Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 (a) funding and (b) guidance provided to public bodies delivering menstrual (i) products and (ii) services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to diagnose migraines.
Answered by Will Quince
To reduce the time taken to diagnose conditions such as migraines, NHS England has published a delivery plan for recovering access to primary care. As part of this plan, the National Health Service will deliver on the commitment of 26,000 more direct patient care staff and 50 million more appointments in general practice by March 2024.
NHS England’s national programme of neurology service improvement is led by the National Neuro Advisory Group (NNAG), which convenes public bodies, expert bodies, clinicians, academics, and patient voice organisations. NNAG is not a decision-making body, but it does make formal recommendations to NHS England about how neurology services should be commissioned and improved.
One of the bodies that advises the NNAG is the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme for neurology. In September 2021, GIRFT published its National Specialty Report for Neurology, which describes the delivery of neurology services in England and makes recommendations for their improvement. The report is available at the following link:
https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/medical_specialties/neurology/
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of offering migraine specialist services at women’s health hubs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific assessment is planned.
In July we announced that the £25 million investment in women’s health hubs is being distributed to every integrated care board (ICB), with each ICB receiving £595,000 in total over 2023/24 and 2024/25. ICBs have been asked to use the funding to establish or expand one women’s health hub within their system.
It is important that services are provided in a way that best meets population needs and reduces health inequalities, and ICBs will determine which specific services their hub will offer. To support ICBs to establish women’s health hubs, we have published a cost-benefit analysis, and a core specification. The core specification sets out which services ICBs could consider incorporating into their hub model, either in terms of provision or signposting. Specialist services for migraines are not listed in the core specification, but this does not prevent women’s health hubs from providing or signposting to migraine services.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 with NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care System to increase the delivery of endoscopy procedures for patients in Gosport constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
£2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years to increase diagnostic capacity, including for endoscopy services. This funding will also increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres up to 160 by March 2025, including a number delivering endoscopy services.
Cutting National Health Service waiting lists, including for endoscopy services, is one of this government’s top priorities. This is a shared ambition amongst integrated care systems (ICSs), including the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICS. Priorities are set locally through joint strategic needs assessments as part of joint forward plans across the ICS and partnering NHS trusts.
There are currently nine sites delivering diagnostics for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. This includes the provision of endoscopy services at some sites.
In the South East Hampshire Locality which includes Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport, 1,908 additional endoscopy tests have been delivered closer to people’s homes, increasing earlier access to endoscopy procedures.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of funding provided to the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight integrated care system for diagnostic funding was spent on diagnostic endoscopy procedures in NHS Portsmouth in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not held in the format requested.
£2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years to increase diagnostic capacity, including for endoscopy services. This funding will also increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres to 160 by March 2025, including a number delivering endoscopy services.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase awareness and education on HPV and HPV-related cancers among children and teenagers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works closely with several charities such as Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and the Teenage Cancer Trust to develop lesson plans for schools and other resources that can be used to raise awareness and educate young people about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and related cancers.
UKHSA has also helped develop resources for schools on the HPV vaccination and other adolescent immunisation programmes available at the following links:
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information-healthcare-professionals/information-teachers;
https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/about-us/what-we-do/cancer-awareness/resources#cervicalcancer
https://pshe-association.org.uk/resource/educate-hpv-vaccine
UKHSA HPV resources are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hpv-vaccination-programme
Also available to order in print on the UKHSA Health Publications website in a range of language and accessible formats available at the following link:
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to monitor inequalities in HPV vaccination uptake.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitor HPV vaccine coverage and publish annual data which is available at the following link:
In order to track inequalities these data are available by gender at the local authority, NHS and UKSHA Regional levels. School-based HPV immunisation delivery has successfully achieved high coverage in England and reduced inequalities at area level since the start of the programme in 2008.
In addition, the UKHSA also conducts undertakes research to understand how knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards immunisation, vaccine safety and disease severity, influence vaccine uptake decision-making, including for the HPV vaccine. This includes working with partners in the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) for Vaccines exploring issues within specific minority communities and monitoring inequalities.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that HPV vaccination reaches 90 per cent uptake in (a) girls and (b) boys.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Ease of access is key to ensure high uptake of vaccines. For this reason, the HPV programme is primarily delivered through schools, with alternative provision for those not in mainstream education and catch-up programmes offered through general practitioner (GP) practices for both girls and boys who are eligible but missed their initial offer.
Additionally, NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency deliver annual communication campaigns to promote the HPV vaccine via GPs and universities, emphasising the benefits of the HPV vaccine for both girls and boys.
It is vitally important that everyone takes up the vaccinations to which they are entitled; for themselves, their families, and wider society. Anyone unsure about their eligibility or vaccination status should contact their GP for advice.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the four-month visa extension for newly trained international medical graduates announced in the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, published by NHS England on 9 May 2023, will apply across all four nations.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Education)
The four-month visa extension for newly trained international medical graduates will apply across all four nations.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Royal College of Psychiatrists report entitled Are we ready to deliver disease modifying treatments?, published on 26 May 2021, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of that report's findings that 36 per cent of psychiatrists think their services could adapt to deliver a new treatment within a year; and what steps his Department is taking to prepare the NHS for future dementia treatments following the approval of lecanemab in the US.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
NHS England has a proactive national dementia programme in place and is monitoring international trial data with great interest, including studies looking into new ways of more easily diagnosing dementia at an earlier stage.
Any decision on the potential scale of testing infrastructure and workforce to support the administration of new treatments will take account of numerous factors. These include the quality of trial evidence to emerge that supports a future licence in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and whether it is subsequently determined by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to be a clinically and cost-effective National Health Service treatment option.