Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of an increase in employers national insurance contributions on charity and not for profit providers of adult social care; and if he will publish this information.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government considered the cost pressures facing adult social care as part of the wider consideration of local government spending within the Spending Review process. This assessment took into account a wide range of factors, including changes to employer National Insurance contributions, and the National Living Wage increases.
In response to the range of pressures facing local authorities, the Government is providing a real-terms uplift to core local government spending power of approximately 3.2%, which includes £1.3 billion of new grant funding in 2025/26.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 improve (a) prevention, (b) diagnosis and (c) support for people affected by foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has taken a number of steps to help prevent foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). The UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines, published in 2016, provide clear advice to women not to drink alcohol if they are planning for a pregnancy or are pregnant, and are available at the following link:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80b7ed40f0b623026951db/UK_CMOs__report.pdf
The National Health Service website offers advice on the use of alcohol during pregnancy and sources of support, which includes speaking to a general practitioner, midwife, or local treatment service, or contacting the Government’s Talk to Frank website. Further information on the NHS website’s advice on the use of alcohol during pregnancy and sources of support, and the Government’s Talk to Frank website is available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/drinking-alcohol-while-pregnant/
www.talktofrank.com/contact-frank
The Department asked the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to produce a Quality Standard in England (QS204) for FASD to help the health and care system improve both diagnosis and support for people affected by FASD. The quality standard also covers support during pregnancy to improve awareness and prevent the disorder. It was published in March 2022, and is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs204
The Department will soon be publishing the first ever United Kingdom clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment. The aim of the guidelines is to promote and support good practice and improve quality of service provision, resulting in better outcomes for people experiencing harmful drinking and alcohol dependence. The guidelines will set out how maternity, alcohol treatment, and other healthcare professionals should support women to reduce or stop their alcohol use as quickly and safely as possible, to reduce the ongoing exposure of the foetus to alcohol and the risk and severity of future disability.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 (a) SeeAbility and (b) other charities that deliver public sector contracts on the potential impact of increases in levels of employers' national insurance contributions on those charities.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To repair the public finances and help raise the revenue required to increase funding for public services, the Government has taken the difficult decision to increase employer National Insurance. On the impact on charities in particular, our tax regime for charities, including exemption from paying business rates, is among the most generous of anywhere in the world, with tax reliefs for charities and their donors worth just over £6 billion for the tax year to April 2024.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 adequacy of women’s health provision.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Women's Health Strategy call for evidence in 2021 received nearly 100,000 responses from individuals, and over 400 written submissions from expert groups and researchers. It identified a range of issues including women not feeling listened to by healthcare professionals, damaging taboos and stigmas in women’s health that can prevent women from seeking help and that can reinforce beliefs that debilitating symptoms are normal, healthcare services not considering women’s needs by default, and under-representation of women in research.
We are considering how to take forward the Women’s Health Strategy for England. The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health as we reform the National Health Service, and we will put women’s equality at the heart of our missions.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to assess the impact on the health outcomes of people with dementia of the (a) average length of time people with dementia stay in hospital relative to people over 65 without dementia and (b) availability of specialist dementia nurses to meet the needs of people with dementia during hospital stays.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England does not hold this information centrally. However, the provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs). NHS England would expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidelines.
Employers determine the number of specialist nurses needed to provide care for the population. However, there is no specific regulatory requirement for post registration education, and people can choose to upskill to meet their own educational requirements.
Student nurses do receive broad preparation, so they are able to support adults needing care, including those with dementia. The Advanced Clinical Practice programme supports the progression of clinicians, enabling them to take on more specialist roles.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 improve dementia care in England.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dementia Training Standards Framework sets out the required essential knowledge and skills, as well as the expected learning outcomes applicable across the health and care spectrum. To support the quality of dementia care planning by primary care providers, the Dementia: Good Personalised Care and Support Planning guide promotes consistent personalised care and support planning. To further improve care, NHS England has refreshed the RightCare Dementia Scenario. This sets out best practice for supporting people with dementia, from diagnosis to dying well.
To enhance an integrated approach to hospital discharge, six national discharge frontrunner pilots are testing improved dementia care. This includes dementia hubs, which aim to improve care and support for dementia patients waiting for discharge, so that their needs are at the centre of every decision.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 help improve the diagnosis of dyslexia in children.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Assessments for dyslexia in children are currently provided through Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services by an educational psychologist or an appropriately qualified specialist dyslexia teacher.
If a parent thinks their child may be dyslexic, as a first step they should speak to their child’s teacher or their school's special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) about their concerns. They may be able to offer additional support to help the child if necessary.
The government will be focusing on a community-wide approach to meeting the needs of children with SEND, improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools. On 22 November 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Education and NHS England launched a joint project, Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS), with £13million of funding to test an innovative delivery model to improve access to specialist support in mainstream primary schools, upskilling those settings to meet a range of neurodiverse needs. The programme is ongoing, with delivery due to be completed by 31 March 2025. The programme is being evaluated, and learning will inform future policy development around how schools support neurodiverse children.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to increase access to local GP services in Maidstone and Malling constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government knows that patients are finding it harder than ever to access general practices (GP) and is committed to fixing the the crisis in GPs to secure the long-term sustainability of the National Health Service, thereby increasing access to local services including those in the Maidstone and Malling constituency.
Our plan to restore GPs and improve waiting times to see a practitioner will require both investment and reform. We have committed to training thousands more GPs and ending the 8:00am scramble for appointments by introducing a modern booking system. The Government will also introduce Neighbourhood Health Centres, bringing together vital health and care services, and ensuring healthcare is closer to home and that patients receive the care they deserve. In addition, the Government will also bring back the family doctor by incentivising GPs to see the same patient.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 reduce ambulance response times.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to achieve our ambition of reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes, across 2024/25. Further information on the delivery plan is available at the following link:
Ambulance trusts received £200 million of additional funding in 2023/24 to increase deployed hours and reduce response times. We will maintain the improved ambulance service capacity from this additional funding in 2024/25, alongside the additional 5,000 permanent hospital beds delivered last year to improve patient flow through accident and emergency, and reduce ambulance capacity lost due to handover delays.
There have been significant improvements in performance across the country, with average Category 2 ambulance response times in 2023/24 over 13 minutes faster compared to the previous year, a reduction of over 27%.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on increasing access to dentists in Maidstone and the Weald constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
In the 24 months to June 2023, 496,306 adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB). This figure is 12% higher than the year before, where 444,190 adults were seen by an NHS dentist, in the 24 months to June 2022.
On 7 February 2024, we published Faster, simpler, and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients across the country to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry, including in Maidstone and the Weald.
A new patient premium is supporting dentists in taking on new patients, and a new marketing campaign will help everyone who needs an NHS dentist in finding one. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable.
From 1 April 2023, the responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all ICBs across England. Kent and Medway ICB is responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need, and determine the priorities for investment across the ICB area.