Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government has taken to implement the (a) recommendation to increase the availability of talking therapies as an alternative to psychiatric medication and (b) other recommendations of Public Health England's Prescribed medicines review report, published in September 2019; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The most appropriate form of treatment is a matter for clinicians and patients, based on each patient’s individual clinical circumstances.
Over 1 million people with mental health conditions are now accessing psychological and talking therapies through Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services each year. Under the NHS Long Term Plan, our ambition is that an additional 380,000 people per year will being able to access National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-approved IAPT therapies by 2023/24.
NHS England and NHS Improvement has established a group, chaired by the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and the Primary Care Medical Director, to oversee implementation of the recommendations for the NHS from Public Health England’s prescribed medicines review, on dependence forming prescription medicines. Further consideration is being given on wider engagement with patient groups, charities and people with lived experience, alongside clinical experts, professional bodies and Royal Colleges, including the potential for a separate advisory stakeholder group to support development and implementation.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the availability of evidence-based talking therapies other than cognitive behavioural therapy in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services throughout England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
In addition to cognitive behavioural therapy, the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme provides the following National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved therapies: guided and non-guided self-help through a book or a computer, counselling for depression, psychoeducational peer support, behavioural activation (high and low intensity), eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, interpersonal psychotherapy, mindfulness, collaborative care, couples therapy for depression, brief psychodynamic psychotherapy, structured physical activity, applied relaxation and ante/post-natal counselling.
NHS Digital publishes annual reports on the IAPT programme and this includes a therapy-based outcome analysis, detailing all the therapies available through IAPT services. The latest report can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned publication date is of the 2020 Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Workforce Census; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Health Education England has commissioned the NHS Benchmarking Network to complete a census of the Adult Improving Access to Psychological Therapies workforce, as of 31 March 2020. The report is in the final stages of data collection and then will be finalised and, following approval, should be published within the current financial year (31 March 2021).
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to announce the appointment of the new Chair of NHS Resolution; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The assessment process for recruiting a new Chair of NHS Resolution is well advanced and the appointment will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 30 January 2020 to Question 8193 on Tobacco: Research and Question 8194 on Smoking, when the Government plans to announce the call for evidence to assess further the effectiveness of heated tobacco products in helping people to quit smoking and reducing associated health harms.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the prevention Green Paper consultation ‘Advancing our health: Prevention in the 2020s’ the Government indicated that we will consider running a call for independent evidence to assess further how effective heated tobacco products are, or are not, in helping people quit smoking and reducing health harms from smoking. This forms part of our commitment to evaluate the evidence on new products. This work is currently paused due to the need to prioritise work on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We will consider looking at this at a later date to form part of our smokefree 2030 plans.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on ensuring that care homes and care providers can continue to recruit staff from outside the UK in the event that vacancies remain unfilled when advertised to the domestic labour market; and if will make a statement.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Home Secretary have regular discussions about the design of the future Points-Based Immigration system. The independent Migration Advisory Committee has repeatedly advised that migration should not be a solution to workforce shortages in social care. We recognise that the changes to the immigration system and the ending of freedom of movement will mean that social care employers will need to redouble efforts to promote jobs in social care to workers in the United Kingdom.
In order to attract more people into social care, we launched a new national recruitment campaign, ‘Care for others; Make a difference’ and an online platform to fast-track recruitment, which sits alongside many local initiatives that have been put in place to recruit staff.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives from the care sector on the role that sector will play in providing the Government with early data in the event of a future increase in cases of covid-19; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since the start of this pandemic we have been working closely with the care sector, including engaging through regular meetings.
Care home managers and providers are required to contact their local Health Protection Team (HPT) as soon as possible if they have a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19. This enables rapid public health risk assessment and deployment of testing. Data from testing is reported to Public Health England (PHE) daily and formally reviewed weekly in Departmental meetings.
PHE HPTs already work closely with local authorities to monitor the local patterns of COVID-19 infection in the community and care sector.
In addition, in order to receive funding from the infectious Control Fund, Care homes are required to regularly submit data on Covid Case numbers and infection control measures.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to offer (a) financial and (b) other assistance to care homes as a result of the nationwide fall in occupancy rates; and if will make a statement.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that COVID-19 is imposing significant pressures on the social care sector. We have now made £3.7 billion available to local authorities so they can address pressures on local services caused by the pandemic, including in adult social care.
At the 2019 Spending Review we provided additional funding for adult and children’s social care using pre-COVID-19 occupancy rates. The Government has now provided councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adults and children’s social care in 2020/21 on top of maintaining £2.5 billion of existing social care grants.
The Government will continue to monitor pressures in the National Health Service and local government and will keep future funding under review.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to enable care homes to access supplies of centrally purchased personal protective equipment; and if he will make statement.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are doing everything we can to ensure the social care sector has the support it needs during this unprecedented global outbreak. To date, we have released over 172 million items of personal protective equipment (PPE) to designated wholesalers for onward sale to social care providers. As a result, the majority of PPE continues to be sourced by care providers themselves from wholesalers, as it was prior to COVID-19.
Asked by: Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne)
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 ensure that powers in Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 will not be used to coerce people to comply with the voluntary Test and Trace scheme.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We launched the NHS Test and Trace service on 28 May 2020.
We are confident that members of the public will want to play their part in reducing the spread of the virus to keep themselves, their families and communities safe and to protect the National Health Service. This means cooperating with instructions to self-isolate. However, if we find that people are not complying with isolation instructions, we will not hesitate to introduce tougher measures.
The powers in Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 are not designed to be used on a large scale and cannot feasibly be used to enforce compliance with this service. We anticipate that the powers in Schedule 21 will only be used in support of the Government’s COVID-19 response in exceptional individual circumstances and will be based on an assessment carried out by a Public Health Officer.
Data about the use of powers under Schedule 21 is published every two months and can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-act-report-july-2020