Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to prevent tooth decay in children under the age of five, in the light of the increase in tooth extractions in England in the last ten years.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Improving the oral health of young children is a Public Health England (PHE) priority. PHE’s Child Oral Health Improvement Programme Board provides national system leadership for the delivery of the shared ambition that every child grows up free of tooth decay as part of getting the best start in life.
The two key actions to prevent tooth decay are reducing sugar consumption and getting fluoride onto teeth which can be by means of fluoride toothpaste, fluoride varnish and water fluoridation. PHE has published a number of toolkits to support local authorities in improving child oral health.
In addition the Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan, launched in August 2016, contained proposals for a broad, structured sugar reduction programme to remove sugar from the categories of food that contribute the most to children’s sugar intakes. The Government also announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy last year, which will apply from April 2018.
To support families to reduce their sugar intake, PHE’s Change4Life launched the Be Food Smart campaign in January 2017 which encourages families to download the app which reveals the amount of sugar, saturated fat and salt in food and drink.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made since February 2016 to protect and promote the rights of people with learning difficulties, in the light of the report by Sir Stephen Bubb <i>Time for Change: The Challenge Ahead</i>.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Transforming Care programme is making progress in moving people out of inpatient settings. Local Transforming Care Partnerships reduced the overall number of people with learning disabilities and/or autism in mental health hospitals by 11% from October 2015 to December 2016, according to published data. This is line with the 35-50% reduction we committed to achieving by 2019 in Building the Right Support.
NHS England is supporting areas to put in place new preventative services, such as intensive community support teams, to support people at points of crisis so that they do not need to be admitted to hospital. NHS England is investing £10 million per year, matched by clinical commissioning groups, to support the growth in services such as these.
NHS England is also rolling out pre-admission care and treatment reviews to assess whether there are viable alternative options when making a decision to admit an individual. NHS England is making available £20 million in capital per year to support an expansion in community based support for people with a learning disability.
The Department is commissioning a full and independent evaluation of the Transforming Care programme, which will focus on measuring changes in quality of life and of care over time, to assess the impact of the programme on the lived experience of people with learning disabilities.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by Sir Stephen Bubb <i>The Challenge Ahead</i> and his proposal for a Commissioner to protect and promote the rights of people with learning difficulties.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government welcomes Sir Stephen Bubb’s report Time for Change – the Challenge Ahead which focuses on improving the experience of care and outcomes for people with learning disabilities. Sir Stephen’s report acknowledges the real progress that has been made in the last year.
The Department will consider the recommendations in Time for Change – the Challenge Ahead in our development of a Learning Disability Action Plan. However, new statutory roles and legislation are not necessarily the answer to achieving the changes envisaged by the Steering Group. We believe that we can make more rapid and meaningful progress by ensuring that the rights that exist under current laws and statutes are properly understood, implemented and exercised by those with learning disabilities and/or autism.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in 2015 towards ensuring that people with mental health issues are not detained in police cells because no hospital bed is available for them.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
According to data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the number of people detained in police custody as a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 fell by 34% in England between 2013-14 and 2014-15. This corresponds to an increase in the use of hospital-based places of safety of 14%, according to the Health & Social Care Information Centre. The figure amounts to a 54% reduction in the use of police custody since 2011-12, surpassing the ambition of a 50% reduction set out in the Government’s Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, which was published in February 2014 and is attached. Existing guidance in the Concordat and the Mental Health Act Code of Practice makes it clear that police custody should only be used as a place of safety in exceptional circumstances.
The Concordat – signed by over 25 national organisations – has led to the establishment of 96 local groups covering the entirety of England, consisting of health, policing and local authority partners who have pledged to work together to improve mental health crisis care and set out detailed, publicly available plans, including to reduce the use of police custody for those detained under the Act.
However, although significant progress has been made, the Government has signalled its intention to go further by amending legislation through the forthcoming Police and Criminal Justice Bill, so that, among other measures, police custody can never be used as a place of safety for under-18s and so custody can only be used for adults in the most exceptional circumstances.
Moreover, in May this year the Home Secretary announced that the Government would invest up to an additional £15 million in 2016-17 to reduce the use of police custody as a place of safety. Further announcements around this will be made shortly.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to raise awareness of the challenge of Lyme disease in the light of suggestions that the problem has spread to urban environments.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Public Health England (PHE), alongside various stakeholders including local authorities, undertakes a number of local and national initiatives to raise public awareness of the risks posed by ticks and the illnesses they may carry. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence and Lyme Disease Action have produced guidance, which is attached, and training modules for general practitioners (GPs), and PHE has a helpline for doctors, as well as running GP training days.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to encourage organ donation.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
We are supporting a number of initiatives to raise awareness and to encourage more people to consent to organ donation.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) launched a new United Kingdom wide organ donation and transplantation strategy in July 2013. Taking Organ Transplantation to 2020 was developed by NHSBT and the four UK Health Departments. The strategy sets the agenda for increasing organ donation and transplantation rates to world class standards over the next few years.
In 2014 NHSBT ran a successful campaign during National Transplant Week entitled ‘Spell it out’. This encouraged people to tell their friends and family once they have signed up to the Organ Donation Register (ODR). Last year’s campaign achieved higher levels of social media engagement than ever before, and media coverage reached 82% of adults. This year National Transplant Week takes place 7 – 13 September.
In July we also launched a modern ODR system which will enable people to make their wishes about donation much clearer and also link better with social media and donation partners, record more information such as ethnicity and religion and promote organ donation across the UK.
The Department also supports a number of initiatives to raise awareness in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities to become donors. Less than 5% of deceased organ donors are BAME, yet patients from BAME communities represent around a quarter of people waiting for a transplant.
NHSBT also works collaboratively with a number of partners in the private, public and third sectors to promote organ donation, such as Boots Advantage Card. People can also add their name to the ODR via Government-owned channels such as applying for a driving licence and paying car tax online.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will take further action to prevent the detention of mentally ill people in police cells caused by the shortage of relevant National Health Service secure mental health facilities.
Answered by Earl Howe - Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Government is already taking action to prevent the inappropriate use of police cells as a place of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983.
The Government has an ambition to reduce this practice by 50% this year – and to see how police and health colleagues can work together so that it does not happen at all to children and young people.
Last year the number of people taken to police cells as places of safety fell significantly. Emerging figures for police forces for 2014-15 appear to be continuing this downward trend.
The police have told us that between the six months of April and September this year there have been 2,282 such cases – which, if maintained over the rest of the year, would result in a further 24% decrease in use of cells over last year. At the same time the use of health-based places of safety increased by 3,019 uses between 2012-13 and 2013-14.
This puts us well on track to achieve our aim of reducing the 2011-12 figure of 8,667 uses of police cells by half in 2014-15.
In February, we published a Crisis Care Concordat to make sure people in crisis get the help they need. All localities are working to complete local crisis declarations agreed by all the local relevant agencies, by the end of the year.
In conjunction with the Home Office, the Department of Health has conducted a review of section 135 and section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. This is due to report shortly.
The new Children and Young People's Mental Health and Well-Being Taskforce will also be looking at the issue of under 18s being detained in police custody as part of its Access and Prevention work.
Asked by: Lord Condon (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider further action to encourage supermarkets to provide more information to customers about the campylobacter contamination rates of chickens sold.
Answered by Earl Howe - Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Supermarkets do not provide this information to customers. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is publishing quarterly results from its year-long retail survey of campylobacter on whole fresh chickens in order to further drive the implementation of poultry production methods that reduce campylobacter throughout the supply chain. The prime objective is to lower the levels of campylobacter on chickens so that there is minimal risk to consumers.
In addition, through Food Safety Week 2014, the FSA has successfully focused on the message about safe handling of raw poultry which has had widespread coverage in the media. The FSA intends to periodically reinforce the messages to consumers to minimise the risk from cross-contamination by handling raw chicken carefully and to avoid washing it. The FSA has also worked closely with retailers so that the ‘Do not wash’ message is now being rolled out across all poultry packaging at retail.