Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
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 implications for her policies of the average waiting time for people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to receive their first medication prescription in Leeds.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
It is the responsibility of the integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) treatment, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. The NICE guideline on ADHD does not set out a timeframe within which medication for ADHD should be provided. The Department has not made a specific assessment of the implications on departmental policies of the average waiting time from diagnosis of ADHD, to receiving a first medication prescription in Leeds.
In respect of the adequacy of ADHD service provision nationally, in December 2023, NHS England initiated a rapid piece of work to consider ADHD service provision within the National Health Service. The initial phase of work identified challenges, including with current service models and the ability to keep pace with demand. Following this initial review, NHS England is establishing a new ADHD taskforce alongside the Government, to look at ADHD service provision and its impact on patient experience. The new taskforce will bring together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the NHS, education, and justice, to better understand the challenges affecting people with ADHD, and help provide a joined up approach in response to concerns around rising demand for assessments and support.
Alongside the work of the taskforce, NHS England has announced that it will continue to work with stakeholders to develop a national ADHD data improvement plan, carry out more detailed work to understand the provider and commissioning landscape, and capture examples from local health systems which are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services to ensure best practice is captured and shared across the system.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
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 adequacy of the number of professionals able to offer pre-school autism assessments in Leeds.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
An assessment of the adequacy of the number of professionals able to offer pre-school autism assessments in Leeds is not currently planned. It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism assessment services, in line with relevant clinical guidelines.
The West Yorkshire ICB advises that pre-school autism assessments in Leeds were temporarily stopped due to a shortage of professionals. The service remains suspended as it needs one full time equivalent clinical psychologist. The post has recently been recruited, and plans are in place for the service to reopen by the end of June 2024.
Nationally, we are taking steps to improve autism assessment services. NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance for autism assessment services on 5 April 2023. These documents are intended to help the National Health Service improve autism assessment services, and improve the experience for adults and children who are going through an autism assessment. They also set out what support should be available before an assessment, and what support should follow a recent diagnosis of autism.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 ensure equitable provision of Hormone Replacement Therapy for women.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The menopause is a priority area within the Women’s Health Strategy, and the Government and National Health Service are implementing an ambitious programme of work to improve menopause care, so all women can access the support they need, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
We have reduced the cost of HRT prescriptions through the HRT prescription prepayment certificate (PPC), which enables women who pay for their prescriptions to pay less than £20 for all their HRT prescriptions for a year. In the first year, 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, 566,042 HRT PPCs have been purchased.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the reliability of diagnostic testing of blood samples for vCJD.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Clinical diagnostic testing for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) is provided by the National Health Service, but there is currently no licensed blood screening test for vCJD, although there is ongoing research in this field. The National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit is involved in developing specialist investigations for vCJD, in collaboration with colleagues in Europe and internationally, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/surveillance/diagnosis-and-testing
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 discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on funding for sexual health clinics.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are responsible for commissioning comprehensive, open access sexual health services that meet the local demand, and these include online and face to face provision of advice and interventions. Individual local authorities decide on spending priorities based on an assessment of local need for sexual health services, as well as the blend of service access that best suits their population.
In 2024/25 we are allocating £3.6 billion to local authorities in England to fund public health services, including sexual health services, through the Public Health Grant. This will provide local authorities with an average 2.1% cash increase compared to 2023/24. No specific discussions on funding for sexual health clinics have been held with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
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 developing a social worker workforce strategy that prioritises (a) recruitment, (b) retention and (c) professional pathways.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In December 2021, the Government set out its strategy for the social care workforce in The People at the Heart of Care white paper. This set out our commitment to the continued success of the social work profession, and included plans to develop the domestic care workforce, including the launch of the care workforce pathway and an investment of over £20 million for adult social care nurse and social work apprenticeships.
On 10 January 2024, the Government announced a new fund to support the recruitment of social work apprentices into adult social care, over the next three years. Nearly £8 million from this fund has already been released to local authorities, and in the summer there will be another opportunity to apply to this fund.
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, when she plans to respond to the correspondence of 18 March 2024 from the hon. Members for Tooting, Putney, Wimbledon, Mitcham and Morden, Richmond Park and Twickenham on children's cancer services in the South East.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have received the hon. Members’ correspondence of 18 March, and will respond in due course.
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 steps she is taking to improve recruitment and retention to deliver her Department's integrated one workforce approach.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how we will meet the workforce needs of the future, through increasing training numbers and reforming training, working differently, and taking action to retain more staff. The plan recommends that integrated care boards (ICBs) and wider system partners prioritise actions that drive recruitment and retention of multi-disciplinary teams, in a one workforce approach.
There are a number of key national programmes aimed at supporting regions, ICBs, and providers with recruitment challenges, in growing the workforce. For example, the Overhauling Recruitment programme aims to overhaul and modernise National Health Service recruitment by encouraging innovation and wider access into NHS careers, supporting the growth of a diverse and skilled workforce to meet future demands on healthcare. NHS England will soon be engaging with ICBs and providers to support and enable this transformational change, as it prepares to publish the overhauling recruitment strategic delivery framework.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan also sets out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the NHS over the next 15 years. Key to this is the National Retention Programme. The programme builds on the NHS People Promise, and supports integrated care systems (ICSs), which are made up of ICBs and integrated care partnerships, regions, NHS trusts, and organisations, to improve employee experience and retain their people, and thereby reduce the NHS staff leaver rates.
Support for organisations and ICSs can be accessed via the Retention Hub, which outlines initiatives mapped against the People Promise, access to tools, guides, and case studies to enable improvements and contact details for regional colleagues support the retention agenda in each of the seven regions. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/looking-after-our-people/the-programme-and-resources/
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, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2024 to Question 21490 on Prosthetics, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of updating the stock of prosthetic limbs available.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Supply Chain framework for prosthetic componentry will be subject to its next routine procurement exercise in the autumn of 2024, with contracts awarded to commence on 1 April 2025. This does not preclude devices currently not on the framework from being prescribed by prosthetic centres as they are able to order directly from the manufacturer, and report via the exceptions log managed by NHS Supply Chain.
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, how many people have taken the accredited NHS Strategic Workforce Planning course through the Chartered Institute of Professional Development.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested.