Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Spending Review 2020, what specific steps the Government is taking to scale-up green social prescribing services to help improve mental health outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Green social prescribing is funded by HM Treasury’s Shared Outcomes Fund and therefore does not form part of the Spending Review 2020. This fund recently awarded £4.27 million to deliver a joint project with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Natural England, NHS England, Public Health England and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government to test green social prescribing in multiple pilot locations, run national experimental work to understand its scalability, and deliver a robust project evaluation.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
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 tackle workforce burnout across the NHS and social care during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting the National Health Service and social care workforce. The NHS People Plan, published in July, is focused on the wellbeing of the NHS workforce and on strengthening resilience during COVID-19. We have invested in mental health support with £15 million recently going into the roll out of mental health hubs that will provide proactive outreach to overcome barriers to seeking help for frontline staff.
In September we published a winter plan for adult social care setting out the wellbeing support available to support the adult social care workforce through the winter. We have worked alongside the NHS and other organisations to develop a package of emotional, psychological and practical resources for the workforce and wherever possible the same offer is in place for all social care staff as is for their colleagues in the NHS. We have funded extensions of the Samaritans staff support line and the Hospice UK bereavement and trauma line to all social care staff as well as bespoke support for Registered Managers. We will continue to work with local authorities to improve access to occupational health provision and other wellbeing support for care workers, in line with our commitments in the winter plan.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
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 tackle the workforce shortage in social care in the (a) short and (b) long term.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are taking action to increase recruitment into adult social care in both the short and long term. We have launched an online recruitment tool, Join Social Care, to simplify and fast track the recruitment process, and are offering free and rapid induction training via Skills for Care for new and existing staff and volunteers. In the last year we have run a National Recruitment Campaign across broadcast, digital and social media highlighting the vital work care workers do.
The Department for Health and Social Care is also working with the Department for Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers, including those who may have lost their jobs during the pandemic from other sectors, such as tourism, hospitality and retail. We are continuing to work with the sector and other government departments to understand how we can further support recruitment and retention, and we continue to work to raise the profile of adult social care careers.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) NHS workers and (b) social care staff have been infected with covid-19 since (i) March 2020 and (ii) September 2020.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data in the format requested.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Spending Review 2020, if he will provide more information on plans for the modernisation of technology across the health and care system.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The funding for technology transformation that was secured in the Spending Review will support local provider organisations to generate a step change in their digital maturity as well as to ensure that there is the right national infrastructure to support them.
We are now planning activity for 2021-22 and we will provide guidance to the system before the start of the next financial year.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Spending Review 2020, what steps the Government plans to take to tackle the rising costs of clinical negligence.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Department is working intensively with the Ministry of Justice, other Government departments and NHS Resolution and will publish a consultation on next steps in 2021.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Spending Review 2020, if he will provide more detail on the pilots aimed at reducing incidence of birth-related brain injuries.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
£9.4 million has been provided to support maternity safety pilots through the 2020 Spending Review. The pilots will provide cutting-edge training and expert guidance, to improve practice and avoid harm to babies. This will include:
- Fresh learning from recent investigations and academic research to be used to improve clinical practice during childbirth;
- Pilots to provide cutting-edge training and expert guidance, to improve practice and avoid harm to babies; and
- Funding to also cover the costs of the final year of the Ockenden Review into maternity safety at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust.
The funding is in addition to existing funding to improve maternity safety by strengthening clinical leadership, implementing best clinical practice and fostering cultures of continuous learning for improvement through reviews and investigations.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Spending Review 2020, what specific steps his Department is taking to improve maternity safety.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
£9.4 million has been provided to support maternity safety pilots through the 2020 Spending Review. The pilots will provide cutting-edge training and expert guidance, to improve practice and avoid harm to babies. This will include:
- Fresh learning from recent investigations and academic research to be used to improve clinical practice during childbirth;
- Pilots to provide cutting-edge training and expert guidance, to improve practice and avoid harm to babies; and
- Funding to also cover the costs of the final year of the Ockenden Review into maternity safety at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust.
The funding is in addition to existing funding to improve maternity safety by strengthening clinical leadership, implementing best clinical practice and fostering cultures of continuous learning for improvement through reviews and investigations.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) NHS workers and (b) social care staff have died from covid-19 since (i) March 2020 and (ii) September 2020.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Office for National Statistics publishes mortality data for deaths involving COVID-19 for healthcare workers and social care workers in England and Wales. The last iteration of this release showed that in England there were 305 deaths involving COVID-19 among healthcare workers and 307 deaths involving COVID-19 among social care workers.
These were registered between 9 March and 12 October 2020 in England, of those aged 20-64 years, using the last known occupation. The definition of healthcare workers used will include not only those employed in the National Health Service but wider healthcare sector workers.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to improve training and support for social care staff (a) on infection control and (b) in other areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Adult Social Care Winter Plan outlined the latest National Health Service clinical support offer, which includes support for care homes and social care through primary care and community services and the rollout of the Enhanced Health in Care Homes model; and professional leadership and expert advice on infection prevention and control where needed.
The Plan extended the Infection Control Fund until March 2021. This means we have now ringfenced over £1.1 billion for the care sector to take key steps to improve infection prevention and control.