Asked by: Chris Bloore (Labour - Redditch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to update the NHS website to include up-to-date information on menstrual health conditions using (a) plain and (b) accessible English.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department worked with NHS England to introduce a new women’s health area on the National Health Service’s website in 2023. This brings together over 100 health topics including periods, gynaecological conditions, fertility, pregnancy, heart health, and cancers, and is designed to be a first port of call for women seeking health information. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/womens-health/
As part of this work, a number of pages were updated, including pages on heavy periods and endometriosis, and a new page on adenomyosis was created. One of the key goals of the NHS website is to provide users with clear and accurate health information. There are no current plans to further update the NHS website on menstrual conditions, subject to the standard review of all editorial content at least every three years.
The NHS has also used its YouTube channel to provide up-to-date information on endometriosis and heavy menstrual bleeding, with further information on both topics available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABi1ncHorBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pgm30RYVIs&list=PLnhASgDToTkvLigKt1XBE-iwZVJxd7Lto
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many abortion clinics run by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, MSI Reproductive Choices and the National Unplanned Pregnancy Advisory Service have (1) never been inspected by the Care Quality Commission, or (2) not been inspected by it since 30 September 2021.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of abortion clinics which have never been inspected by the Care Quality Commission, as well as the number of clinics which have not been inspected since 30 September 2021:
Name of provider | Have never been inspected | No inspection since 30 September 2021 |
British Pregnancy Advisory Service | 1 | 6 |
MSI Reproductive Choices | 4 | 5 |
National Unplanned Pregnancy Advisory Service | 4 | 3 |
Source: Care Quality Commission.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to provide adequate funding for research into blood cancer (a) treatment and (b) care; and what steps he is taking to help tackle delays in blood cancer diagnosis.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department funds research into blood cancer through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £121.8 million in 2022/23. The NIHR spends more on cancer than any other disease group.
In blood cancer research, the NIHR is funding the £2.6 million PROPEL trial, testing whether a package of enhanced personalised prehabilitation can help people with acute myeloid leukaemia cope better with treatment. The NIHR is also funding a £3 million trial of the drug ibrutinib for treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, and a £2.2 million study to evaluate the digital health platform, AscelusTM, for management of blood disorders, including cancers.
The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including all cancers. As with other Government funders of health research, the NIHR does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.
We are committed to improving cancer survival rates and hitting all National Health Service cancer waiting time standards within five years, so no patient waits longer than they should. We will also address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests that are needed to reduce waits.
We are committed to achieving the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which aims to ensure patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of referral from a general practice (GP) or screening services. We are expanding direct access to diagnostic scans across all GPs, helping to cut waiting times and speeding up a cancer diagnosis or all-clear for patients.
The NHS is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with vague and non-specific symptoms, which do not clearly align to a cancer type. This aims to reduce the delays experienced by some patients, and are expected to be of particular benefit to people presenting with signs and symptoms that could be due to blood cancer.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his policy is on allowing people with financial interests in the private healthcare sector to be (a) employed in and (b) non executive directors at his Department.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All Department employees are subject to the Department’s policy on the Declaration and Management of Outside Interests. The policy is in alignment with the model Cabinet Office guidance in this area for Civil Servants, published on the GOV.UK website, which sets out how staff can identify when a perceived, potential, or actual conflict of interest arises, and what action must be taken in those circumstances. This includes a discussion between the employee and manager to determine whether there is a conflict of interest in the first instance, or perceived conflict of interest, such that the employee should be excluded from the activity, or that the employee may continue with the activity but must implement actions to mitigate any risk. Further information is available at the following link:
Prior to appointment and throughout their term of office, non-executive board members are required to declare all relevant interests, and for any areas where a potential conflict of interest could be seen to arise, mitigations are required to be put in place and approved by the Department. Declarations of interest are published each year in the Register of Interests in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Ashley Fox (Conservative - Bridgwater)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to ensure that private care providers are Regularly (a) inspected and (b) rated by the Care Quality Commission.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has taken steps to ensure that all providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), including private care providers are regularly assessed and rated by the CQC.
The interim findings and recommendations made by Dr Penny Dash as part of her review include a clear need for the CQC to increase operational activity. Work is underway to increase the number of inspections the CQC carries out, this includes inspections of private care providers, so the public have an up-to-date understanding of quality and providers are able to demonstrate improvement.
The CQC is working with Professor Sir Mike Richards and Professor Vic Rayner, the Chair of the Care Provider Alliance, to review longer-term improvements to their single assessment framework and how they use it. Other changes to the single assessment framework, such as how CQC score quality statements will allow the CQC to assess and inspect more services while ensuring their ratings are robust. This will also allow the CQC to produce better reports that are clearer about their judgements and ratings.
The CQC reports to the Department regularly on their improvement work, and wider responses to the interim Dash review.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times at Sheffield Gender Identity Clinic.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Gender Identity Clinic in Sheffield is one of seven nationally commissioned adult Gender Dysphoria clinics in England. To reduce wait times, NHS England has expanded the number of clinical and administrative posts available within the Sheffield Clinic, in addition to improving the training and support offered to primary care to support hormone prescribing. Those who are on the waiting list are also supported by dedicated Peer Support Workers.
NHS England is committed to reducing wait times across all gender services. Since July 2020, NHS England has increased clinical capacity with the rollout of five new adult gender pilot clinics. The rollout of these new clinics is helping to tackle long waiting times, which had increased due to a shortage of specialist clinical staff to meet the rapidly rising demand.
NHS England is currently undertaking a review of adult gender services, chaired by Dr David Levy. The review will examine the model of care and operating procedures of each service, and will carefully consider experiences, feedback, and outcomes from clinicians and patients, with the aim of producing an updated service specification
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment the Department has made of the potential impact of women’s health hubs on health disparities in the treatment of (a) endometriosis, (b) polycystic ovary syndrome, (c) other menstrual health conditions and (d) other women’s healthcare.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Women’s health hubs bring together healthcare professionals and existing services to provide integrated women’s health services in the community, centred on meeting women’s needs across their life course. Hubs have potential to have a positive impact on reducing inequalities in treatment of menstrual health conditions including polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham, RAND, and the Cambridge Rapid Evaluation Centre conducted a scoping evaluation of women’s health hubs established between 2001 and 2022. The report was published in September 2024, and it identified reducing inequalities and improving quality of care as key aims of women’s health hub pilots. The report found that hub leaders were committed to reducing inequalities and many were implementing strategies to do so, but noted that evidence on hub benefits was still evolving.
The report highlights that the impact on inequalities could be determined through a set of measures, one of these being diagnosis for conditions such as endometriosis. The report is available at the following link:
https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hsdr/JYFT5036/#/abstract
The Department has invested £25 million over 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support the establishment of at least one pilot women’s health hub in every integrated care system, with one of the aims being to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities. Care for menstrual problems, including PCOS and endometriosis, is included as a core service for these pilot hubs.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to increase the number of NHS staff working on maternity units.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to growing workforce capacity as quickly as possible to meet local needs and achieve safe staffing levels. Bringing in the staff we need will take time, but this is an absolute priority for the Government. We have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future.
One of the themes in NHS England’s Three-Year Delivery Plan covers growing, retaining, and supporting our workforce. NHS England is boosting the midwifery workforce through undergraduate training, apprenticeships, postgraduate conversion, return to midwifery programmes, and international recruitment.
We also remain committed to the Long-Term Workforce Plan, which sets out the steps the NHS and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. It will put the workforce on a sustainable footing for the long term.
Asked by: Josh Newbury (Labour - Cannock Chase)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of funding available through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme has been spent on mental health practitioners since 2019.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding available through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) for mental health practitioners accounts for 50% of the costs of these roles, with the other 50% provided by mental health trusts. Mental health practitioners were not introduced into the ARRS until 2021/22. The following table shows the spend on mental health practitioners through the ARRS, and that spend as a proportion of overall ARRS funding, for 2021/22 to 2023/24:
Year | Mental health practitioner spend through the ARRS | Proportion of overall ARRS funding |
2021/22 | £3,402,000 | 0.5% |
2022/23 | £18,281,000 | 1.8% |
2023/24 | £31,000,000 | 2.2% |
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 taking steps to increase the number of clinical academics dedicated to blood cancer research.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is the largest funder of clinical academic training in the United Kingdom, delivering a comprehensive research career pathway for the full range of clinicians. The NIHR welcomes applications for training awards from the clinical and non-clinical academic workforce conducting research into any aspect of human health, including blood cancer. The NIHR continuously reviews the training offer to identify and address gaps across specialism, geography, and profession, in line with the Department’s priorities.