Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many health visitors are employed by the NHS; and how many were employed on 1 September 2010.
Answered by Will Quince
The number of health visitors working in National Health Service trusts and other core organisations in England is published monthly by NHS England as part of their NHS Workforce Statistics Collection. The data can be found in the nurses by setting table at the following link:
The data includes staff employed by NHS trusts and commissioning bodies, but excludes staff directly employed by primary care, general practitioner surgeries, local authorities, and other providers such as community interest companies and private providers.
Local authorities have been responsible for commissioning health visiting services since 2015. These services may be commissioned from NHS trusts as well as other providers.
Asked by: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative - Spelthorne)
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 assessment of the potential merits of revising existing (a) training and (b) national curriculum programs for staff within the (i) healthcare and (ii) social sectors to increase the understanding of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; and if he will commission a public health awareness campaign on the condition for the general public.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There are no current plans to revise existing training and education, as there are already several mechanisms in place to increase understanding of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) amongst healthcare and social care staff.
For example, in 2022 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a FASD Quality Standard, at the request of the Department of Health and Social Care. The Quality Standard outlines several actions to be taken by service providers and healthcare professionals to improve assessment, diagnosis, and management of FASD.
In social sectors, to support continuous improvement of practice for child and family social workers, the Department for Education has developed the Post Qualifying Standards for child and family social work, which set out the skills and knowledge they need to protect vulnerable children and families. This includes children with complex needs, such as those with FASD.
There are no plans to commission a specific public health awareness campaign for FASD. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, NHS England and local commissioners continue to raise awareness and education on the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant and through midwives and health visitors. The Department of Health and Social Care already publishes guidance for communicating the United Kingdom’s Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines, which includes the risks associated with alcohol consumption in pregnancy.
Additionally, the Maternity Disparities Taskforce is producing guidance to support women to make healthy decisions when planning for pregnancy, which will include information on the risks of drinking while pregnant.
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 recent estimate he has made of the number of care homes which do not offer residents full visitation rights.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the week ending 14 August 2023, 99.1% (13,451) of care homes in England reported that they were able to accommodate residents receiving visitors (in or out of the care home and in all circumstances). A further 0.4% (55) of care homes responded they were able to accommodate visits in exceptional circumstances.
Asked by: Baroness Merron (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce backlogs in community child health services.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to reducing community health care waiting lists for children and young people. That is why the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets commitments to grow the community workforce, with increases in training places for district nurses, health visitors, school nurses and allied health professionals, and a renewed focus on retaining existing staff.
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 he will make an estimate of the total number of visits by health visitors that took place in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Will Quince
Since 2015, when commissioning was moved to local authorities, the Department has annually published statistics on the number of mandatory visits delivering the Healthy Child Programme by Health Visitors. Data on additional visits is only available for 2019/20. Visit statistics are not available prior to 2015. The information is shown in the attached table.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) doctors, and (2) nurses, left the NHS in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021, and (d) 2022.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The table below shows the published data on the leaver rates as a percentage and the number of doctors and nurses & health visitors who have left active service in National Health Service trusts and core organisations, for each annual period 2019 to 2022.
Period | Doctors | Nurses & Health Visitors |
31 December 2018 to 31 December 2019 | 17,863 (14.7%) | 33,188 (10.2%) |
31 December 2019 to 31 December 2020 | 17,045 (13.3%) | 30,392 (9.0%) |
31 December 2020 to 31 December 2021 | 19,156 (14.4%) | 36,689 (10.6%) |
31 December 2021 to 31 December 2022 | 21,078 (15.2%) | 41,121 (11.4%) |
Source: NHS England Workforce Statistics
The latest figures published by NHS England for the year to March 2023 show leaver rates are falling, and currently stand at 15.0% for doctors and 10.9% for nurses and health Visitors. Leaver’s data is based on headcount and shows staff leaving active service. This would include those going on maternity leave or career breaks, as well as those leaving NHS trusts and core organisations, including integrated care boards, to work in another part of the health and social care sector, including social care or primary care. The number of doctors leaving includes doctors in training grades, of whom some will be rotating out of NHS trusts to other parts of the health and social care sector as part of planned programmes of training.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the potential cost to the public purse of foreign nationals accessing NHS services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not collected in the format requested.
The Department publishes data on the income recognised from overseas visitors, who may or may not be foreign nationals, accessing the National Health Service in its annual reports and accounts, as well as the NHS consolidated provider accounts.
The information from the annual accounts is shown in the below table.
| 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
Income Recognised (£m) | 87 | 91 | 93 | 61 | 67 |
The annual reports and accounts are available at the following links:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/consolidated-provider-accounts-21-22-final.pdf
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what programmes exist to support 18 year olds leaving the care system.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As set out in the Children Act 1989, local authorities have the primary responsibility for supporting care leavers. The 2017 Children and Social Work Act imposed a new duty on local authorities to consult on and publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers, setting out their legal entitlements and any further discretionary support that the local authority provides, such as Council Tax exemptions.
All care leavers up to the age of 25 are entitled to support from a personal adviser to help with access support from mainstream services, such as housing, health, and benefits. Personal advisors also provide practical and emotional support to help them prepare for and cope with the challenges of living independently.
The department is providing over £230 million over this spending review to support young people leaving care with housing, access to education, employment, and training, and to help them develop social connections and networks to avoid loneliness and isolation.
To support young people leaving the care system the department has:
Our ambitions for reform, set out in the ‘stable homes, built on love’ strategy and consultation, put loving and stable relationships at the heart of children’s social care. This includes the mission that by 2027, every care-experienced child and young person will feel that they have strong, loving relationships in place.
As outlined in ‘stable homes, built on love’ the department is providing over £30 million in the next two years to significantly increase the number of local authorities with family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. The department also wants to increase the accessibility and take-up of the Independent Visitors offer by working with the sector to reinforce current good practice and developing standards for Independent Visitor services. Additionally, the department is assessing levels of interest in introducing a way for care-experienced people to legally formalise a lifelong bond with someone they care about, such as a former foster carer or family friend. The ‘stable homes, built on love’ consultation is attached.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for his policies of the use of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in the construction of buildings operated under its remit.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has a duty of care to ensure that its buildings are safe and without risks to the health of our staff, visitors and members of the public with access. The Department has made a preliminary assessment of buildings it occupies and concluded that very few, if any, are likely to have been constructed using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The Government Property Agency manages the Department's estate on a day to day basis. The Department has commissioned the Agency to take action so that it can deem the buildings the Department occupies are safe and alert it to any risks.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the article by the Minister for Employment entitled, A perfect time to plan for the future with online Midlife MOT, published in the Sunday Express on 2 July 2023, on what evidential basis the Minister stated that hundreds of thousands of people have been helped to think about their next steps since the midlife MOT was launched in 2019; and if he will publish that data.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Since the championing of the policy by DWP and the private sector, the Midlife MOT has reached people through multiple channels to help them take stock of their finances, skills and health, and plan for their later life.
The DWP's JobHelp website helps people to understand their work options and provides guidance to help them get job ready and find work. It has been visited by more than 3 million users since it was launched in April 2020.
Since launch on 1st July 2021 until the end of June 2023, the Money Helper website has had 32 million users/visitors, and nearly 43 million sessions/visits.
An enhanced digital Midlife MOT offer went live on 5 July 2023.