Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 potential merits of increasing the alcohol-free threshold from 0.05% ABV to 0.5% ABV.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under our Health Mission, the government is committed to prioritising preventative public health measures to support people to live longer, healthier lives.
While the Government has not made a specific assessment of changing the alcohol-free threshold, the Department will continue to work across Government to better understand how we can best reduce alcohol-related harms, including exploring the potential opportunities presented by alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with health stakeholders on the potential merits of introducing (a) allergy nurses and (b) dietitians in every integrated care system.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have committed to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future, by driving three shifts in the way health care is delivered. The plan will set out bold ambitions to provide more care in the community, make greater use of technology, and build a more preventative health service.
We will be carefully considering input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders as we develop the plan over the coming months. The engagement process has been launched and I would encourage parliamentarians and stakeholders to engage with that process to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are, including for allergies. This engagement process is available at the following link:
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Prime Minister's speech on the NHS at the King's Fund on 12 September 2024, whether his Department has plans to move allergy services to primary care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have committed to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future, by driving three shifts in the way health care is delivered. The plan will set out bold ambitions to provide more care in the community, make greater use of technology, and build a more preventative health service.
We will be carefully considering input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders as we develop the plan over the coming months. The engagement process has been launched and I would encourage parliamentarians and stakeholders to engage with that process to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are, including for allergies. This engagement process is available at the following link:
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has targets for the time it takes to complete evaluations of new medicines.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) aims wherever possible to publish recommendations for the National Health Service on new medicines within 90 days of the date of a marketing authorisation. NICE uses key performance indicators to report on the timeliness of its technology appraisals. NICE has achieved a 28% improvement in the timeliness of its medicines appraisals since April 2024.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 NICE on the potential impact of its approval of medicines for use in the NHS on (a) economic productivity, (b) health outcomes and (c) reducing the burden of disease on (i) patients and (ii) caregivers.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including the impact of its recommendations.
NICE develops its guidance independently and based on an assessment of the available evidence, considering all health-related costs and benefits for patients and caregivers, including health outcomes, in line with its established methods and processes.
NICE does not take account of economic productivity in its assessments. It would involve valuing interventions differently based on the working status of the recipient population, which would be methodologically and ethically challenging and could systematically disadvantage certain groups including children, long-term sick and unemployed people, and result in fewer treatments being recommended for these populations.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to increase the use of hospices in social and community care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want a society where every person, their families, and carers, receive high-quality, compassionate care, from diagnosis through to end of life. The Government is determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure that patients and their families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and palliative and end of life care, including hospices, will have a big role to play in that shift.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to assess waiting lists for elective surgery on the basis of average wait times rather than longest possible wait time.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling waiting lists is a key part of our Health Mission and a top priority for the Government. We have committed to achieving the National Health Service’s constitutional standard that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment by the end of this Parliament. Whilst our focus is on achieving this constitutional standard, it is unacceptable that patients are waiting over a year for care. Therefore, the Government will continue to review and treat the patients who have waited the longest for treatment as well as monitoring progress on the 18-week standard. Tackling the longest waits will be a key part of achieving our commitment.
The Department and NHS England use a range of data metrics to assess elective waiting lists. This is supported by the publication of monthly statistics that include the number of incomplete patient pathways and time spent on the waiting list, as well as average wait times, measured as the median wait time for incomplete patient pathways. This monthly publication is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2024-25/
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 ensure that (a) residents of care homes and (b) the families of those residents in England are aware of mechanisms for reporting abuse.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Mechanisms are in place for residents of care homes and their families to report abuse.
Under the Care Act 2014, in any activity that a local authority undertakes, it should ensure that the individual is, and remains, protected against abuse or neglect.
Section 4 of the Care Act 2014 also places a duty on local authorities to “establish and maintain a service for providing people in its area with information and advice relating to care and support for adults and support for carers.” This service includes information and advice about what to do in cases of neglect or abuse of an adult. Where it is suspected that an individual may be at risk of abuse or neglect, local authorities have a duty to carry out proportionate enquiries.
Quality Matters includes work to improve access to complaints systems and improve the feedback culture in the sector. In July 2018, as part of the initiative, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and Healthwatch England published the Single Complaints Statement – a guide for each stage of the complaints process, for adult social care providers and commissioners, people who use services, their families and carers. This sets out what service users, their families and representatives can expect when making a complaint with a simple bulleted guide for each stage of the complaints process. Service providers are encouraged to adopt the single complaints statements into their own complaints policies and highlight them in any information they give to service users, their families and representatives.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Ministers have had with the Care Quality Commission on (a) the care home inspection regime and (b) the potential inadequacies of that regime.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Ministers in the Department meet regularly with senior leaders from the Care Quality Commission to discuss a wide range of issues.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many reports of abuse there have been in care homes in (a) Bury, (b) the North West and (c) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The following table shows the number of allegations of abuse in care home locations received by the Care Quality Commission between 2014 to 2018.
Year received | Number of Notifications | ||
| Bury Local Authority | North West Region | England |
2014 | 99 | 5,741 | 37,060 |
2015 | 122 | 6,948 | 43,064 |
2016 | 164 | 7,856 | 46,227 |
2017 | 176 | 9,304 | 57,738 |
2018 | 182 | 9,936 | 67,590 |
Grand Total | 743 | 39,785 | 251,679 |
This data includes multiple notifications about individual locations.