Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to amend the Our Plan for Patients paper published on 22 September 2022 to include his plans to address health inequalities facing Black, Asian and ethnicity minority patients.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have no plans to do so. The National Health Service has statutory duties to address health inequalities, including for black, Asian and ethnicity minority patients.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2022 to Question 59084 on Monkeypox: Vaccination, what his timescale is for the completion of the monkeypox vaccination programme to the eligible cohort.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is unable to confirm a current deadline for completion of the vaccination programme. The UKHSA has procured over 154,000 doses of the vaccine used for monkeypox and vaccination continues to be delivered by sexual health services as eligible individuals come forward.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans she has to improve the uptake of vaccinations in (a) Black African and (b) Black Caribbean adults.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We continue to work with the National Health Service to provide information on the benefits of COVID-19 and flu vaccination, targeted for specific communities where vaccination uptake is lower or has been falling. This includes information and advice via television, radio and social media and translated into 13 languages. We have also launched a nationwide communications campaign to encourage eligible members of the public to receive a COVID-19 booster and flu vaccination this autumn.
On 24 June 2021, NHS England published the COVID-19 vaccination toolkit to provide evidence-based guidance for increasing vaccination confidence and uptake within black African and black Caribbean communities. We continue to work with community and faith ambassadors and organisations to build trust within local communities.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure sexual health clinics can continue to deliver a full range of services alongside delivering the monkeypox vaccination programme.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We are working with the UK Health Security Agency, local authorities, NHS England and other stakeholders to identify how local health and care systems can manage pressures on sexual health services and maintain access in addition to delivering the monkeypox vaccination programme. Local authorities will receive more than £3.4 billion in 2022/23 for public health responsibilities, including sexual health services.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the (a) findings and (b) recommendations of the Birmingham and Lewisham African Caribbean Health Inequalities Review, published in March 2022.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There are no current plans to make a specific assessment.
‘Our plan for patients’, published on 22 September, sets out the immediate priorities to support individuals to live healthier lives, including improving access to health and care services in all areas and preventing ill-health. Further information on measures to address health disparities will be available in due course.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2022 to Question 60064 on General Practitioners: Greater London, what assessment he has made of the potential impact on the quality of care in (a) Lewisham East constituency and (b) the London Borough of Lewisham following the closure of GP practices since 2017.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
In the event of a practice closure, NHS England will assess the need for a replacement provider before transferring patients to alternative practices. NHS England is responsible for ensuring that patients have access to a general practitioner (GP) practice. Commissioners must put in place appropriate measures to ensure that affected patients have access to GP services.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 improve access to mental health services in Lewisham East constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In September we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Lewisham East. Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand NHS mental health and eating disorder services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Lewisham East.
We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness. including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 complaints received by NHS England in each reporting year since 2017 have been related to racism.
Answered by Will Quince
We are informed by NHS England (NHSE) that data relating to complaints about racism is not collected centrally by the organisation. NHSE receives complaints made by, or on behalf of, patients only in relation to the services it commissions however this represents a very small proportion of the overall complaints received by the National Health Service (NHS).
Data on complaints made by, or on behalf of, patients about NHS services provided by NHS Trusts and General Practices and Dental practices is collected and published by NHS Digital on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care and can be found at the following link:
Neither of these collections include a classification that would allow NHS Digital to identify numbers of complaints relating to racism.
It is possible that such information is collected by NHS organisations who directly manage their complaints locally.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his timescale is for the delivery of the 250,000 Imvanex doses needed to fulfil the monkeypox vaccination programme.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
Over 150,000 doses of the vaccines used for monkeypox have been procured by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), with the final deliveries of vaccine expected by the end of October 2022. The UKHSA’s expert advice, endorsed by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is to offer two vaccine doses to a defined high-risk cohort. This cohort is comprised of 111,000 individuals in the United Kingdom and we have sufficient stock to vaccinate the eligible cohort.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GP surgeries have closed in (a) Lewisham East constituency, (b) the London Borough of Lewisham and (c) Greater London since 2017.
Answered by Will Quince
Since 2017, one practice has closed in the Lewisham East constituency and five practices have closed in Lewisham due to mergers. The information requested on closures in Greater London is not held centrally.
Practices close for a variety of reasons, including 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.