Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of maintaining increases in mental health funding or funding for other NHS services; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Spending Review in November 2015 settled the level of funding that the National Health Service in England will receive over the course of this Parliament. The NHS will be receiving £10 billion more per year in real terms by 2020-21 compared to 2014-15. This increase in funding enables increases in both mental health funding and other key priorities. It supports NHS England’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View, delivering high quality care seven days a week.
This also supports the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in February 2016. The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, as the report of the Mental Health Taskforce, made the case for additional investment in mental health which will in turn deliver savings to the NHS including the acute sector. The Taskforce recommended, and we have accepted, investing £1 billion more per year in mental health by 2020-21.
NHS England is also monitoring investment in mental health as commissioners are required to increase their mental health spending in line with the growth in their overall programme allocation.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust response times for stroke victims for whom 999 emergency services are requested.
Answered by Philip Dunne
This is a matter for East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, working with its commissioners and other local partners and supported by NHS Improvement.
The Trust intends to deliver improved performance for all patients, including patients who have had a stroke. This includes increasing the resources available to respond to patients by recruiting more frontline staff and investing in new ambulances to increase the fleet size. The Trust is also working with the local acute hospitals and commissioners to help reduce the delays experienced by ambulance crews when handing over patients at hospitals and reviewing its stroke care practice to ensure that stroke patients are taken to specialist centres within the ideal timeline.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the additional £1.25 billion made available in the March 2015 Budget for child and adolescent mental health services has been spent in Derby North constituency.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
This information is not available in the format requested.
We are advised by NHS England that from this additional funding the amount allocated to Southern Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group in 2015/16 was £1.029 million and for 2016/17 the amount is £1.370 million.
This Government has made £1.4 billion funding available over the course of the Parliament for spending on children and young people’s mental health, with total investment to date of £453 million.
Investment in 2015/16 included:
- £75 million to transform local services through delivery of Local Transformation Plans (LTPs);
- £30 million to improve community based eating disorder services; and
- £68 million to fund expansion of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme (CYP IAPT); improvements to perinatal mental health care; investment in inpatient services for children and young people; increased workforce capability; and innovation and development of online support.
Investment for 2016/17 includes:
- £119 million for LTPs;
- £30 million to improve community based eating disorder services; and
- £131 million for workforce and system development to support LTPs; a proportion of this will be allocated to commissioners for CYP IAPT and perinatal mental healthcare.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make an assessment of the effect that inability to access GP appointments is having on the levels of people presenting at Accident and Emergency services in Derby; and if he will take steps to increase access to GP appointments in Derby.
Answered by David Mowat
The commissioning and provision of primary medical care services, including general practitioner (GP) appointments, is a matter for NHS England and local clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). As such, the Department itself makes no assessment of the effect of accessibility of GP appointments on accident and emergency services in Derby.
Southern Derbyshire CCG acknowledges that results from this year’s GP Patient Survey varied across its 55 GP practices, although the CCG believes that overall it is in line with average national performance. The CCG is therefore focusing support on those practices in greatest need. My hon. Friend may wish to contact the Chief Officer of her local CCG, Southern Derbyshire CCG, for the relevant information.
To implement the Government’s commitment to transform GP access, £175 million has been invested in the GP Access Fund from April 2014 to test improved and innovative access to GP services in schemes across the country. Across the two waves of the Access Fund, there are 57 schemes covering over 2,500 practices. 18 million patients, a third of the population, have benefited from improved access and transformational change at local level including evening and weekend appointments.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress the Government has made on supporting women with perinatal mental health issues.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Government is fully committed to improving perinatal mental health services. Following an announcement by the Prime Minister in January, we are investing an additional £365 million by 2021 to improve services so that women are able to access the right care, at the right time and close to home.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that adequate funding is directed to local mental health bodies to reduce waiting times for child mental health care.
Answered by Alistair Burt
In total the Government has made available an additional £1.4 billion over the course of this Parliament to support significant transformation in children and young people’s mental health so that there is easy access to the right support from the right service when it is needed.
The key mechanism in delivering this transformation programme, as set out in the Future in Mind report, are the Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) that all clinical commissioning groups covering all local areas have produced. These plans should meet the needs of all the local population and cover the full spectrum of services needed to ensure that children and young people can access services when they need to.
NHS England’s Local Transformation Planning guidance issued in August 2015 and the robust assurance process around it, backed by a programme of regional and national support, are in place to ensure that the additional money will be spent for the purposes intended and that locally determined key performance indicators will be met. NHS England will continue to support local areas to refresh their LTPs to take and merge into the wider Sustainability and Transparency Planning process.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to improve support for children and young people with mental health problems.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We are working to develop seamless and integrated mental health services for children and young people through a major transformation programme backed by additional funding. NHS England are expanding the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme to cover all England by 2018 and, with the Department for Education, developing single points of contact for mental health in schools.