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 - Shadow Minister (Education)
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
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.
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 estimate he has made of the potential annual savings of fully integrating health and social care provision.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government continues to support the integrated provision of health and social care because of the improvements it brings to the quality of care people receive. Integrated provision has been found to improve health, quality of care and patient satisfaction.
Integration across health and social care commissioning also enables improved co-operation and joint decision-making between health and social care partners in delivering shared outcomes. A number of local areas have reported improved outcomes through the adoption of integrated approaches.
At the national level, evidence of savings due to integrated provision is limited, therefore, the Department does not have an estimate of the annual savings of integration.
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, how many patients were treated in Burnley General Hospital’s Urgent Care Unit between January and December (a) 2018 and (b) 2019.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The information is not available in the format requested.
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, how many nurses there are in East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust; and how many of those nurses were recruited in each year since 2010.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, general practitioner (GP) surgeries, local authorities or other providers.
As at November 2019, the latest available data, there are 2,323 nurses and health visitors at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, headcount.
The following table shows the number of nurses and health visitors joiners for the period specified to East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, headcount.
| Nurses and Health Visitor Joiners |
November 2010 - 2011 | 513 |
November 2011 – 2012 | 189 |
November 2012 – 2013 | 295 |
November 2013 – 2014 | 291 |
November 2014 – 2015 | 287 |
November 2015 – 2016 | 296 |
November 2016 – 2017 | 324 |
November 2017 – 2018 | 246 |
November 2018 - 2019 | 349 |
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 steps he is taking to increase the number of mental health practitioners working in the NHS.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
We have a number of national programmes in place focused on improving mental health staff retention, return to practice, overseas and domestic recruitment and improving sickness absence. These include:
- providing funding for the fast track mental health social work programme that is delivering around 100 social workers into mental health services each year and supporting the development of social work as a profession in mental health services;
- increasing the nursing workforce by expanding the number of nurse training places and launching the ‘We are the NHS’ campaign to highlight nursing opportunities in mental health to increase interest in this profession; and
- increasing the number of psychiatry placements available for junior doctors undertaking foundation training.