Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of children currently have access to a mental health support team in school.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Mental health support teams offer support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. As of spring 2022, there were 287 in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country covering 26% of pupils. This will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils, by April 2023 with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
The rollout of mental health support teams beyond 2023/24 will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have for the further roll-out of mental support teams in schools.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Mental health support teams offer support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. As of spring 2022, there were 287 in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country covering 26% of pupils. This will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils, by April 2023 with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
The rollout of mental health support teams beyond 2023/24 will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to review the standard NHS practice of not using foetal painkillers before abortion; and what assessment they have made of the consistency of this approach with the current standard NHS practice of using foetal painkillers before foetal surgery from 19 weeks.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist - Opposition Whip (Lords)
The Department does not set or review clinical practice and no specific assessment has been made. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has established a review group to consider the latest evidence on foetal pain and foetal awareness, which is expected to report on its findings by the end of 2022.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice they have received on foetal viability from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Neonatal Nurses Association and the British Maternal and Foetal Medicine Society, who published joint guidelines in 2019 on caring for premature babies born from the 22nd week of gestation.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist - Opposition Whip (Lords)
While the Department monitors new evidence on viability, we have not received any such advice from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Neonatal Nurses Association and the British Maternal and Foetal Medicine Society.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to (1) ensuring men's health is made a ministerial priority, and (2) making improvements to men's health a specific strand of work within the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
Improving the health of both men and women is a ministerial priority for the Department. Evidence suggests that men are disproportionately affected by certain conditions, such as ischemic heart disease, are more likely to smoke or engage in other health harming behaviours and are more likely to die by suicide. We have committed to reduce stroke and heart attacks and the forthcoming publication of the new Tobacco Control Plan will target groups where smoking rates are not decreasing, including men. We are also investing in measures to prevent suicide.
While there are no current plans to make men’s health a specific strand of work, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities aims to improve the health of the population regardless of socio-economic background or gender.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what periodic review of literature they conduct in respect of the latest scientific evidence on foetal viability.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
Officials regularly review new evidence on foetal viability. There is currently no clear consensus from the medical profession that the age of viability has reduced below 24 weeks.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 7 December 2021 (HL3991), whether the additional data collected will include a record of the NHS numbers of patients who have had a termination procedure to enable effective tracking of both short and long term complications.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 7 December 2021 (HL3991), whether the additional data collected will include data to monitor long term complications such as (1) fertility, including future miscarriage, and (2) future premature births.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the NHS England budget for relationship counselling in the latest available year.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
This information is not held in the format requested as NHS England and NHS Improvement’s budgets are not allocated at the level of individual therapies. Individuals who are seen within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services can expect to receive a course of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-recommended psychological therapy from an appropriately trained individual and to have their clinical outcomes monitored and reported. All National Health Service talking and psychological therapy services are expected to have capacity to offer couple therapy.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local ambulance services can accurately track the impact of complications arising from home use of medical abortion pills; and what plans they have, if any, to use an Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System code for such cases.
Answered by Lord Kamall - Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
The Department is undertaking a project to review the system of recording abortion complications data. We anticipate this work will be completed shortly. The review will cover all data on complications arising from abortion including home use of early medical abortion pills.
To improve the accuracy of the data collected, the Department is working closely with a range of statutory bodies, professional organisations and abortion providers to identify additional sources of information to complement complications data collected via HSA4 abortion notification forms. This would also improve the flow of data on abortion complications between different organisations, such as independent and NHS abortion providers and local ambulance services.