Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 the fuel claim allowances for NHS patients travelling from rural areas to medical appointments in the context of rising fuel costs.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
No assessment has been made. In England, the level of fuel costs which can be claimed by patients under the Healthcare Travel Costs scheme is determined locally by National Health Service organisations.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the rollout of vaccinations for people aged over 80.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The National Health Service met its target of offering the COVID-19 vaccine to everyone in the top four priority cohorts, including those aged 70 years and over, on 14 February 2021.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people aged 70 years and over have received covid-19 vaccinations in the Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross constituency.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The information is not held in the format requested as data for Scotland is published by local authority rather than constituency. Public Health Scotland’s data for the vaccine programme is available at the following link:
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 access to affordable (a) meditation, (b) mindfulness classes, (c) yoga, (d) pilates and (e) hitt workouts to improve people's mental health.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government is absolutely committed to supporting everyone’s mental health and wellbeing throughout the winter period and beyond, and to ensuring that the right support is in place. The National Health Service has launched a major campaign as part of its ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign to encourage people who may be struggling with common mental health illnesses to come forward for help.
The NHS is also taking a holistic approach to supporting people’s health and wellbeing by expanding its social prescribing services. Social prescribing enables general practitioners to refer people to link workers who can work with them to access community groups and agencies for practical, emotional and social support. For example, the recently announced ukactive scheme will make free gym and leisure sessions available to the public via social prescribing services. National rollout will start from 1 April 2021.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 promote mental health services and counselling in increase the take-up of such services.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We continue to expand access to talking and psychological therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. IAPT services are promoted through Every Mind Matters, an online platform which contains resources to help people look after their wellbeing and mental health and local services can be located through NHS.UK.
Data from 2019/20 shows that there were 1.69 million referrals to talking therapies in England and 1.17 million people started a course of treatment within this year. The NHS Long Term Plan commits to ensuring that a total of 1.9 million adults will be able to access IAPT services by 2023/24.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to make specialised counselling and therapy services freely available on the NHS.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme provides specialist counselling and therapy services that are widely available for free from the National Health Service. We are committed to expanding access to IAPT services. The NHS Long Term Plan commits to ensuring that an additional 380,000 adults will be able to access IAPT services by 2023/24.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of developing an online and anonymous resource to enable people experiencing mental illness to find information on accessing appropriate services and support.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
There are a number of existing resources that people can access online and anonymously for information on accessing appropriate mental health services and support. These include GOV.UK, the National Health Service website and Every Mind Matters.
In addition, many mental health charities offer online and anonymous advice on how to find support for mental health issues.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to fund nationwide roll-out of medical drone technologies.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The NHS Long Term Plan is bringing new technologies into the National Health Service to improve patient care and save lives, and we continue to support testing of innovations such as convenient, faster technology to help frontline staff to give people world-leading treatment. This includes supporting NHS staff through the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, run by the Accelerated Access Collaborative, to develop their own innovative ideas, for example exploring the potential use of autonomous drone delivery systems within healthcare.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
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 using medical drone technologies to deliver personal protective equipment during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of our national effort to ensure critical personal protective equipment (PPE) is delivered to the frontline, we rolled out a PPE portal in collaboration with eBay, Clipper and Royal Mail through which primary and social care providers could access emergency PPE. The PPE Portal’s customers currently include general practitioner practices, optometrists, dentists, pharmacies, children’s social care homes and secure homes, children’s residential special schools, resident social care providers and domiciliary care providers. Over 191 million items of PPE have been delivered through the Portal.
Our PPE Strategy (published 28 September) commits us to start transitioning to a future model next year that is both resilient (able to respond to any demand surges related to COVID-19 or another pandemic threat) and proportionate. Key considerations for the model beyond March 2021 include addressing how best to distribute PPE.
Asked by: Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons the Government has purchased £5 million worth of hydroxychloroquine before clinical trials have proved the effectiveness of that drug against covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has procured supplies of hydroxychloroquine to support nationally prioritised United Kingdom clinical trials. In addition, the Department has been securing additional supplies of a number of medicines, including hydroxychloroquine, which would ensure sufficient stocks are available to be rapidly deployed for National Health Service patients should clinical trial evidence show it to be safe and effective to do so. The Department continues to review supply requirements as further clinical evidence becomes available.