Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to raise awareness about prostate cancer and to promote testing, especially among black men.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government understands that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for all people with prostate cancer, including for black men.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns in England to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness, to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. These campaigns are developed and tailored to reach and resonate with people who are more likely to experience health inequalities, such as black people. Cancer alliances across the country are engaging with their local communities to deliver campaigns, community engagement, and partnership activity to increase symptom knowledge and encourage earlier presentation.
To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men. This is vital as previous trials have not included enough black men to adequately demonstrate the harms and benefits of screening for this group specifically, despite their significantly higher risk.
In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new National Cancer Plan. The plan will seek to improve outcomes and address disparities for people diagnosed with cancer, including for prostate cancer. A call for evidence, seeking contributions from individuals and organisations, including ideas on how to improve outcomes for prostate cancer, is available on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format.
Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of people per year who have attempted suicide and, prior to their deaths, (1) had been diagnosed with, and (2) had been treated for (a) cancer, (b) neurological diseases, (c) respiratory diseases, or (d) heart or circulatory diseases, in the previous 12 months.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have made no such estimate as information on attempted suicides is not held.
Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to add colleges and universities to the list of institutions set out in Regulation 22 of the Human Medicines (No. 2) Regulations 2014 so that those institutions may obtain, without a prescription, adrenaline auto-injector devices for use in emergencies.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have no current plans to add colleges and universities to the list of institutions set out in Regulation 22 of the Human Medicines (No. 2) Regulations 2014.
In the Regulations, ‘Schools’ are defined in accordance with Education Acts. It is the Department’s understanding that educational establishments so defined would not immediately extend to all colleges and universities. However, the provisions within the current legislation may offer scope for some higher education institutions to be included. We will consider if we can provide a more definitive – and easily understood - list of educational establishments that would fall within the scope of the present legislation.
Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of patients who attempt to access talking therapies are offered the full choice of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved treatments.
Answered by Earl Howe - Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
National data is not available on the percentage of patients accessing talking therapies who are offered a choice of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved psychological therapies.
NICE has recommended a range of psychological therapeutic interventions in its clinical guidelines, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Interpersonal therapy, brief dynamic interpersonal therapy, couple therapy for depression and counselling for depression.
Not all psychological therapeutic interventions therapies are appropriate for all patients. The decision on the most appropriate therapy for each patient should be made between a patient and their clinician.
In 2012, the Department agreed significant additional investment of £22 million in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) over three years up to 2015. The additional funding will be used to extend the range and availability of evidence-based therapies and is in addition to the investment made in 2010 of £400 million in the IAPT programme up to 2015.
Asked by: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many newly qualified general practitioners have started work in (1) the United Kingdom, (2) the South West of England, and (3) Bristol, in the last 12 months.
Answered by Earl Howe - Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The information is not held centrally. On 25 March 2014 the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) published its annual census on the General and Personal Medical Services workforce, which collects information from general practices in England and reflects the position as at 30 September 2013. The census shows that 2,763 general practitioners (GP) (excluding registrars and retainers) joined the profession between 2012 and 2013. However, the census does not show how many of these joiners were newly qualified GPs.
The census also shows that there were 36,294 full time equivalent GPs working in the NHS in England. More information is available at:
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB13849/nhs-staf-2003-2013-gene-prac-rep.pdf
The Government established Health Education England (HEE) to be responsible for delivering a better health and healthcare workforce for England and for ensuring a secure future supply. HEE has published the number of postgraduate medical trainees that enter general practice specialty training at ST1 in each of the last five years, at:
http://gprecruitment.hee.nhs.uk/Portals/8/Documents/Annual%20Reports/GP%20ST1%20Recruitment%20Figures%202009-13.pdf
The provision of health services in the UK is a devolved issue. The contacts for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are available from the links below:
Northern Ireland: http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/index.htm
Scotland: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health
Wales: http://wales.gov.uk/topics/health/?lang=en