Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to promote (a) gender equality and (b) women's empowerment for women suffering from HIV.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
We are committed to driving progress and demonstrating leadership on gender equality and women's empowerment, including for women living with HIV, on the global stage. In April 2023, the UK convened member states, civil society, UN agencies and grassroots organisations at Wilton Park to bolster support for and resist rollback on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) at the national, regional and global level. In May 2023, the UK joined other G7 leaders in re-asserting the critical role of comprehensive SRHR, including HIV services for women, in our efforts to achieve gender equality.
Our political action on this is also supported by our programming investments. For example, 60 per cent of the Global Fund's spending is specifically targeted to programs for women and girls and about one-third of Global Fund investments directly benefits SRHR. Our Women's Integrated Sexual Health programme delivers integrated sexual and reproductive health services, including HIV services, across 17 countries in in sub-Saharan Africa. Up to £200 million will also be delivered towards the WISH Dividend women's sexual health programme focussed on sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest rates of fertility, child marriage and maternal mortality in the world. The Dividend programme will reach up to 10.4 million women, including women with HIV.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
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 reasons for regional differences in waiting times for access to NHS specialist menopause services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department does not hold data on waiting times for this specialist service, and has therefore not made an official assessment of the regional differences.
Most women can have their menopause treatment and support well-managed within primary care. The menopause is a core competency of all qualified general practitioners, as there is a specific section in the curricula on women's health, including the menopause.
However, some women may need to see a specialist. It is not within the remit of central government to commission specialist health services. Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning services that meet the health needs of their local population.
Our £25 million investment over the next two years to accelerate the development of women’s health hubs will improve access and quality of care for services including menopause care.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the prevalence of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in women’s football.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
It has been well documented that female football players are around three times more likely to suffer an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury than their male counterparts.
The Review of Women’s Football, published in July this year, examined the strategic priorities for the development of women's football and made recommendations on the future direction of the women's game. It highlighted the lack of sport exercise and scientific research which currently exists in women’s sport and that only 6% of sport exercise and science research involves only women. This lack of awareness means female athletes are often not being given the protection, expertise and support they need.
The Government has been speaking to the football authorities on all matters within the review, and is due to respond to the review in the autumn. We will address ACL injuries directly in that response, holding relevant stakeholders to account for action around player welfare.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 trends in the level of (a) verbal abuse and (b) physical attacks experienced by NHS staff in (i) Coventry, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) England in each of the last three years; and what steps his Department is taking to protect NHS staff in those areas from such abuse.
Answered by Will Quince
We do not currently have a national mechanism to capture and report incidents of violence and aggression in the National Health Service, as data is held at a local level.
The NHS Staff Survey does ask questions relating to incidences of violence, harassment, and abuse. The 2022 NHS Staff Survey indicated that 14.7% of NHS staff have self-reported that they had experienced at least one incident of physical violence from patients, service users, relatives, or other members of the public in the last 12 months. In addition, 27.8% of NHS staff who completed the survey experience at least one incident of harassment, bullying or abuse in the last 12 months from patients/service users, their relatives, or members of the public. This figure is broadly consistent across previous years. Data extracted from the Staff Survey is provided below for England, Coventry and the West Midlands.
The following table shows the extracted data from the Staff Survey for England, Coventry and the West Midlands relating to Question 13a (‘In the last 12 months how many times have you personally experienced physical violence at work from: Patients / service users, their relatives or other members of the public?):
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
England | 14.8% | 14.4% | 14.7% |
|
|
|
|
Coventry |
|
|
|
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust | 13.9% | 15.3% | 15.0% |
|
|
|
|
West Midlands |
|
|
|
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust | 21.6% | 18.6% | 20.3% |
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | 9.2% | 9.7% | 11.1% |
Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust | 8.4% | 6.4% | 7.8% |
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | 16.2% | 14.1% | 14.3% |
Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust | 15.0% | 14.3% | 14.5% |
Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust | 14.8% | 14.2% | 12.7% |
Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust | - | 0.0% | 2.7% |
George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust | 15.2% | 13.6% | 15.0% |
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust | 13.4% | 11.9% | 11.6% |
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust | 10.5% | 9.9% | 9.5% |
North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust | 17.3% | 19.0% | 20.0% |
Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 5.8% | 4.6% | 6.0% |
Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 3.4% | 4.8% | 7.4% |
Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust | 11.6% | 12.4% | 10.9% |
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust | 12.0% | 12.9% | 13.8% |
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust | 13.0% | 14.1% | 14.1% |
Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust | 7.8% | 6.8% | 8.4% |
South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust | 10.1% | 11.3% | 12.2% |
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust | 14.3% | 13.8% | 12.9% |
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust | 13.9% | 15.3% | 15.0% |
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust | 16.9% | 14.3% | 16.4% |
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust | 12.2% | 14.3% | 14.6% |
West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust | 36.3% | 37.4% | 35.1% |
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 12.6% | 13.4% | 12.3% |
Wye Valley NHS Trust | 13.4% | 14.4% | 11.9% |
The following table shows the extracted data from the Staff Survey for England, Coventry and the West Midlands relating to Question 14a (‘In the last 12 months how many times have you personally experienced harassment, bullying or abuse at work from patients/service users, their relatives or other members of the public?’):
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
England | 27.0% | 27.7% | 27.8% |
|
|
|
|
Coventry |
|
|
|
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust | 27.4% | 29.8% | 29.4% |
|
|
|
|
West Midlands |
|
|
|
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust | 20.0% | 15.5% | 17.3% |
Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | 22.7% | 23.9% | 25.7% |
Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust | 24.0% | 24.7% | 23.6% |
Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | 27.0% | 26.1% | 26.3% |
Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust | 22.9% | 26.0% | 23.8% |
Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust | 26.1% | 25.6% | 24.8% |
Dudley Integrated Health and Care NHS Trust | - | 20.0% | 23.9% |
George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust | 26.6% | 26.7% | 28.1% |
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust | 26.6% | 26.2% | 27.6% |
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust | 23.5% | 21.9% | 21.1% |
North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust | 26.5% | 28.6% | 25.7% |
Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 14.9% | 18.0% | 16.4% |
Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | 15.0% | 18.8% | 19.5% |
Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust | 26.7% | 25.9% | 25.9% |
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust | 28.7% | 29.6% | 29.8% |
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust | 26.2% | 29.5% | 27.6% |
Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust | 19.1% | 19.8% | 21.1% |
South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust | 25.1% | 28.1% | 25.5% |
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust | 25.2% | 25.0% | 26.2% |
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust | 27.4% | 29.8% | 29.4% |
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust | 24.6% | 25.8% | 29.4% |
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust | 30.0% | 29.7% | 27.3% |
West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust | 48.2% | 50.6% | 49.0% |
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust | 25.6% | 28.0% | 25.2% |
Wye Valley NHS Trust | 29.1% | 28.3% | 31.0% |
NHS England has commissioned several data insight workstreams to better understand the current landscape of statistics, data reporting and associated challenges. This includes a national review of all available data and intelligence sources and an analysis of the costs of violence to the health care system in England and a review of the impact on the safety and wellbeing of NHS staff.
Tackling violence against NHS staff is largely an employer led issue, with NHS organisations responsible for putting in place their own policies and procedures to support staff, giving them access to appropriate training and making appropriate arrangements for security.
NHS England established a NHS Violence Reduction Programme in 2019, which aims to prevent and reduce violence and aggression from patients, their families and the public, and mitigate the effects of violence and abuse on NHS staff.
In 2022, the Government legislated through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act to double the sentence for assaults on emergency workers to a maximum of two years.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking through the criminal justice system to tackle alcohol and drug-related crime in (a) Stoke-on-Trent and (b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We know that drug and alcohol related crime blights communities and drives reoffending, so it is essential the Criminal Justice System tackles substance misuse and supports offenders into treatment.
This is why MoJ have introduced the Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) to tackle alcohol related offending. The AAMR imposes an alcohol ban for up to 120 days, with compliance electronically monitored using an alcohol tag. Published statistics show a compliance rate with the ban of 97.2% for days monitored, since introduction, Electronic Monitoring Statistics Published June 2023 - Gov.uk. We have also introduced alcohol monitoring for offenders leaving custody and during the license period where alcohol misuse is a factor for reoffending; license conditions may be imposed which ban or limit alcohol consumption.
Drug Treatment Requirements can also be imposed as part of a community sentence, which aims to address the underlying causes of drug-driven offending behaviours and improve health outcomes.
All prisoners will also have access to high-quality treatment so they can turn their back on addiction. We are increasing the number of Incentivised Substance Free Living units to up to 100 by March 2025, where prisoners commit to remaining free of illicit drugs with regular drug testing and incentives - there are currently 60 open across the estate, including several in the West Midlands region.
The ongoing recruitment of Drug Strategy Leads based in category C and women's prisons, also allows for the coordination of the strategy’s whole system approach to tackling drugs.
We are recruiting Health and Justice Partnership Coordinators across England and Wales, to improve offender access to substance misuse and health services. These roles work regionally across the West Midlands, covering both Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
We know that for prison leavers, continuity of care after release is important. We are rolling out a project that will make probation aware of all person leavers who were in treatment in prison and have been referred to community treatment- enabling them to support appointment attendance. Mobilisation in Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire is underway and due to complete by March 2024.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how many projects under the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme his Department has allocated funding to; and how many of those projects closed before their initial planned end date.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme initially operated in 27 countries. In response to budgetary re-prioritisation and contextual changes (such as the security situation in Afghanistan), adjustments were made to the scale and pace of delivery. This included focusing support on 17 countries to ensure better value for money and coherence. Despite these changes, the WISH programme has continued to deliver strong results. In the last year alone, WISH has averted 6,800 maternal deaths and 2.2 million unintended pregnancies, and supported 873,540 additional users of modern methods of contraception.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps with the Secretary of State for Justice on including the unique needs of young women's mental health in the Young Women’s Strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We will join up with our colleagues at the Ministry of Justice as it takes this work forward. This will bring together best practice and evidence about how to support young women and provide the right service at every stage of their journey through the criminal justice system.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the Young Women's Strategy will include policies to help tackle (a) trauma, (b) gender, (c) age and (d) cultural challenges faced by young women.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Young Women’s Strategy forms part of the Female Offender Strategy Delivery Plan, which sets out what we will deliver over the period 2022-25. We do not yet have a specific publication date.
We are running young women’s residential pilots in two women’s prisons: learning from these will inform the Young Women’s Strategy. We will also be engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including specialist organisations and young women with lived experience.
The Female Offender Strategy Delivery Plan exemplifies the Government’s commitment to take a gender-specific and trauma-responsive approach that acknowledges the impact of neglect and abuse (as well as other forms of trauma) on health, mental health and behaviour. In developing the Young Women’s Strategy we will have due regard to issues of age and race.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Women's Health Strategy for England, published 30 August 2022, whether the Women’s Health Strategy Year 2 priorities will increase (a) access and (b) choice for all women who want contraception; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The priorities for the second year of implementing the Women’s Health Strategy will be announced shortly.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on (a) delivering the Women's Health Strategy for England and (b) reducing regional disparities in access to IVF treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In the first year of the Women’s Health Strategy, we have achieved a significant amount, including better health information for women and girls, investing in the expansion of women’s health hubs, improving access to hormone replacement therapy, and increasing support for bereaved parents who experience a loss before 24 weeks.
We have published a tool to summarise fertility commissioning policies for integrated care boards in England, to provide patients with more information and introduce greater transparency about local provision. We are continuing to work with NHS England on commitments to improve access for female same-sex couples and to end the use of non-clinical eligibility criteria in access to in-vitro fertilisation.