Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he will respond to the correspondence of 1 December 2022 from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire on Select Research in Malvern.
Answered by Will Quince
We replied to the hon. Member on 6 March 2023.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 level of undiagnosed dementia in (a) Tenbury Wells County Council Division, (b) Worcestershire and (c) England.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held. However, the latest dementia diagnosis rate figures reported by NHS Digital are available for January 2023. NHS Digital estimates there are 675,542 people over the age of 65 years old living with dementia in England, of which 417,797 have a recorded dementia diagnosis. NHS Digital also estimates there are 12,119 people over the age of 65 years old living with dementia in the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrate Care Board, of which 6,290 have a recorded dementia diagnosis. This information is not collected for Tenbury Wells County Council Division.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
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 reliability of personal alarms for elderly people in the event that they are unable to afford (a) a landline or (b) credit on their mobile telephone.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Telecare services are provided by local authorities, housing associations, the third sector and commercial organisations, which determine the charges for these services and any additional financial support offered.
Local authorities may provide personal alarms at no cost to the person using the service after a care assessment or a subsequent means test. If a service user does not have a landline, global system for mobile communications telecare alarm equipment with a roaming SIM card is an alternative way of providing this service. These are being provided at no cost by some telecare services, although due to additional connection charges these alarms can be more expensive for a person meeting the cost of the service themselves.
Service providers can also directly help with landline affordability, with some using an 0300 number to minimise call charges when a telecare device makes an alarm call. A personal mobile telephone not being in credit should not impact on the reliability of an alarm as they are not typically used to provide personal alarm services.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of covid-19 lateral flow tests purchased by NHS Test and Trace are manufactured in China.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Approximately 90% of the lateral flow devices procured to date are manufactured in China.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to set up an independent review of the use of electro convulsive therapy.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We have no plans to do so.
Electroconvulsive therapy is regulated under the Mental Health Act 1983 and can only be given when a patient consents.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how long the personal information and references provided by volunteer covid-19 vaccinator applicants will be retained by the National Vaccination Programme.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Working in partnership with St John Ambulance and the Royal Voluntary Service, 420,000 volunteers have been deployed to help support the COVID-19 vaccine programme. St John Ambulance holds the only nationally procured contract for volunteer vaccinators and of the 26,858 individuals recruited to support the vaccination programme in partnership with St John Ambulance, approximately 11,510 of these volunteers have not yet been deployed.
NHS England and NHS Improvement do not hold any personal data on volunteers within the vaccination programme sourced through the national supply chain contracts. Lead employers would retain the information of locally sourced volunteers and this would be the responsibility of an individual organisation. The data controller is St John Ambulance or the Royal Voluntary Service and all data received to the national programme team is anonymised.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of successful applications from volunteer vaccinators who have not been deployed during the covid-19 vaccine rollout.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Working in partnership with St John Ambulance and the Royal Voluntary Service, 420,000 volunteers have been deployed to help support the COVID-19 vaccine programme. St John Ambulance holds the only nationally procured contract for volunteer vaccinators and of the 26,858 individuals recruited to support the vaccination programme in partnership with St John Ambulance, approximately 11,510 of these volunteers have not yet been deployed.
NHS England and NHS Improvement do not hold any personal data on volunteers within the vaccination programme sourced through the national supply chain contracts. Lead employers would retain the information of locally sourced volunteers and this would be the responsibility of an individual organisation. The data controller is St John Ambulance or the Royal Voluntary Service and all data received to the national programme team is anonymised.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department collects on the length of time covid-19 patients spend in (a) regular and (b) intensive care hospital beds.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the dentistry profession on the potential involvement of that profession covid-19 vaccine delivery.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
An enormous amount of work has already taken place to ensure we have the required workforce to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to the United Kingdom population at the pace and scale required.
To enable this, the Department made changes to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 in Oct 2020 (The Human Medicines (Coronavirus and Influenza) (Amendment) Regulations 2020). This allows additional health care professionals and those who have passed a programme of extensive training developed by Public Health England and Health Education England to safely administer a licensed or temporarily authorised influenza or COVID-19 vaccine.
Staff working in dental services – particularly those who are registered with relevant professional groups – have been encouraged to consider applying for temporary roles to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme, including as vaccinators. Information has been provided to dental staff groups on how they might apply for these opportunities.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his oral contribution of 21 September 2020, Official Report, column 633, on Covid-19 Update, if he will publish the citation for the trial to which he referred that showed that Vitamin D has no impact on coronavirus.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published ‘Vitamin D for COVID-19: Evidence Review’ which is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/es28/evidence/evidence-review-pdf-8777674477
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition also published ‘Rapid review: Vitamin D and acute respiratory tract infections’ which is available at the following link:
https://app.box.com/s/g0ldpth1upfd7fw763ew3aqa3c0pyvky
These rapid evidence reviews, published in June 2020, concluded that there is currently no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to reduce the risk and severity of COVID-19. My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was referring to these publications when he responded to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Rupa Huq MP).
Public Health England will keep this topic under review and will consider updating this assessment if emerging high-quality evidence suggests a change to existing conclusions, and advise the Government accordingly.