Asked by: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made on integrating social care and the NHS.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Health and Care Act 2022 established integrated care systems, reforming how health and adult social care work together by putting partnership at the heart of planning. The Government has published guidance for integrated care partnerships (ICPs), on the statutory requirement for each ICP to publish an Integrated Care Strategy to address the health, social care, and public health needs of their system. All ICPs have now published their integrated care strategies.
The integration of health and social care is often best achieved through collaboration across smaller geographies within integrated care systems called places. Since the Health and Care Act 2022, we have seen good progress in the development of place-based arrangements to integrate health and social care. In October 2023, we published our Shared Outcomes Toolkit designed to help place-based partnerships develop shared outcomes as a powerful means of promoting integrated working and joined up care. We also issued a call for evidence as part of our review of Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006, which permits local authorities and National Health Service bodies to pool budgets, enabling joint commissioning and the commissioning of integrated services. The findings of this review will be shared in due course.
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, whether she has made an assessment of the risk of people moving from non-nicotine to nicotine vapes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our health advice regarding vapes covers both non-nicotine as well as nicotine vapes, that while vaping can play a useful role in helping adult smokers to quit, non-smokers and children should never vape. The long-term health impacts of vaping are unknown, and the nicotine contained within nicotine vapes can be highly addictive.
We recognise the risk of non-nicotine vapes being used as a gateway to nicotine vapes by children. That is why the Tobacco and Vapes Bill includes new regulation making powers that will cover all vapes, nicotine as well as non-nicotine, to reduce their appeal and availability to children and non-smokers.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Southwark (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in allocating the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund 2023 to 2024 for adult social care; and what are their plans for allocation in the financial year 2024–25.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) gives an overall profile of almost £2 billion over two years. Local authorities can choose to use the funding to increase fee rates paid to adult social care providers, increase adult social care workforce capacity and retention, and reduce adult social care waiting times.
In 2023/34, a total of £927 million was made available to local authorities via MSIF, with a further £1.05 billion being made available in 2024/25. The funding has been distributed using the adult social care relative needs formula. Full local authority allocations for 2024/25 are available in the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund Grant Determination 2024 to 2025 on GOV.UK in an online-only format.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of banning the use of vapes in (a) public spaces, (b) bars and (c) vehicles with child passengers.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Vaping can be an effective tool for adult smokers to quit smoking. However, the health advice is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape. This is why the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will give us powers to crack down on child friendly flavours and packaging, and to change the way vapes are displayed in shops, measures on which we will shortly consult.
Inhaling anything other than fresh air may have long term health effects. Evidence on the harm from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke is well established and because of its carcinogenic content there is no safe level of exposure. Breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke is known to cause a range of health issues. However, there is currently no evidence to suggest that second-hand vapour causes wider health harms in the way tobacco smoke does. Therefore, the Government has no plans to introduce restrictions on where people can vape.
However, many public venues and spaces have their own policies on vaping. For example, most hospitals and public transport have banned vaping. Employers or operators of indoor spaces would be within their rights to implement policies banning the use of vapes in their premises and many do so.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of a full advertising ban on companies promoting vaping products.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health advice is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape and children should never vape. Advertising of vapes is already restricted by existing regulations. This includes a ban on advertising on television and radio, and through internet advertising, or commercial email. However, products can still be promoted elsewhere, such as on digital billboards.
Whilst we are not currently planning on making any further changes to the rules regarding vape advertising, we are taking action to protect children from the harms of vaping by taking new regulation making powers that can be used to limit vape flavours, how vapes are packaged, and where and how they can be displayed in retail settings. Collectively, these actions will reduce the appeal and accessibility of vapes to children, whilst ensuring vapes remain an effective smoking cessation tool for adult smokers.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average (a) cost per adult and (b) length of stay was for an acute hospital bed day in the Suffolk and North East Essex integrated care system in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The average cost per adult for an acute hospital bed day by integrated care system, is not collected centrally by the Department. NHS England publishes a national cost collection which includes unit costs for non-elective inpatient stays. This data is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/national-cost-collection/
The information on length of stay is not available in the format requested. NHS England publishes general and acute length of bed stay data, with data available at a trust level but not an integrated care system level. The trust level data is available at the following link:
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, whether she plans to develop vaping cessation programmes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Vaping can be an effective tool for adult smokers to quit smoking. However, the health advice is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape. We are concerned about the worrying rise in vaping among children, with youth vaping tripling in the last three years, and one in five children having now used a vape.
Whilst anyone smoking should focus on giving up cigarettes before giving up vaping, giving up vaping is an important step in overcoming nicotine dependence. We are working with the NHS Better Health website to provide advice for people who want to quit vaping. The National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training has produced guidance for local Stop Smoking Service staff on how best to support vapers to quit. We are also exploring further ways to support people to quit vaping, as part of the national Swap to Stop programme.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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 improve the treatment of Cholangiocarcinoma cancers; and whether a proportion of the additional funding allocated to her Department in the Spring Budget 2024 will be used to treat Cholangiocarcinoma cancers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier stage, more often, with survival rates improving across almost all types of cancer, and the National Health Service has been seeing and treating record numbers of cancer patients over the last two years. Improving early diagnosis of cancer, including cholangiocarcinoma cancers, is a priority for the NHS. The NHS has an ambition to diagnose 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028, which will help tens of thousands of people live for longer.
Although funding for treatment isn’t allocated for specific cancers, the Government has provided significant additional funding to the NHS and adult social care in England. Measures introduced at the Spring Budget will protect levels of funding for the NHS in England in real terms in 2024/25, by providing an extra £2.5 billion for 2024/25, meaning a total budget of £164.9 billion.
While this additional spending is needed, the Government recognises that more money cannot always be the answer to improving outcomes for patients. Alongside the £2.5 billion of extra funding for day-to-day activities, the Government will invest £3.4 billion to reform the way the NHS works. This funding will significantly reduce the 13 million hours of time doctors spend on poor IT, freeing up significant capacity, and revolutionising treatment for a range of illnesses such as cancer and strokes. This will double the investment in technological and digital transformation in the NHS in England, and turn the NHS into one of the most digitally enabled, productive healthcare systems in the world.
On 14 August 2023, the Government published the Major Conditions Strategy’s Case for Change and Our Strategic Framework, which sets out our approach to making the choices over the next five years that will deliver the most value when facing the health challenges of today and of the decades ahead, including for cancer. It will look at the treatment and prevention of cancer, covering the patient pathway. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers, to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial support is available to young adult carers between the ages of 16 and 19 who are in further education; and what steps her Department takes to ensure equitable access to that support across regions.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is determined that all young carers get the support they need to succeed in all stages of education.
The department provides a range of financial support for students who need it to enable them to participate in further education. This includes free meals, bursaries to help with the cost of education, such as travel, books, equipment, and trips, plus support for childcare and residential costs where required.
In the 2023/24 academic year, over £160 million of bursary funding has been allocated to institutions to help disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with the costs of taking part in education. This is nearly 12% higher than published allocations for last year. The department has also made available around £20 million each year specifically to support students in defined vulnerable groups, for example those in care, care leavers and those supporting themselves in receipt of certain social security funds or benefits.
To ensure that the distribution of this funding around the regions matches the needs of young people, the department began moving to a new approach to allocate the fund from the 2020/21 academic year. This approach uses up to date disadvantage data and focusses more on the costs of travel to ensure that institutions get more Bursary Fund if their students are from more disadvantaged areas and/or travel a long way to attend. The 2023/24 academic year allocations fully reflect this new approach after its phasing in over several years.
Institutions decide which young people receive bursaries and determine the level of financial support they receive. They develop their own eligibility criteria for access to the discretionary bursary fund, including setting a household income threshold appropriate to their area and must publish information on this for students.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number and proportion of NHS providers that have adopted two stage shared decision-making across all admitted pathways.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In May 2023, NHS England published guidance setting out five core perioperative care requirements relating to the care of adult patients awaiting planned inpatient surgery. One of these requirements is that patients must be involved in shared decision making regarding admitted pathways. NHS England does not collect data on the number of National Health Service providers that have adopted two stage shared decision making across all admitted pathways. NHS England’s published guidance is available at the following link: