Asked by: Antony Higginbotham (Conservative - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to increase the number of dentists taking on NHS patients in (a) Burnley constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Burnley. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Burnley.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.
Asked by: Antony Higginbotham (Conservative - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress his Department has made on increasing the number of (a) scans, (b) diagnostic tests and (c) other health checks provided by the NHS.
Answered by Will Quince
Hardworking NHS Staff delivered 102% of pre-pandemic diagnostic activity in September 2022, and we are well on our way to delivering 120% of pre-pandemic activity.
The Government has committed to invest £2.3 billion in capital to help increase the volume of diagnostic activity and reduce patient waiting times.
Most of this will help increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres to up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services.
Asked by: Antony Higginbotham (Conservative - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) support and (b) resources the Government plans to make available to tackle the backlog in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are committed to recovering cancer services by the end of March 2022, returning to February 2020 levels for waiting times between a general practitioner appointment and referral and the number of people waiting for over 62 days for treatment.
Diagnostic capacity is being increased, particularly in endoscopy, computerised tomography and targeted lung health checks. Rapid diagnostic centres are bringing together diagnostic equipment and expertise and increasing capacity. The National Health Service is maximising innovative treatments adopted during the pandemic, including new radiotherapy methods to deliver targeted treatment in fewer hospital visits.
At the Spending Review 2021, we announced an extra £5.9 billion to support elective recovery, diagnostics and technology over the next three years. This includes £2.3 billion to increase the volume of diagnostic activity and launching community diagnostic centres to address backlogs of clinical tests.