Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women with autism were in mental health inpatient care settings in each of the last five years.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The following table shows the number of female patients with either autism or autism and a learning disability in mental health care inpatient settings in England, in each of the last five years:
Year | Autism | Learning disability and autism | Total |
March 2020 | 270 | 115 | 390 |
March 2021 | 325 | 110 | 430 |
March 2022 | 375 | 110 | 485 |
March 2023 | 430 | 115 | 545 |
February 2024 | 395 | 90 | 490 |
Source: the data is taken from NHS England’s Assuring Transformation dataset, as of 28 February 2024.
Notes:
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many adult mental health patients have been held in inappropriate out of area placements since March 2021.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Kevan Jones (Labour - North Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the prevalence of schools (a) educating pupils on organ donation and (b) using resources produced by NHS Blood and Transplant.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Schools have flexibility over how they deliver the curriculum and cover important topics within it in a way that works for their context and communities. The department does not have data on how and whether schools are teaching about organ donation, but there are plenty of opportunities within the national curriculum for them to do so.
The teaching of blood, tissue and organs is covered in the biology national curriculum to pupils in England between the ages of 11 and 14 in key stage 3. While organ donation is not specifically mentioned in the national curriculum, schools may choose to cover it here.
At primary level, schools can talk about organ donation more generally in an age-appropriate way as part of the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, which includes content on physical health and mental wellbeing. The Oak National Academy, an arm's length public body responsible for creating free curriculum resources, has produced a lesson that can be taught to pupils between the ages of 7 and 11 in key stage 2. This includes a section on organs, the transplant waiting list and relevant legislation.
Organ donation can be covered in more detail in RSHE for pupils aged 14 to 16 in key stage 4 within the context of healthy lifestyles and the choices that individuals make in adulthood.
Departmental officials are working with NHS Blood and Transplant to arrange to signpost schools to education resources on organ donation developed by NHS Blood and Transplant and its charity partners.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 estimate of changes in numbers of people reporting (a) physical and (b) mental health issues in the week following clock changes in March for British Summer Time in the last three years.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has not made an estimate of the number of people, or changes to the number of people, reporting physical or mental health issues following the clock changes.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many improvement and prohibition notices the Health and Safety Executive has issued on (a) workplace stress and (b) other mental health problems at work in each year since it took responsibility for this area.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are no specific regulations relating to work-related stress or mental health and any enforcement action taken by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in those areas would use general health and safety legislation such as the Health and Safety at Work Act or the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
As a result, HSE can not provide the numbers of notices as the information is not held in the format requested so is not easily retrievable or statistically robust.
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, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of average waiting times for young people to access mental health services in Warwickshire.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Whilst the Department has made no such assessment, we know that some children and young people are waiting longer than we would like to get help with their mental health, which is why we have been increasing access to services. Over the year to December 2023, over 750,000 children and young people aged under 18 years old were supported through National Health Service-funded mental health services, representing a 31% increase since March 2021.
NHS England is working to improve the quality of data on access and waiting times for children and their families and carers waiting to receive community-based mental health care. NHS England began publishing this new data in 2023 to improve transparency and drive local accountability.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 help support children with cerebral palsy.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published a range of guidance on care and support for children and young people and adults with cerebral palsy, to support healthcare professionals and commissioners. The guidance recommends service providers develop clear pathways that allow patients with cerebral palsy access to multi-disciplinary teams, specialist neurology services and regular reviews of their clinical and functional needs.
NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time Programme aims to improve care for people with neurological conditions, including those with cerebral palsy, by reducing variation and delivering care more equitably across the country.
The majority of services for people with cerebral palsy are commissioned locally by integrated care boards, which are best placed to make decisions according to local need. Nevertheless, at a national level, the Government is working closely with NHS England to continue to improve services for people with neurological conditions, including those with cerebral palsy.
The NHS Long-term Workforce Plan (LTWP) aims to grow the number and proportion of National Health Service staff working in mental health, primary and community care. The LTWP, published in 2023, sets out an ambition to grow these roles 73% by 2036/37, including plans to increase the community workforce specifically by 3.9% each year. By growing the community workforce, we will be better able to support people to participate in daily living, including those with cerebral palsy.
As set out in the LTWP, NHS England’s ambition is that, by 2028, no child or young person will be lost in the gaps between any children’s and adult services, and that their experience of moving between services is safe, well planned and prepared for so they feel supported and empowered to make decisions about their health and social care needs. The Department is working closely with NHS England to support this work, and the Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme has developed a national framework for transition which includes the key principles of a 0-25 model of care, including for young people with cerebral palsy.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 help support adults with cerebral palsy.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published a range of guidance on care and support for children and young people and adults with cerebral palsy, to support healthcare professionals and commissioners. The guidance recommends service providers develop clear pathways that allow patients with cerebral palsy access to multi-disciplinary teams, specialist neurology services and regular reviews of their clinical and functional needs.
NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time Programme aims to improve care for people with neurological conditions, including those with cerebral palsy, by reducing variation and delivering care more equitably across the country.
The majority of services for people with cerebral palsy are commissioned locally by integrated care boards, which are best placed to make decisions according to local need. Nevertheless, at a national level, the Government is working closely with NHS England to continue to improve services for people with neurological conditions, including those with cerebral palsy.
The NHS Long-term Workforce Plan (LTWP) aims to grow the number and proportion of National Health Service staff working in mental health, primary and community care. The LTWP, published in 2023, sets out an ambition to grow these roles 73% by 2036/37, including plans to increase the community workforce specifically by 3.9% each year. By growing the community workforce, we will be better able to support people to participate in daily living, including those with cerebral palsy.
As set out in the LTWP, NHS England’s ambition is that, by 2028, no child or young person will be lost in the gaps between any children’s and adult services, and that their experience of moving between services is safe, well planned and prepared for so they feel supported and empowered to make decisions about their health and social care needs. The Department is working closely with NHS England to support this work, and the Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme has developed a national framework for transition which includes the key principles of a 0-25 model of care, including for young people with cerebral palsy.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough)
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 support the recruitment and retention of mental health specialists in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
To deliver the NHS Long Term Plan’s mental health commitments and help reduce waiting times in the Wellingborough constituency and nationwide, our aim has been to grow the mental health workforce nationally by an additional 27,000 professionals by March 2024.
We are making positive progress, delivering three quarters of this, or approximately 20,800 new professionals, by December 2023, with further growth expected to have been achieved once the full year figures for 2023/24 are available. This growth is in addition to the commitment to grow the National Health Service’s mental health workforce by 19,000 between 2016/17 and 2020/21, as set out in Stepping Forward to 2020/21: the mental health workforce plan for England, which was achieved in September 2021.
At a national level, we are committed to attracting, training, and recruiting the mental health workforce of the future, as well as retaining and developing our current workforce. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan’s modelling projections set out a need to grow the overall mental health and learning disability workforce the fastest of all care settings, at 4.4% per year up to 2036/37, to help improve access to services and quality of care.
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 recent steps she has taken to help reduce waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services in Stockport constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We want to ensure that children and young people get the mental health support they need, including in the Stockport constituency, and overall spending on mental health has increased by more than £4.7 billion in cash terms since 2018/19. This has enabled an expansion of child and young people's mental health services. As of January 2024, the latest data from NHS Digital shows there were 758,485 children and young people aged under 18 years old, supported through National Health Service funded mental health services with at least one contact.
We have introduced two waiting-time standards for children and young people. The first is for 95% of children, up to 19 years old, with eating disorders to receive treatment within one week for urgent cases, and four weeks for routine cases. The second is for 50% of patients of all ages experiencing a first episode of psychosis to receive treatment within two weeks of referral.
NHS England is developing a new waiting time measure for children and their families and carers to start to receive community-based mental health care within four weeks from referral. NHS England began publishing this new data in 2023 to improve transparency and drive local accountability.