Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Bristol North East)
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 children nearing the end of life can access palliative care at home.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care. ICBs are responsible for the commissioning of palliative and end of life care services, to meet the needs of their local populations.
To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance requires ICBs to work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of palliative and end of life care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. This funding will also help to develop and better outreach services to support people in their own homes when needed.
Additionally, we are providing £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the children and young people’s hospice grant.
I have tasked officials to look at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all- age palliative and end of life care, including services provided at, or closer to, home, in line with the 10-Year Health Plan. It is our intention to work together with stakeholders to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need, in the right place, at the right time, at the end of life.
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Bristol North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) availability and (b) eligibility requirements for NHS hernia operations.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific assessment has been made of the adequacy of the availability of hernia operations. Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning services, considering the needs of their local population and national guidance, such as that from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
There are several types of hernia and therefore decisions about the eligibility to treat will be based on guidelines and clinical judgement appropriate to the individual circumstances.
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Bristol North East)
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 reform the NHS dentistry contract.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To rebuild dentistry in the long term and increase access to National Health Service dental care, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system, so that we deliver a system better for patients and professionals.
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Bristol North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her Department’s polices of recent trends in levels of (a) children, (b) women and (c) people unable to access NHS dental services in Kingswood constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients and since the end of January, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients.
The Dentistry Recovery plan also sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines, and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth. The plan will deploy mobile dental teams into schools to provide advice and deliver preventative treatments to more than 165,000 children.
A new patient premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients, and a new marketing campaign will help everyone who needs an NHS dentist in finding one. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable. We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress, once available. Annual dental statistics, including the number of adults and children who have seen an NHS dentist since 2015, are available at the following link:
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Bristol North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the number of (a) children, (b) women and (c) people affected by dental surgeries no longer providing NHS services in Kingswood constituency since 2022.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients across England. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. Patients unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance.
We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once available. No estimates are currently available of the number of children, women, and people affected by dental surgeries no longer providing NHS services in the Kingswood constituency since 2022. Annual dental statistics, including the number of dentists offering NHS services since 2015, are available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Annual data on the number of NHS dental contracts commissioned since 2015/16 is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/dental-data/nhs-payments-dentists