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Written Question
Dental Health: Children
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the health of children's teeth nationally in England.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In England, local authorities have the statutory function of assessing the oral health needs of their local populations. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, within the Department, co-ordinates the English National Dental Epidemiology Programme. This programme consists of annual surveys that assess the local oral health needs of specific population groups.

Year six schoolchildren were surveyed in 2023, and 16% of them had experienced tooth decay. Among the 16% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average two affected teeth. Five-year-old schoolchildren were surveyed in 2022 and 24% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 24% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average four affected teeth. Three-year-old children were surveyed in 2020 and 11% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 11% of children with experience of decay, each had on average three affected teeth.

Our plan to recover and reform NHS Dentistry sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth.


Written Question
Dental Services
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the availability of NHS dentistry.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

18.1 million adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in the 24 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 1.7 million, or 10%, when compared to the previous year. 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 800,000, or 14%, when compared to the previous year. Our plan to recover and reform NHS Dentistry will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.

Our plan sets out a number of actions which will improve access for patients, by helping the sector to recover activity more quickly, including the introduction of a New Patient Payment Premium of up to £50 for each new patient. This is on top of the funding dental practices already receive for delivering that care. We will further incentivise dentists to do more NHS work by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28. As an additional part of the plan, we will launch a new Golden Hello scheme for dentists who want to move to those areas which persistently struggle to attract dentists into NHS work. We will also deploy dental vans offering appointments to patients in targeted rural and coastal communities who have the most limited access to dentistry, starting later this year.

NHS dentists are now required to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care. From 1 April 2023, responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.


Written Question
NHS: Drugs
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent NHS drug shortages.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are around 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. However, the medicine supply chain is highly regulated, complex, and global, meaning there can sometimes be supply issues which affect the United Kingdom, along with other countries around the world.

Medicine supply problems can occur for several reasons such as manufacturing difficulties, regulatory non-compliance, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues.

While it’s not always possible to prevent supply issues from occurring, there is a team within the Department that has a range of well-established tools and processes to manage them when they arise, working closely with the pharmaceutical industry, the National Health Service, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and others operating in the supply chain to help mitigate the risks to patients.


Written Question
NHS: Standards
Thursday 26th October 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote the sharing of best practice in the provision of NHS services, including between (1) services in England, and (2) services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of 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.


Written Question
Health Services: EU Countries
Wednesday 13th September 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage the provision of reciprocal free healthcare within Europe and England.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There is currently wide-ranging advice and guidance on reciprocal healthcare arrangements across GOV.UK, the National Health Service website and the NHS Business Services Authority website. The Department also works closely with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office across Europe to promote people’s reciprocal healthcare entitlements, which includes country-specific guides.

We use a variety of communications activities including videos, blogs and social media messaging to reach different groups. The Department also works with travel companies and relevant media outlets to include reciprocal healthcare information.

To further promote the benefits of the Global Health Insurance Card, which is the eligibility document for accessing necessary healthcare when United Kingdom residents visit eligible countries, we are in the process of reviewing all Government content to make clearer the benefits of reciprocal healthcare arrangements to the public and ensure people can easily access information on the support available in-country should they require necessary healthcare.


Written Question
Social Services: Conditions of Employment
Tuesday 18th July 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the (1) pay, (2) conditions, and (3) recognition, for those working in the social care sector.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our workforce reforms, which will invest £250 million over the next two years, will provide the workforce with more support to develop within their careers.

Most care workers are employed by private sector providers who set their pay and terms and conditions, independent of central Government. Local authorities work with care providers to determine fee rates, which should take account of wage costs, based on local market conditions.

The Government has made available up to £7.5 billion in additional funding over two years to support adult social care and discharge. This historic funding boost will put the adult social care system on a stronger financial footing and help Local Authorities address waiting lists, low fee rates and workforce pressures in the sector.


Written Question
Electronic Cigarettes: Health Hazards
Monday 10th July 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made, if any, of the safety of vaping; and what action they propose in consequence.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department’s assessment of the safety of vaping are based upon a series of evidence reviews commissioned over the past several years. The most recent and final in the series, the 2022 Nicotine Vaping in England report, was published in September 2022. 'A copy of Nicotine vaping in England 2022 report' has been placed in the Library due to the size of the data.

The report focuses predominantly on the potential health risks of vaping and concludes that in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, but that vaping is not risk-free, particularly for people who have never smoked. The report carried out reviews on biomarkers of exposure to nicotine and potential toxicants; biomarkers of potential harm to health cutting across several diseases, including cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases; biomarkers specifically associated with cancer, respiratory, cardiovascular or other health outcomes; poisonings; fires and explosions; nicotine and flavours.

The Government only recommends regulated vaping products to help adult smokers to quit smoking and vapes should not be used by people under 18 year olds or non-smokers.


Written Question
Smoking: Health Education
Thursday 16th March 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage people to quit smoking.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is taking a range of steps to help people quit smoking. We know the single best thing a smoker can do for their health is to quit smoking. We continue to provide funding to local authority stop smoking services via the Public Health Grant. This dedicated, personalised support is vital to help people quit smoking for good. In October, we held our successful Stoptober campaign. Since its inception in 2012, this campaign has helped more than 2.1 million people quit smoking.

The Department also works closely with the National Health Service on smoking cessation. As part of the Long-Term Plan, the NHS is committed to delivering tobacco treatment services to all inpatients, pregnant women and people accessing long-term mental health and learning disability services.

The Government remains committed to our ambition for England to be Smokefree by 2030 and we will set out further action to achieve this very soon.


Written Question
Vaccination
Monday 23rd January 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to promote the health benefits of (1) COVID-19 vaccines, and (2) vaccines in general.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department continues to use the best available evidence to demonstrate the health benefits of vaccinations at both a personal and population level and highlights these messages through regular media, stakeholder and social media engagement. The Department also works closely with both NHS England and UK Health Security Agency to develop vaccination guides and patient facing consent resources to demonstrate the benefits of vaccinations for all, as well as ensuring that reputable sources such as NHS.UK or GOV.UK are prominent and readily signposted.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Vaccination
Monday 26th September 2022

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, for further COVID-19 vaccination programmes during the autumn of 2022.

Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist

The Government continues to be guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on COVID-19 vaccinations. On 15 July 2022, the Government accepted the JCVI’s advice to offer a booster dose in the autumn to those at higher risk from severe COVID-19 in winter 2022/23. The booster dose will be offered to residents and staff in care homes for older adults; frontline health and social care workers; carers aged 16 years old and over; all adults aged 50 years old and over; and those aged five to 49 years old in a clinical risk group or who are household contacts of someone with immunosuppression.