Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to help tackle health inequality in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
‘Our plan for patients’, published on 22 September, sets out the immediate priorities to support individuals to live healthier lives, such as improving access to health and care services and preventing ill-health, including in Exeter, Leeds North West, Tooting and Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituencies. Further information on measures to address health disparities will be available in due course.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities also works with local system partners in these areas, including providing evidence and intelligence.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of malnutrition in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if her Department will take steps to increase the availability of face-to-face GP appointments in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
On 22 September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which contains measures to assist people make an informed choice on their general practitioner (GP) practice, book an appointment more easily, benefit from more care options and increase the diversity of general practice teams. This aims to increase the availability of appointment types, such as face-to-face, in England, including in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.
NHS England’s guidance states that GP practices must provide face to face appointments and remote consultations and should respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary. While remote consultations can provide additional choice, flexibility and convenience for patients, this is not suitable for all patients or in all circumstances.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 help reduce waiting times for elective surgeries in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels. A proportion of this funding will be invested in workforce capacity and training and we have committed to invest £5.9 billion for new beds, equipment and technology.
The target to eliminate waiting times of two years or more for elective procedures was met in July 2022 and we aim to eliminate waiting time of eighteen months or more by April 2023. This will be achieved through increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector and engaging with patients to understand choices made regarding their care.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the NHS dentist provision in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough Constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No specific assessment has been made. 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 Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.
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: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GP practices are open in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough Constituency as of 11 October; and how many were open in 2013.
Answered by Will Quince
In September 2013, there were 21 practices registered in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, with 18 practices registered in October 2022.
Practices close for a variety of reasons, including practice mergers or retirement. A reduction in practice numbers does not mean a reduction in the quality of care. When a practice does close, patients are informed and advised to register at another local practice of their choice. Practices and commissioners must put in place appropriate measures to ensure that affected patients have access to general practitioner services.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of GP appointments in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency were conducted face-to-face (a) in the past 12 months, and (b) in 2013.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not collected in the format requested. However, in the 12 months to August 2022, there were 8.29 million general practice appointments in South Yorkshire Integrated Care System, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. Of these, 67.7% were conducted face-to-face.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of GP appointments that took place in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough Constituency in the past 12 months; and how many took place in 2013.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not collected in the format requested. However, in the 12 months to August 2022, there were 8.29 million general practice appointments in South Yorkshire Integrated Care System, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. Of these, 67.7% were conducted face-to-face.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of residential care homes that have closed in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough Constituency since 2010.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Since May 2010, 11 care homes have been ‘deactivated’ in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. The Care Quality Commission records care homes which have closed as ‘deactivated’. These locations excludes care homes where the provider continues to operate under a new, separate registration, which may be due to a legal entity change or a change in the provider.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 provide additional (a) financial and (b) other support to help reduce (i) patient backlogs and (ii) workloads in GP surgeries in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, published in February 2022, stated the ambition to reduce patient backlogs for planned National Health Service treatments and the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. We made £520 million available to expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This was in addition to at least £1.5 billion announced in 2020 by 2024 which includes supporting increased workloads in general practitioner (GP) surgeries, including in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. In September 2022, ‘Our plan for patients’ announced measures to support GP practices increase access and manage workloads, such as the provision of 31,000 phone lines and funding to expand the staff roles working in general practice, including in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.