Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the representatives of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the (a) formulation and (b) publication of NICE guidelines for the treatment of Tourette's Syndrome.
Answered by Will Quince
There have been no specific discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service in line with its established methods and processes. In line with its process for considering requests for new guidelines, NICE has considered the possible development of a guideline on Tourette’s syndrome, which was discussed at a meeting of the cross-agency topic prioritisation group in November 2022. The group did not consider this topic to be a national priority at this time and therefore decided not to prioritise development of a NICE guideline on Tourette’s syndrome.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government has held recent discussions with (a) the British Dental Association and (b) similar representative organisations on (i) support for dentists and (ii) encouraging take-up of NHS contracts.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have regular discussions with the British Dental Association, other organisations in the dental sector and organisations representing dental patients to support and improve National Health Service dental care.
Stakeholders were integral to the development of ‘Our plan for patients’, announced in September 2022. This plan outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to NHS dental care. This included improving the 2006 contract to ensure fairer remuneration for practices providing complex treatment, issuing clear guidance on how often patients should expect to attend for check-ups, and enabling dentists to make better use of dental teams to deliver NHS treatment. Working together with stakeholders, these changes were implemented through regulations that came into effect on 25th November 2022.
NHS England is holding further discussions with the British Dental Association and the wider dental sector for additional reforms of the NHS Dental System, planned for 2023
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many students have undertaken dental studies at (a) university or (b) medical colleges since 2021.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Dentistry courses in England are all offered at universities. The following table shows entrants to dentistry courses in England by course provider.
| Provider | Total |
| The University of Birmingham | 70 |
| University of Bristol | 60 |
| University of Central Lancashire | 25 |
| King's College London | 155 |
| The University of Leeds | 75 |
| The University of Liverpool | 70 |
| The University of Manchester | 70 |
| University of Newcastle upon Tyne | 65 |
| University of Plymouth | 55 |
| Queen Mary University of London | 70 |
| The University of Sheffield | 70 |
| Total | 795 |
Source: Office for Students Medical and Dental Students Survey 2022
Note:
Entrants are based on initial figures and are likely to change.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 NHS dental appointments are available to people living in Watford.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Watford. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Watford.
The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 access to dental care under Our Plan for Patients.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
On 25 November 2022, the Department introduced legislation to amend the National Health Service dental contract to incentivise dentists to deliver care to high needs patients through fairer remuneration. The legislation requires NHS dentists to update their NHS.UK profiles more frequently to ensure patients can access accurate information on the services available. The Department will enable NHS England’s commissioners to more flexibly commission additional care for patients where this can be delivered by NHS dental teams.
NHS England has introduced minimum Unit of Dental Activity values of £23 to support NHS dentists with historically low value contracts and improve variation in contract values in England. The Department and NHS England aim to diversify the range of professionals available in NHS dentistry.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 ensure the availability of NHS dental services for children.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We are working with NHS England to implement improvements to the National Health Service dentistry contract through measures agreed with the British Dental Association and set out in ‘Our plan for patients’ in September. These will improve access to NHS dentistry, including for children, whilst making the NHS dental contract more attractive to dentists and their teams.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the availability of NHS dental services in (a) Watford and (b) nationally.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has plans to mandate the location of defibrillators in all buildings and infrastructure managed by the Government.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has no plans to do so. It is a matter for other Government departments to determine the location of defibrillators on their estate.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 increase the (a) provision of defibrillators in England and (b) number of people trained in first aid and CPR in England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Health Service is establishing a national network of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and community first responders which aims to save up to 4,000 lives each year by 2028. This will be supported by educating the general public, including young people of school age, on first aid and how to recognise and respond to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The Government encourages organisations in England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of first aid equipment, particularly for places where there are high concentrations of people. With growing public awareness and acceptance of AEDs, many community defibrillators have since been provided in public locations, including shopping centres, through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities. From May 2020, the Government has required all contractors refurbishing schools or building new ones through centrally delivered programmes, to provide at least one AED on site.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
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 an assessment of the effectiveness of using transparent face masks to facilitate lip reading to assist people with hearing difficulties.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
NHS England and NHS Improvement’s transparent face mask working group produced a new technical specification which gives testing, design and performance requirements for single-use transparent face masks, with comparable protection to a Type IIR mask. This specification is available at the following link:
The Department is encouraging manufacturers to develop new, innovative products which meet the standard for transparent face masks and funding is available to run pilot schemes once they are available. Future procurement will be informed by this work.