Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to expand national capacity for paediatric interventional radiology training.
Answered by Will Quince
As of January 2023, there were 1,584 full-time equivalent (FTE) trainee doctors working in clinical radiology services in the National Health Service in England. This is an increase of 274 (20.9%) since 2020.
The Government funded an additional 20 Specialty Training posts for interventional radiologists in 2021/22 and 2022/23. These increases have expanded the number of radiologists who can train to deliver paediatric interventional radiology.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on (a) improving access to paediatric interventional radiology services and (b) ensuring all hospitals have a strategy to deal with out-of-hours emergencies requiring paediatric interventional radiologists.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Department will discuss these issues with NHS England.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the ratio of the number of paediatric interventional radiologists to the number of children.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Department will discuss these issues with NHS England.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure equal access to paediatric interventional radiology services in the UK.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Department will discuss these issues with NHS England.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce elective procedure backlogs in child health services.
Answered by Will Quince
In February 2022, the National Health Service published a delivery plan setting out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and reduce waiting times for elective services, including treatment for children and young people.
To support this recovery, the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available to systems in 2021/22 to help drive up and protect elective activity.
Steps being taken include increasing capacity, seeking alternative capacity in other trusts or the independent sector, and engaging with patients to understand their choices. Having virtually met our target to eliminate long waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July, we have also made significant progress in tackling waits of 78 weeks or more for elective services including child health services.
NHS England will soon publish statistics that demonstrate what has been achieved to date.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce treatment waiting times for children and young people.
Answered by Will Quince
In February 2022, the National Health Service published a delivery plan setting out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and reduce waiting times for elective services including treatment for children and young people. The steps being taken include increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector, and engaging with patients to understand their choices.
To support this recovery the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, and an additional £5.9 billion investment in capital for new beds, equipment and technology.
Additionally, the NHS Long Term plan commits to increase investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24. Part of this increased investment will enable an additional 345,000 children and young people to access NHS funded mental health support.
In September 2022 we also announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including access for children and young people.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how his Department's Major Conditions Strategy will help increase (a) faster and (b) earlier diagnosis of cancer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at cancer, covering treatment, prevention and follow-up care. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to to introduce a cancer-specific plan for increasing cancer survival in England as part of the Major Conditions Strategy.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at cancer, covering treatment, prevention and follow-up care. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a long term strategy for cancer to improve cancer outcomes in England.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Major Conditions Strategy will look at cancer, covering the patient pathway from prevention, through treatment, to follow-up care. The strategy will look at a wide range of interventions and enablers to improve outcomes and experience for cancer patients.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Mental Health Bill will include a statutory duty to provide early intervention strategies to (a) detect and (b) help tackle mental health issues for children and young people within all (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. member for Bootle on 27 January in response to question 129867.