Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish the correspondence to NHS trusts requiring emergency departments to prioritise patients not in need of admission to hospital.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such correspondence has been issued to NHS Trusts.
NHS England wrote to systems and trusts on 25 January reiterating the need to improve A&E performance for all patients requiring emergency care, and emphasised some of the known best practice in emergency department processes to ensure delays to patient care are minimised.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Guidance on Department for Health and Social Care funding for non-consolidated pay awards in non-annex one organisations published in November 2023, when her Department plans to announce which NHS organisations have been successful in their funding applications.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The outcome of the applications will be communicated directly to the organisations that applied, by the end of the financial year. As this information will be commercially sensitive for these independent organisations, we do not intend to announce which organisations have been successful.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Guidance on Department for Health and Social Care funding for non-consolidated pay awards in non-annex one organisations published in November 2023, which NHS organisations have been approved for funding.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The outcome of the applications will be communicated directly to the organisations that applied, by the end of the financial year. As this information will be commercially sensitive for these independent organisations, we do not intend to announce which organisations have been successful.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse was of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
From the years 2018/19 to 2022/23, the National Health Service spent £1,096,083,822 on outsourcing radiology scans. Over this five-year period, 18 million outsourced radiology scans were provided, representing 7.9% of the total cost of all imaging services during this time.
The outsourcing of teleradiology scans by the NHS is used to help deliver targets on diagnostic waiting times and activity, including the diagnosis of illnesses such as cancer. Outsourcing allows the NHS to maintain important diagnostic activity whilst the Government continues to invest into building up diagnostic capacity, including through an increased number of community diagnostic centres. The following table shows the cost of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies each year from 2018/19 to 2022/23 and in total, as well as the number of activities outsourced:
Financial year | Total Cost of Outsourcing | Total Activity Outsourced |
2022-23 | £368,858,838 | 3,742,396 |
2021-22 | £241,015,574 | 3,465,108 |
2020-21 | £170,131,115 | 2,498,008 |
2019-20 | £192,261,028 | 4,531,398 |
2018-19 | £123,817,267 | 3,940,574 |
Total | £1,096,083,822 | 18,177,484 |
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many single sex ward breaches there have been in the NHS in England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The following link shows the Mixed-Sex Accommodation, the total occurrences of unjustified mixing in relation to sleeping accommodation in each of the last 10 years in the National Health Service in England.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent staff have worked on (a) developing and (b) maintaining the My Planned Care platform since 2022-23.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Planned Care was developed in 2021 and launched in February 2022. It is hosted by an NHS Commissioning Support Unit of behalf of NHS England.
My Planned Care waiting times are updated weekly, primarily through automated data management systems with minimal human resources. NHS England maintain the content as updated by each provider, which is part of a wider programme of work. It is estimated that between the waiting time weekly updates and the content maintenance, the resources utilised are less than 0.1 full-time equivalent per week.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
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 knee replacement operations do not require an overnight stay in hospital.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
For the year 2022/23, based on the latest data available from Hospital Episode Statistics, there were 87,584 finished consultant episodes (FCEs) and 11 attended outpatient appointments, with a knee replacement as the main procedure. Of the FCEs, 969 were day cases, where the patient was discharged from hospital on the same day that they were admitted. Day cases and attended outpatient appointments, which did not require an overnight stay in hospital, represented 1.1% of knee replacement operations.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS GP appointments for patients with eye conditions there were in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The data is not held by the Department. NHS England publishes monthly data on General Practice Appointments, but this does not track patient-level data and therefore does not include a break-down of the conditions or symptoms a patient was seen for.
Integrated care boards in many areas commission enhanced services from high street optical practices. This includes minor and urgent community eye care services, pre and post cataract checks and glaucoma monitoring, to help alleviate secondary care pressures.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GP referrals of patients to eye specialists there were in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The data is not held by the Department. NHS England publishes monthly data on General Practice Appointments, but this does not track patient-level data and therefore does not include a break-down of the conditions or symptoms a patient was seen for.
Integrated care boards in many areas commission enhanced services from high street optical practices. This includes minor and urgent community eye care services, pre and post cataract checks and glaucoma monitoring, to help alleviate secondary care pressures.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many meetings she has held with representatives from obesity charities and organisations since being appointed.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care meets regularly with external stakeholders on a variety of issues. These ministerial meetings are routinely published on a quarterly basis in arrears on GOV.UK.