Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 reduce the time taken to grant licences to pharmacies applying to open new premises.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Pharmacies that want to provide National Health Service pharmaceutical service must submit an application to the integrated care board (ICB). ICBs determine applications having regard to Pharmaceutical Needs Assessments (PNAs), undertaken by local authorities. Applications can also be made to provide benefits that were not foreseen in the PNA. If the applicant or another contractor wishes to appeal the decision of the ICB, then they can appeal the decision. Appeals are dealt with by NHS Resolution on behalf of my Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Together with Community Pharmacy England, the representative body of all pharmacy contractors in England, we keep the market entry system and underpinning processes under review, and streamline and expedite the processes where possible. For example, in May 2023, we removed the requirement for an applicant to provide fitness information if they already operate another pharmacy in the area, and the ICB already holds their up-to-date fitness information, and shortened the work history that needs to be provided to the last seven years. Applicants can also speed up the process by ensuring they provide all the right information with their application in a timely manner.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 help ensure that vulnerable and elderly people are protected while covid-19 continues to circulate.
Answered by Maggie Throup
On 1 April 2022, the Government issued updated public health advice for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk of serious outcomes from COVID-19. This set out measures for this patient group, including additional doses of COVID-19 vaccinations, eligibility for targeted antivirals and other therapeutics and guidance on protective behaviours. Those aged over 65 years old with symptoms who test positive for COVID-19 are eligible for pulse oximetry at home, which can enable timely hospital treatment if required. This is also available to people under 65 years old who are at higher risk or where clinical judgement applies.
Those aged over 75 years old have been eligible for an additional booster vaccination in spring 2022, including people in care homes for older people and also those aged 12 years old and over with a weakened immune system. On 19 May 2022, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published interim advice on an autumn booster programme, which states that a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered in autumn 2022 to residents in a care home for older adults and staff; frontline health and social care workers; all those aged 65 years old and over; and adults aged 16 to 64 years old in a clinical risk group. The JCVI continues to review additional COVID-19 vaccinations for other groups and definitions of clinical risk groups. Its final advice on eligibility for the autumn programme will be available in due course. The Government continues to assess the current situation and the risks posed by COVID-19.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of measures to protect people who are most vulnerable from covid-19; and whether he plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing such measures.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The UK Health Security Agency’s COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report shows that as of 21 April 2022, vaccine uptake among those identified as severely immunosuppressed was 95.7% for at least one dose, 94.5% for at least two doses and 88.1% for at least three doses. NHS England’s COVID Therapeutics data for the week ending 22 May 2022 shows that the number of non-hospitalised people in England who have received antivirals or neutralising monoclonal antibody treatments is 45,745. The Office for National Statistics’ survey ‘Coronavirus and clinically extremely vulnerable people in England’ published on 13 May shows that 81% of respondents were aware of guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk. We have no plans to make a further assessment of the current measures which are in place.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking help people in Ukraine who suffer from diabetes and are at risk of running out of insulin.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The United Kingdom has provided more than two million items of medical supplies to Ukraine as of 18 March 2022. We have delivered over 300,000 individual doses of medicines, as well as medical consumables such as syringes and needles. Further delivery of medicines to Ukraine is continuing, including several thousand doses of insulin.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 (a) ensure that people can book NHS dental appointments and (b) remove covid-19 restrictions to ensure further appointments can take place.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We have sought to balance protecting staff and patients by setting minimum thresholds of National Health Service dental activity. The current threshold is 85%. Thresholds have reflected both attainment by the best performing practices and the impact of necessary infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures. The dentistry IPC guidance is based on national guidance for health and care settings, which is regularly updated to reflect the current evidence base. The latest version of the ‘COVID-19: infection prevention and control dental appendix’ was published in March 2022.
In addition, £50 million for NHS dentistry was made available in the last quarter of 2021/22 to provide access to dental appointments. NHS dentists have been asked to prioritise available capacity for urgent care, care for vulnerable groups and children followed by overdue appointments.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what further support he plans to make available to the health and social care workforce during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
We are maintaining high levels of support for staff, including ensuring they have access to the personal protective equipment and testing they need. Furthermore, all eligible frontline workers have now been offered the vaccine. We continue to expand the workforce, having committed to increasing the National Health Service nursing workforce by 50,000 by the end of this Parliament and promoting social care careers through a national media campaign. We have also put in place a package of mental health support for all staff.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 support the provision of non-covid-19 healthcare treatment during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We have provided £63 billion of extra funding to the National Health Service in 2020-21 and £20.3 billion in 2021-22 to help manage ongoing COVID-19 pressures alongside non-COVID-19 activity levels. We are providing an additional £3 billion next year on top of the long-term settlement, to support recovery from COVID-19.
The Spending Review allocated £1 billion to help tackle the elective backlog and support hospitals to cut long waits for treatment by carrying up to one million extra checks, scans and additional operations or procedures. We have also provided funding for enhanced Infection Prevention and Control measures, including £450 million to expand and upgrade accident and emergency departments to reduce overcrowding and improve infection control so we can continue to treat all patients safely.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 there is an adequate number of NHS dentist appointments available throughout the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Dental practices closed in March 2020. Since June, a steady increase in dental activity has been made possible following updated Infection Prevention and Control guidance issued by Public Health England. Contractual arrangements for quarter four have been introduced by NHS England and NHS Improvement requiring dental practices to deliver 45% of contracted units of dental activity from 1 January to 31 March 2021 to be deemed to have delivered the full contractual volume. This is expected to increase available National Health Service dental care for patients.
The Department is working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer for England to increase levels of service, as fast as is safely possible. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice, they should contact NHS 111 for assistance. Over 600 urgent dental care centres remain open to help patients access care.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
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 upgrade (a) A&E departments and (b) intensive care units prior to winter 2020-21.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We have announced £450 million of funding in 2020/21 for upgrades to accident and emergency (A&E) departments at over 120 trusts and covering over 190 sites. Funding was awarded on the condition that schemes bring substantial improvements to A&Es this winter. £600 million of investment has also been delivered to address critical infrastructure risk across the National Health Service estate. The majority of this funding has been provided to acute trusts to mitigate risks to healthcare delivery and patient safety.
Asked by: Darren Henry (Conservative - Broxtowe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to use (a) universities, (b) businesses and (c) other private laboratories to increase covid-19 testing and lab capacity; and whether he has fast-tracked private medical laboratory accreditation for that purpose.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Pillar 2 uses Lighthouse laboratories and has partnership arrangements with public, private and academic sector laboratories. The United Kingdom’s daily COVID-19 testing capacity passed the 500,000 mark on 31 October. Testing capacity in the UK across all pillars between 29 October and 4 November was at 4,367,049 tests, an increase of 21% compared to the previous week.