Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GPs have been (a) permanently employed and (b) employed as locums for a continuous period of more than six months in each Clinical Commissioning Group area.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The data requested is available in the attached table.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
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 effect of the removal of bursaries for undergraduate nurses on the level of nursing places filled in each institution that provides such places.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The education funding reforms, which came into force in 2017, unlocked the cap which constrained the number of pre-registration nursing, midwifery and allied health profession training places allowing more students to gain access to nurse degree training courses.
Health Education Institutes (HEIs) are autonomous private institutions and are responsible for setting the number of training places they offer. It is for HEIs to work as part of their local health economy to secure training places.
The Department does not hold information on the level of pre-registration undergraduate nursing places filled at individual HEIs, compared with the number of places they made available in the given period.
The Office for Students publishes annual data on the number of entrants onto pre-registration nursing undergraduate nursing courses broken down by individual HEIs. Higher Education Students Early Statistics have published the 2018/19 data, which is available at the following link:
The Department monitors student recruitment at a national level. The latest published data from the University and Colleges Admissions Service from February 2019 shows that there has been a 4.5% increase in applicants to nursing or midwifery courses at English universities when compared to this time last year in 2018. However, we know that there is further work to do with the education and healthcare sector to ensure that students continue to apply for these places.
The NHS Long Term Plan set out the next step in our mission to make the National Health Service a world class employer and deliver the nursing workforce the NHS needs. To deliver on these commitments the NHS has published on 3 June 2019 an interim People Plan that sets out the action we will take now and over the long term to meet the challenges of nursing supply, including nursing undergraduate supply.
We recognise, however, that there is more to do which is why the NHS will publish a final People Plan soon after the conclusion of the Spending Review.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on the provision of detailed information to businesses, schools and other public institutions on food allergen advice.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
As a non-Ministerial Government Department responsible for food safety and authenticity, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has worked extensively on the provision of food allergy advice for food businesses.
The FSA has worked with industry on best practice guidance and is updating the allergen section in Safer Food Better Business packs to ensure all information is consistent with the most up-to-date knowledge. Additionally, as part of the Easy to Ask campaign, the FSA worked very closely with a wide range of food businesses.
After a joint public consultation with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the FSA has recently recommended to Ministers full ingredient listing for food offered prepacked for direct sale. Any changes will necessitate working on guidance with industry so that businesses are clear on their responsibilities. Further work on allergy awareness is also planned.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
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 tackle the threat of cancer from acrylamide in (a) food and (b) tobacco smoke.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Since the mid-2000s, when acrylamide was first highlighted as a food safety concern, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has worked with industry and European counterparts to mitigate the risks of acrylamide to consumers. It has developed a Code of Practice for food businesses; provided local authorities with guidance to ensure business compliance; and worked with catering establishments to reduce acrylamide formation during food preparation.
The FSA continues to take an active role in European Union/United Kingdom negotiations to develop a process for setting regulatory limits for acrylamide in certain products such as those intended for infants and young children.
The EU does not include acrylamide in its list of priority additives contained in cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco that are subject to enhanced reporting obligations under the EU Tobacco Products Directive (2014/40/EU).
The best way to reduce the risk from tobacco smoke is to reduce smoking. The UK is a world leader in tobacco control, with a comprehensive programme to reduce smoking prevalence, including fiscal measures, a ban on all forms of advertising and promotion, smoke free mass media campaigns, action to tackle illegal tobacco and evidence-based support for smokers to quit.
In recent years, adult smoking prevalence has been declining at an accelerated rate and the government is working with partners across the healthcare system towards the achievement of a smoke free generation.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what investigations the Government has commissioned on the health and safety implications of the 5G rollout.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and health evidence reviews have been prepared by scientific expert groups in the United Kingdom and around the world. The independent Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation (AGNIR) published their report in the UK in 2012 and the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) published their report in 2015. The World Health Organization is presently preparing a review. The AGNIR report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/radiofrequency-electromagnetic-fields-health-effects
The SCENIHR report is available at the following link:
https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/scientific_committees/docs/citizens_emf_en.pdf
Based on the accumulated evidence and reviews, Public Health England (PHE) advises that the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) should be adopted and there is no convincing evidence that EMF exposures below the ICNIRP guideline levels cause adverse health effects.
PHE has committed to keeping the emerging evidence under review and to preparing another comprehensive review when sufficient new evidence has accumulated.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research his Department has commissioned or supported examining the effect of air quality on cancer rates in specific locations.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department invests over £1 billion a year in health research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including to examine the effects of air quality on cancer rates in specific locations. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality.
The NIHR funds a broad spectrum of research on the effects of air quality on health through the NIHR Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs). Since 2014, the NIHR has funded the HPRU in Health Impact of Environmental Hazards at a cost of £4.4 million. This Unit is a partnership between King’s College London and Public Health England and conducts a wide-ranging programme of research on the health impacts of air pollutants.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to tackle the decline in the number of women taking up (a) breast and (b) cervical cancer screening.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Professor Sir Mike Richards has published his interim independent review of national cancer screening programmes in England.
The interim report makes two recommendations: that local systems across the country take immediate action to address the decline in screening uptake by implementing interventions for which a clear evidence base already exists; and that national stakeholders should ensure IT systems for general practitioner registrations and screening are fit for purpose.
The report notes that in order to encourage uptake in harder to reach groups, the Government needs to build the evidence base for other emerging interventions, paying particular attention to novel approaches that have been introduced locally and appear to be successful. Evaluation would be needed to determine whether they can be replicated on a wider scale. Professor Sir Mike Richards has committed to gathering further evidence on these and other interventions as the review progresses and will include specific work with faith and ethnic groups, experts on physical and learning disabilities and with LGBT+ communities on their specific concerns about screening, with a particular focus on the transgender community.
The Government awaits the final recommendations which will be reported in the summer 2019, and will consider these carefully, alongside the recommendations from the recent reports published by the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office's investigation into screening and the national Cancer Strategy.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timeframe is for the roll-out of the national screening programme for cancer; and how many patients will initially be included in that programme.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The National Health Service provides three national cancer population-based screening programmes as part of the Section 7a Public Health services, commissioned by NHS England on behalf of the Secretary of State.
During 2018, the NHS screened 3.2 million women for cervical abnormalities; 2.6 million people for bowel cancer; and 2.1 million women for breast cancer.
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to modernising the Bowel Cancer screening programme to detect more cancers earlier by lowering the starting age for bowel screening from 60 to 50 over time and replacing the guaiac Faecal Occult Blood Test kit with the more sensitive Faecal Immunochemical Test for haemoglobin from summer 2019. It also confirmed that using human papillomavirus testing as the primary screen for cervical cancer will be implemented across England by 2020.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to clarify governance arrangements for cancer screening between the NHS, Public Health England and his Department.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Officials from the Department and Public Health England have engaged with Professor Sir Mike Richards to ensure that his ongoing review gives consideration to the governance of all screening programmes.
The Terms of Reference for Professor Sir Mike Richards' Review include making recommendations, if needed, on how NHS England interacts with Public Health England and the Department to translate screening policy into implementation and on how screening programmes should be commissioned, delivered, performance managed and quality assured in the future.
Professor Sir Mike Richards published an interim report on 24 May on his emerging findings of the independent review of national screening programmes in England. However, the Government awaits the final recommendations which will be reported in summer 2019, and will consider these carefully, alongside the recommendations from the recent reports published by the Public Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office's investigation into screening and the national Cancer Strategy.
The findings of the review will be taken forward as part of the NHS Long Term Plan.
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional powers he plans to confer on the Food Standards Agency after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
Decisions about what additional powers could be transferred to the Food Standards Agency after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union would be subject to consultation. We need to understand the nature of the decisions further before setting out which powers can be delegated. Decisions would sit with Ministers in the first instance while routine and technical ones would be delegated later.