Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many children aged four and under in Wellingborough constituency were admitted to hospital for a tooth extraction due to decay in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Data on child hospital admissions for tooth extraction at national, regional, local authority and National Health Service levels is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hospital-tooth-extractions-in-0-to-19-year-olds-2023
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of life expectancy in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by John Glen - Shadow Paymaster General
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon lady’s Parliamentary Question of 12/04/2024 is attached.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support the recruitment and retention of midwives in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We are investing an additional £186 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care and grow the workforce. On top of this, the Government and NHS England are investing nearly £35 million over three years, from 2024/25 to 2026/27, to further improve maternity safety across England, with specialist training for staff, additional numbers of midwives, and support to ensure maternity services listen to, and act on, women’s experiences to improve care. As announced at the Spring Budget, we are further increasing the number of midwives by funding an additional 160 new posts over three years, to support the continued growth of the maternity and neonatal workforce.
On retention, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the National Health Service over the next 15 years. This includes: implementing actions from the NHS People Plan that have been shown to be successful; implementing plans to improve flexible opportunities for prospective retirees, and delivering the actions needed to modernise the NHS pension scheme; and committing to ongoing national funding for continuing professional development for nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals, so NHS staff are supported to meet their full potential. These measures apply across the country, including for midwives in the Wellingborough constituency.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of GP surgeries are rated as Good by the CQC in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
90% of general practice locations in Wellingborough are currently rated by the Care Quality Commission as Good overall.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support the recruitment and retention of mental health specialists in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
To deliver the NHS Long Term Plan’s mental health commitments and help reduce waiting times in the Wellingborough constituency and nationwide, our aim has been to grow the mental health workforce nationally by an additional 27,000 professionals by March 2024.
We are making positive progress, delivering three quarters of this, or approximately 20,800 new professionals, by December 2023, with further growth expected to have been achieved once the full year figures for 2023/24 are available. This growth is in addition to the commitment to grow the National Health Service’s mental health workforce by 19,000 between 2016/17 and 2020/21, as set out in Stepping Forward to 2020/21: the mental health workforce plan for England, which was achieved in September 2021.
At a national level, we are committed to attracting, training, and recruiting the mental health workforce of the future, as well as retaining and developing our current workforce. The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan’s modelling projections set out a need to grow the overall mental health and learning disability workforce the fastest of all care settings, at 4.4% per year up to 2036/37, to help improve access to services and quality of care.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) support and (b) resources are available to help GP surgeries in Wellingborough constituency to (i) clear patient backlogs and (ii) reduce workloads.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
We know that general practice (GP) services are still under huge pressure, which is why we published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. Our commitment in publishing this plan is to make it easier and quicker for the public to get the help they need from primary care. The plan sets out how we will cut bureaucracy to reduce workload and free up more time for practice teams to meet the clinical needs of their patients.
To achieve this, we are implementing strategies to empower patients to take more control of their healthcare. This involves transitioning towards a Modern General Practice Access model, which includes supporting practices in adopting cloud-based telephony systems, which help GPs to better match their capacity to patient demand. This is backed by £240 million of re-targeted funding for digital tools and training.
We are building additional capacity by diversifying the workforce to include a wider range of practitioners for patients to see, helping free up GP time for more complex cases. This includes an additional 36,523 direct patient care staff, such as pharmacy technicians and physician assistants, since 2019. Additionally, in 2022 a record 4,032 doctors accepted a place on GP training.
We know how implementing changes in GPs will take time, training, and support. That is why from April 2023 the new national General Practice Improvement Programme is supporting GPs to deliver change, with hands on help from a choice of improvement modules that will be tailored to individual practice needs.
The plan is backed up by major investment into primary care services, with up to £645 million over two years to expand the services offered by community pharmacies, with the introduction of Pharmacy First. This has enabled community pharmacists to manage seven common conditions, including the supply of prescription-only medicines without a prescription from a GP. The proposals have the potential to release 10 million GP appointments.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support she is providing for young people with eating disorders in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Since 2016, investment in children and young people's community eating disorder services has risen every year, with an extra £54 million per year as of 2023/24. This extra funding continues to enhance the capacity of community eating disorder teams across the country.
NHS England continues to work with system leaders and regions, including Wellingborough, and asks that areas prioritise service delivery and investment to meet the needs of these vulnerable young people, to help ensure funding flows to these services as intended. To support this, NHS England is refreshing guidance on children and young people's eating disorders, including increasing the focus on early identification and intervention.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to enable the provision of additional services in GP surgeries in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
All practices can opt in to providing Enhanced Services, as well as Direct Enhanced Services for which practices are paid separately from the global sum payment. Integrated care boards, as commissioners of primary care, are responsible for commissioning Local Enhanced Services, which vary in scope and funding to fit the needs of local areas.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting time for elective surgeries for people in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Cutting waiting lists is one of the Prime Minister’s top priorities. To reduce the National Health Service’s waitlist, the Department plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. This funding will expand capacity by creating a new network of community diagnostic centres, and maximising all available independent sector capacity. In addition, we are managing demand through specialised advice in primary care, and giving patients more control over where they receive their care.
To reduce waiting times for elective surgeries specifically, we are transforming the way the NHS provides elective surgeries, by increasing activity through dedicated and protected surgical hubs. £1.5 billion of funding has been awarded for the development of new surgical hubs and the expansion of surgical hub sites, as well as increased bed capacity and equipment, to help elective services recover. The hubs will focus on providing high volume low complexity surgery, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. There are currently 100 elective surgical hubs that are operational across England, as of March 2024. These surgical hubs help to separate elective care facilities from urgent and emergency care.
Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough and Rushden)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to increase levels of armed forces recruitment and retention.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19 January 2024 to Question 9841 to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis).