will show evidence of prior infection or recovery for 180 days following a positive National Health Service polymerase chain reaction test and provide a record of COVID-19 vaccinations received. The pass is available via NHS.UK for those aged 12 years old and over and via the NHS App for those aged 13 years old and over.