Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of airspace modernisation in the UK.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Airspace Modernisation Strategy sets out the overarching approach through nine elements that will modernise aircraft-based navigation and airspace management. The Strategy aligns with International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) Global Air Navigation Plan to ensure interoperability with neighbouring countries.
Parts 1 and 2 of the refreshed Strategy were published in January 2023 and set out strategic objectives and delivery elements. Part 3, which focuses on the deployment of the design elements, was published in July 2024 and outlines the delivery plans over the next 2 plus 5 years, and a new iteration will be published annually in line with the CAA’s Annual Report.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish their response to the Creating a UK Airspace Design Service (UKADS) consultation, which ran from 22 October 2024 to 17 December 2024.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The consultation on the proposed UK Airspace Design Service has now closed. The Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority are carefully considering the responses received to help inform the next stages of this project. The Government will set out its plans and the next steps later in 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase public awareness of peripheral arterial disease, its risk factors, and early intervention.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS.UK website has publicly available information on the condition, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment of peripheral arterial disease, in an online only format. NHS England commissions vascular arterial care from a number of specialist centres to ensure the appropriate management of peripheral arterial disease. The Vascular Disease Clinical Reference Group works closely with Getting It Right First Time, and the respective professional societies, to review patient outcomes and support commissioned providers in the delivery of high-quality care for patients. NHS England also commissioned a two-year Commissioning for Quality and Innovation scheme during 2022 to 2024, which incentivised the adoption of the Vascular Peripheral Arterial Disease Quality Improvement Framework, to support timely interventions for revascularisation.
NHS England also commissions the National Vascular Registry, which provides information on the quality and outcomes of care for adults who had major vascular procedures in National Health Service hospitals. It aims to support vascular services to provide high quality of care for these people, and shares examples of good practice as well as highlighting areas which merit further investigation in order to improve care.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to implement efficient and integrated diagnosis and care pathways for patients with peripheral arterial disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS.UK website has publicly available information on the condition, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment of peripheral arterial disease, in an online only format. NHS England commissions vascular arterial care from a number of specialist centres to ensure the appropriate management of peripheral arterial disease. The Vascular Disease Clinical Reference Group works closely with Getting It Right First Time, and the respective professional societies, to review patient outcomes and support commissioned providers in the delivery of high-quality care for patients. NHS England also commissioned a two-year Commissioning for Quality and Innovation scheme during 2022 to 2024, which incentivised the adoption of the Vascular Peripheral Arterial Disease Quality Improvement Framework, to support timely interventions for revascularisation.
NHS England also commissions the National Vascular Registry, which provides information on the quality and outcomes of care for adults who had major vascular procedures in National Health Service hospitals. It aims to support vascular services to provide high quality of care for these people, and shares examples of good practice as well as highlighting areas which merit further investigation in order to improve care.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what data they have collected on the scale of exercise-based social prescribing.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Social prescribing is a whole population and universal approach that can work particularly well for those managing conditions, which a non-clinical intervention can support.
We do not collect data on the scale of exercise-based social prescribing.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential for appointing a specialist allergy nurse and dietitian in each Integrated Care System area.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of the potential merits of appointing a specialist allergy nurse and dietician in each integrated care system, in which integrated care boards make local decisions about how best to meet the needs of their populations, including for those with allergies.
Work is ongoing across Government, the National Health Service, voluntary organisations, and patient representative groups to consider how allergy care and support could be improved. The Expert Advisory Group for Allergy, which was established in 2023, met again in early December and continues to bring all key stakeholders together to inform policymaking and identify priorities in relation to the care of people with allergies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention met the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation (NARF) and NHS England in December to discuss how allergy care and support could be improved, and to discuss the NARF’s calls for an allergy tsar who could act as a champion for people with allergies. The Department and NHS England are proactively considering the case for appointing a national lead for all allergy services.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of social media platforms in inciting the riots in Southport between 30 July and 5 August 2024.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government engages constructively with all social media platforms, whilst being clear about their responsibility to deal with harmful content.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that healthcare professionals have the skills and confidence to prescribe physical activity as a treatment and management tool for people living with long-term conditions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and the National Health Service recognise the important role of physical activity in the prevention and management of long-term health conditions.
The NHS Better Health Campaign promotes ways for adults, families, and children to move more, and signposts people, including those living with long term conditions and who are ready to build movement back into routines, to digital support like the NHS Active 10 walking app. Local authorities and the NHS also promote and provide services for people living with long term conditions, such as exercise on referral and social prescribing, including access to physical activity interventions, fall prevention, and walking groups.
The Department, with Sport England, has delivered support and training to equip healthcare professionals to enable patients to move more, to improve their physical and mental health. Sport England continues to support work in this area through the Physical Activity Clinical Champions programme, which is currently being piloted in local areas.
NHS England is working closely with partners nationally and locally to explore how the NHS might galvanise support to make physical activity a core part of NHS care, in order to benefit patients, NHS staff, and the wider public.
By empowering clinicians and healthcare professionals with the skills and confidence to discuss and promote physical activity, through integrating it into key clinical pathways and by aligning it with Core20PLUS5 for adults, children, and young people, the NHS could help to transform patient outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote physical activity as a means of preventing and managing long-term health conditions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and the National Health Service recognise the important role of physical activity in the prevention and management of long-term health conditions.
The NHS Better Health Campaign promotes ways for adults, families, and children to move more, and signposts people, including those living with long term conditions and who are ready to build movement back into routines, to digital support like the NHS Active 10 walking app. Local authorities and the NHS also promote and provide services for people living with long term conditions, such as exercise on referral and social prescribing, including access to physical activity interventions, fall prevention, and walking groups.
The Department, with Sport England, has delivered support and training to equip healthcare professionals to enable patients to move more, to improve their physical and mental health. Sport England continues to support work in this area through the Physical Activity Clinical Champions programme, which is currently being piloted in local areas.
NHS England is working closely with partners nationally and locally to explore how the NHS might galvanise support to make physical activity a core part of NHS care, in order to benefit patients, NHS staff, and the wider public.
By empowering clinicians and healthcare professionals with the skills and confidence to discuss and promote physical activity, through integrating it into key clinical pathways and by aligning it with Core20PLUS5 for adults, children, and young people, the NHS could help to transform patient outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, together with the NHS, to improve information sharing between healthcare services to support higher quality and patient-centred cancer care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced the intention for there to be a single patient record, so professionals have the data they need when treating patients and are able to make better informed decisions and deliver more preventative health and care. We are in the early stages of engaging with the public and stakeholders to understand their views about the use of health and care data. We will use the findings to form the basis of our future plans.
Furthermore, NHS England is investing £1.9 billion to support hospital trusts to either adopt a new or improve their existing systems, to ensure every hospital in England can benefit from digital transformation, to achieve the vision of a digitised National Health Service by March 2026.
The aim of the Frontline Digitisation programme is for all secondary care trusts to have an electronic patient record system (EPR) that meets our standards. The programme is forecasting to achieve 97% EPR coverage by the programme end in March 2026, with the remaining 3% of trusts having advanced in their plans for an EPR.