Asked by: George Galloway (Workers Party of Britain - Rochdale)
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 help tackle teenage drug addiction.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Alcohol or drug dependence is rare in young people under the age of 18 years old, although they may be drinking problematically. The most effective and sustainable approach to reducing alcohol and drug harms in young people is by giving them the best start in life, the best education possible, and keeping them safe, well, and happy.
Statutory guidance on relationships, sex, and health education requires all primary and secondary school pupils to be taught the key facts and risks of alcohol and drug use, as well as how to manage influences and pressure, and keep themselves healthy and safe. The Department has worked with the PSHE Association to develop the lesson plans on alcohol and is currently commissioning an update of the resources, to be published later this year. Current resources are available at the following link:
https://pshe-association.org.uk/drugeducation
Through the cross-Government Drug Strategy, the Department has allocated £532 million of additional funding through to 2024/25, to support improvements in alcohol and drug treatment, including facilitating 5,000 more young people into age-appropriate treatment by 2024/25. Local authorities can also invest their allocation in options from a menu of interventions, some of which include strengthening the services available to young people and families.
The Government also has an information and advice service called Talk to FRANK, which aims to reduce alcohol and drug use and its harms by providing awareness to young people, parents and concerned others:
Asked by: George Galloway (Workers Party of Britain - Rochdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will meet the hon. Member for Rochdale to discuss (a) maternity and (b) accident and emergency services at Rochdale Infirmary.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
I would be happy to meet with the hon. Member for Rochdale to discuss maternity services at Rochdale Infirmary.
Asked by: George Galloway (Workers Party of Britain - Rochdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the NHS budget in England and Wales was spent on management and administration in (a) 1984, (b) 1994, (c) 2004 and (d) 2013.
Answered by Dan Poulter
This Government has taken tough decisions to increase the National Health Service budget by £12.7 billion between 2010-11 and 2014-15. During this period, the Government’s NHS reforms will enable total administration costs to reduce by one-third in real terms, to release funding to NHS front-line services. Already, savings arising from the reforms released £1.5 billion last year and £1 billion in 2012-13 to front-line services.
Administration costs as a proportion of total NHS expenditure in the financial year 2013-14 was 2.9%. In 2010-11 the equivalent proportion was 4.3%.
From 2010 to July 2014, the number of infrastructure support staff in the NHS has reduced by from 205,695 to 183,685 a decrease of 21,010 (10.3%) including a decrease of 7,488 (17.7%) in managers and senior managers combined.
Before introducing administration costs in the Spending Review 2010, the Department collected data on NHS “management costs”, part of which now forms a sub-set of the current administration cost definition.
Management costs in primary care trusts/strategic health authorities and NHS trusts as a share of total NHS expenditure in 2003-04 was 3.7%.
Data for years 1984 and 1994 is not available.
This Government remains committed to reducing both management costs within the NHS and administration costs across the system in order to reduce bureaucracy and increase frontline care staff.