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Written Question
Winter Fuel Payment: Hospitals
Wednesday 16th October 2024

Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of introducing means-testing for the Winter Fuel Payment on hospital admissions.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

This is not a decision any Government would want to make, but we inherited a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances. Difficult decisions are required.

We continue to stand behind vulnerable households by:

  • Increasing the state pension by around £460 for over 12 million pensioners in April, because of our commitment to protect the triple lock.
  • Delivering the £150 Warm Home Discount for low-income households and providing £421 million to extend the Household Support Fund.

We are encouraging pensioners to check their eligibility for Pension Credit to ensure as many people as possible have access to support they’re entitled to. We have seen a 152% increase in claims since announcement.

An equality assessment was published by DWP on the 13th of September.

Written Question
Dental Services: Norfolk
Wednesday 2nd June 2021

Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)

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 increase the availability of NHS dental provision in Norfolk.

Answered by Jo Churchill

National Health Service dentists throughout the country have been asked to maximise safe throughput to meet as many prioritised needs as possible, focussing first on urgent care and care for vulnerable groups followed by overdue appointments. This has been underpinned by the requirement for dental providers to deliver 60% of normal activity volumes for the first six months of 2021/22 for full payment of the NHS contractual value.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with stakeholders to amend the Directory of Service to improve pathways for urgent patients to urgent dental centres and dental practices across the East of England. In addition, a web-based programme called ‘Service Finder’ has recently been launched which provides up-to-date information about services that are available locally. A transformational dental strategy has also been developed in the East of England, to prioritise urgent care, prevention and inequalities. Plans to procure additional primary care dental services across Suffolk, Norfolk and Waveney are currently being reviewed.