Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS Inpatient Detox units there are by location.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are eight NHS inpatient detoxification units in England. They are listed below:
Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust (London),
Bridge House, Kent and Medway NHS Trust (Maidstone, Kent),
Dame Carol Black Unit, Midlands Foundation NHS Trust (Fareham, Hampshire),
Acer Unit, Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (Bristol),
Edward Myers Unit, Staffordshire Combined NHS Trust (Stoke),
New Beginnings, Rotherham, Doncaster, South Humber Foundation NHS Trust (Doncaster), Chapman Barker Unit, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust (Manchester),
Topaz Ward, Essex Partnership NHS Trust (Chelmsford, Essex).
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help increase the number of people participating in smoking cessation programmes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. It costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts a huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year. Quitting smoking is the best thing a smoker can do for their health and smokers are three times as likely to succeed with stop smoking services (SSS) when compared to an unsupported quit attempt.
As announced in Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation, published in October 2023, the Government is investing an additional £70 million per year for five years to support local authority-led SSS, around doubling current spend and supporting 360,000 people to set a quit date each year. To support engagement with SSS, and increase motivation to quit, we are spending an additional £15 million per year to fund national anti-smoking campaigns. We are also investing up to £45 million over two years to roll out our national ‘Swap to Stop’ scheme and establishing a financial incentives scheme to help pregnant smokers and their partners quit smoking with smoking cessation support.
Vaping is never recommended for children, and carries the potential harms of future addiction while their lungs and brains are still developing. The health advice is clear, vapes can be an effective tool to help smokers quit, but young people and those who have never smoked should not vape, or be encouraged to vape.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 provide mental health support for the dental workforce.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan commits the National Health Service to supporting staff health and wellbeing, and asks integrated care systems to develop plans to support NHS staff in maintaining their mental health.
The NHS dental workforce is also able to access the NHS Practitioner Health Service. NHS England is in the process of reviewing the service as part of a wider review into its mental health and wellbeing offer to all staff, including the dental workforce.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has she made of the potential merits of a men's health strategy for the economy.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst no specific assessment has been made, we are already taking action to address the health issues that disproportionately impact men. This includes through policies announced on International Men’s Day, such as the appointment of a Men’s Health Ambassador, to raise the profile of men’s health issues. The Major Conditions Strategy will also focus on improving health outcomes linked to major condition areas like cancer, cardiovascular, and chronic respiratory diseases that disproportionately impact men.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on increasing access to dentists in Maidstone and the Weald constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the 24 months to June 2023, 496,306 adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB). This figure is 12% higher than the year before, where 444,190 adults were seen by an NHS dentist, in the 24 months to June 2022.
On 7 February 2024, we published Faster, simpler, and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients across the country to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry, including in Maidstone and the Weald.
A new patient premium is supporting dentists in taking on new patients, and a new marketing campaign will help everyone who needs an NHS dentist in finding one. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable.
From 1 April 2023, the responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all ICBs across England. Kent and Medway ICB is responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need, and determine the priorities for investment across the ICB area.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of vaping on the health of pregnant women; and whether she plans to take steps to encourage pregnant women to stop vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our health advice on vaping is clear, if you smoke, it is better to vape, but if you don’t smoke, you should never vape. Evidence to date suggests vaping is less harmful than smoking. Research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research finds that pregnant women who vaped, when compared to women who used Nicotine Replacement Therapy, were twice as likely to quit, and that both approaches were safer than smoking. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01808-0
To help pregnant smokers quit smoking, the Government is providing up to £10 million of investment over 2023/24 and 2024/25 via a financial incentives scheme. This evidence-based intervention, supported by behavioural support, will encourage pregnant women to quit smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress she has made on retaining more GPs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There were 2,799 more full time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in general practice (GP) in December 2023, compared to December 2019. The Government is working with NHS England to increase the GP workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice. NHS England has made available a number of retention schemes, to boost the GP workforce.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to encourage pregnant women to undertake smoking cessation programmes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability, and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom, and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. Smoking in pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, and sudden infant death.
As set out in Stopping the Start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation, we are establishing a financially incentivised scheme to help pregnant smokers and their partners to quit smoking, with smoking cessation support. This evidence-based intervention will encourage pregnant women to give up smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
The objective is to have all maternity trusts that wish to participate in the scheme signed up by the end of 2024, so that all pregnant women who smoke in participating areas will be offered the opportunity to join the incentive scheme by December 2024.
This financial incentive scheme builds upon the NHS Long Term Plan’s ambition to ensure that all pregnant smokers can access behavioural support to quit from within maternity services, as well as additional funding for mass marketing campaigns on stopping smoking.
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 her planned timetable is for publishing a response to her Department's consultation on Expanding access to naloxone.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Naloxone is highly effective in reducing opioid overdose-related deaths, and the Government is working to widen access to, and increase the uptake of, this life saving drug. A prescription only medicine that is available across the United Kingdom, naloxone can be prescribed by a doctor or non-medical prescriber or provided, under a Patient Group Direction. It can also be supplied without prescription by drug services, which include specialist National Health Service and voluntary sector treatment services, as well as community pharmacies providing other substance misuse services across the UK.
Naloxone has been available for anyone to use in an emergency since 2005. There is good awareness of it, supported by earlier guidance by the Department and its agencies in 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2023. Drug treatment services and their suppliers also provide independent awareness-raising materials, targeting people who use opioids.
The Government launched a UK-wide public consultation to seek views on our proposal to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that more professionals, services, and family members can give out take-home naloxone supplies. The consultation closed on 6 March 2024, and the responses are currently being analysed. The Government will publish its official response shortly.
The Government is working to increase naloxone carriage, and has provided additional investment in drug treatment services to support this work. In England, local authorities and their partners have been increasing naloxone supply in recent years. There are now three naloxone products available, and supply has been meeting demand. To enable the Government to respond to any future change in demand for naloxone, the Department is working with the Home Office to model scenarios where demand for naloxone may increase, and has conducted a commercial engagement exercise to better understand the naloxone market, and the market’s capacity to respond to changes in demand.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the proposed WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, due to be considered by the 77th World Health Assembly in May, will include provisions to improve indoor air quality.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom welcomes the Pandemic Accord as an opportunity to strengthen global health security. Improving indoor air quality remains an important issue in public health. However, as the Accord aims to establish a high-level framework for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, we have pursued action on this specific issue in other multilateral settings.
The UK continues to support international improvements to indoor air pollution through its engagement with the World Health Organization (WHO). For example, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contributed to WHO projects in 2020 and 2022 to assess combined exposure to multiple chemicals in indoor air in schools. UKHSA continues to work with the International Society on Indoor Air Quality and Climate on the development of an open database on international indoor environmental quality guidelines. The database aims to be actively used by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across the world.
Moreover, the UK was a strong advocate for action to improve indoor air quality at last year’s United Nations General Assembly. We worked with international partners on this issue during the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. The UK was supportive of reference being made to the health impacts of indoor air pollution, which was subsequently adopted in the meeting’s political declaration on 5 October 2023, and is available on the United Nations website in an online-only format.