Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 potential merits of regularly publicising the number of unvaccinated people being admitted to hospital with covid-19 that then requires inpatient admission to help increase the level of vaccine uptake amongst people yet to receive one.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The UK Health Security Agency publishes the vaccination status of those hospitalised on a weekly basis via its surveillance reports. This includes the number of unvaccinated people being admitted to hospital with COVID-19 resulting in overnight inpatient admission and is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of providing an annual health check for those people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who may not be independently able to identify other health issues.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
NHS England and NHS Improvement, in partnership with Autistica, have supported the development and piloting of an autism-specific health check in primary care. Newcastle University are currently running this pilot in the North East to determine its effectiveness and ease of use by practitioners. Results from the study are expected late in 2024, with an economic evaluation.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 help increase the number of covid-19 walk-in centres in Bristol aimed at vaccinating 12 to 15 year olds.
Answered by Maggie Throup
In Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG), the School Age Immunisation Service (SAIS) visited every secondary school in the area to provide a first dose COVID-19 vaccination clinic for 12 to 15 year olds. These clinics concluded in December 2021. Parents or carers can now book an appointment at a dedicated general practitioner or vaccination clinic using the online National Booking Service or via 119. The large-scale centre at the University of the West of England Bristol offers walk-in vaccinations for 12 to 15 year olds seven days a week.
Local clinics are planned in schools in areas where uptake in this age group is low. These clinics will be promoted through schools and local authorities, with parents or carers able to make an appointment using a local booking system. BNSSG also offers walk-in family clinics, some of which offer vaccinations for 12 to 15 year olds alongside adult vaccinations. A number of these may be based in schools out of school hours or in a clinic in very close proximity to a cluster of schools.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to bring forward the reduction in price of Hormone Replacement Therapy prescriptions for women experiencing menopause symptoms.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are currently exploring methods to implement these changes at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to reduce the amount of time that young people and children wait for mental health support from a referral to the beginning of treatment.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year to enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 children and young people, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support by 2023/24. We have made a further £500 million available in 2021/22, which includes £79 million to ensure that approximately 22,500 more children and young people can access community mental health services. A further 2,000 children and young people will be able to access eating disorder services and we are accelerating the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on a proposed waiting time standard for children and young people presenting to community-based mental health services, to start to receive care within four weeks from referral. The consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement expect to publish the response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Support (CAMHS) funding to the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The majority of Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust’s income derives from local commissioners. Funding during the COVID-19 pandemic has been maintained at pre-pandemic levels. All providers have been funded at cost and the Trust reported a small surplus in 2020/21 with all costs covered either through commissioner income or system allocations.
NHS England and NHS Improvement’s funding for children and young people’s mental health services for the South West has now transferred in full to the local provider collaborative. It is anticipated that this will allow for planned reinvestment in better service provision over the next three years.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 adequacy of the Workforce Capacity Fund.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
From January to March 2021, we have supported the adult social care sector through the £120 million Workforce Capacity Fund (WCF) to increase capacity to meet critical staffing shortages caused by COVID-19. By 8 October, local authorities reported that over the funding period, a total of 7.3 million additional hours of work and 39,047 new recruits were generated by the WCF. While 75% of the 59 local authority survey respondents agreed that the WCF was either ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ effective in supporting them to strengthen workforce capacity, we also heard that the duration of the fund limited how effectively the sector could utilize the funding.
Learning from the WCF has also informed the design and implementation of the recently launched £162.5 million Workforce Recruitment and Retention Fund for winter 2021/2022. The outcomes and findings from the WCF are available at the following link:
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 potential merits of providing a retention bonus to people employed within the social care sector as part of the covid-19 Winter Plan 2021 to 2022.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No assessment has been made. The vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers who ultimately set their pay and renumeration, independent of central Government. Therefore, we have no current plans to issue recruitment and retention payments directly to social care staff.
However, we recognise the challenges that providers and local authorities are currently experiencing in recruiting and retaining social care workers. To provide additional support to the sector over the winter, on 21 October we announced a new £162.5 million Workforce Recruitment and Retention Fund. We expect local authorities to work closely with care providers on how this funding is spent, which may include incentive and retention payments.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 to (a) prepare for and (b) procure covid-19 booster vaccine doses for variants of concern.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are preparing for a Covid-19 booster vaccination programme and planning for several potential scenarios. Final decisions on the timing and scope of the programme will be taken later this year, in line with results from key clinical studies. Any decision will be informed by independent advice from the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what performance metrics his Department plans to publish for private sector providers of rapid covid-19 testing services for international travel.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.