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 his Department is taking to enable more midwifes to be qualified tongue tie practitioners.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Student midwives are trained to look for tongue ties as part of the routine new born examination that midwives undertake after birth. However, they are not always easily identifiable at this stage and may not become apparent until babies have feeding problems.
It is for the National Health Service locally to ensure appropriate services are available for the diagnosis and treatment of tongue tie. Tongue tie practitioners may be registered nurses, doctors or midwives and they undertake specialist post-registration training to do this based on organisational need.
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, why NHS prescription forms have not been updated to include people in receipt of universal credit who are entitled to free prescriptions.
Answered by Steve Brine
A revised version of the FP10 prescription form, featuring a dedicated tick-box for use by Universal Credit claimants who meet the criteria for free National Health Service prescriptions, recently received Ministerial clearance. Any change to the form involves major system and software updates across the NHS to allow the re-designed form to be used and processed. The revised paper form is currently being prepared for testing, to ensure it is compatible with the scanners used by the NHS Business Services Authority. The revised form will be introduced at the earliest opportunity.
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 individuals have been wrongly issued with NHS prescription fines due to prescription forms not being updated to include universal credit claimants; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Brine
Work is ongoing to update the FP10 prescription form, to include a new exemption tick box for use by Universal Credit (UC) claimants, is underway and the revised form will be introduced at the earliest opportunity. In advance of this update both UC and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants who meet the criteria for free National Health Service prescriptions are ticking exemption box K on the FP10 prescription form. As a result, the NHS Business Services Authority does not have a data split that enables it to confirm how many penalty charges notices have been issued to UC claimants alone and therefore, how many were issued to UC claimants who had a valid prescription charge exemption.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2019 to Question 213200 on Air Pollution and with reference to p165 of the World Health Organisation report, Review of evidence on health aspects of air pollution – REVIHAAP Project, if his Department will conduct research into PM1 and PM0.1.
Answered by Steve Brine
Recent assessments have been undertaken of the health effects of long-term exposure to the air pollution mixture in the United Kingdom, but no separate assessments of the impact of PM1 and PM0.1 components (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 1 or 0.1 microns respectively) of particulate air pollution have been produced.
Public Health England (PHE) undertakes various air quality research projects, working with academic partners, to review the evidence of the health effects of air pollutants. In particular, regarding the health effects of PM0.1 and PM1, PHE has a research program that looks at various aspects of the health effects of PM0.1 (nanoparticles) through the inhalational route mainly focussed on manufactured materials. However, PHE has no plans to engage in work on the effects of PM1 particles on human health over the coming year.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2019 to Question 213200 and with reference to page six of the January 2013 report of the Health Effects Institute entitled Understanding the Health Effects of Ambient Ultrafine Particles, if he will implement the recommendations of that report on PM0.1 and PM1.
Answered by Steve Brine
Recent assessments have been undertaken of the health effects of long-term exposure to the air pollution mixture in the United Kingdom, but no separate assessments of the impact of PM1 and PM0.1 components (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 1 or 0.1 microns respectively) of particulate air pollution have been produced.
Public Health England (PHE) undertakes various air quality research projects, working with academic partners, to review the evidence of the health effects of air pollutants. In particular, regarding the health effects of PM0.1 and PM1, PHE has a research program that looks at various aspects of the health effects of PM0.1 (nanoparticles) through the inhalational route mainly focussed on manufactured materials. However, PHE has no plans to engage in work on the effects of PM1 particles on human health over the coming year.