Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 against cosmetic surgery clinics that provide substandard care.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers, including cosmetic surgery clinics, in England and has a key responsibility in the overall assurance of safety and quality of health and adult social care services.
All providers of regulated activities must be registered and follow the set of fundamental standards of safety and quality. The fundamental standards describe the basic requirements that providers should always meet, and outline the outcomes that service users should always expect.
The CQC regulates and assesses all providers of regulated activities by looking at five domains – whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
Where the CQC finds cosmetic surgery services are providing substandard care, a range of enforcement powers have been and will continue where necessary to be used against these services. The CQC has a wide range of enforcement powers. These powers include but are not limited to immediate closure of a service, suspending a service, issuing Warning Notices and prosecuting providers.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 cosmetic surgery clinics provide a safe standard of care.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers, including cosmetic surgery clinics, in England and has a key responsibility in the overall assurance of safety and quality of health and adult social care services.
All providers of regulated activities must be registered and follow the set of fundamental standards of safety and quality. The fundamental standards describe the basic requirements that providers should always meet, and outline the outcomes that service users should always expect.
The CQC regulates and assesses all providers of regulated activities by looking at five domains – whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
Where the CQC finds cosmetic surgery services are providing substandard care, a range of enforcement powers have been and will continue where necessary to be used against these services. The CQC has a wide range of enforcement powers. These powers include but are not limited to immediate closure of a service, suspending a service, issuing Warning Notices and prosecuting providers.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whats steps he is taking to improve public awareness and understanding of sepsis.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government continues to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of sepsis, through initiatives like Public Health England (PHE)’s national Start4life Information Service for Parents email programme, which targets parents of children under five-years-old; leaflets, posters and a content-rich social media toolkit for partners to use on their own channels are available for them to raise awareness at a community level. PHE has also worked in partnership with Mumsnet, a leading digital platform for parents, to raise awareness through editorial and social media promotion.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 introduce needle and syringe exchanges for drugs users.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Needle exchange and syringe services have played a vital role in harm reduction since the 1980s, reducing the number of drug-related deaths and blood-borne virus infections, particularly hepatitis C and HIV. They are commissioned by local authorities and are supported in this by Public Health England. The United Kingdom’s drug treatment clinical guidelines published in 2017 includes guidance on needle and syringe programmes and is available at the following link:
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 make it easier for people who cannot take time off work to attend cancer screenings.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Improving access to cancer screening programmes is one of NHS England’s key priorities. To help deliver this, plans for improving uptake in cancer screening during 2019-20 have been developed and shared with regional Public Health Commissioning leads for consideration and action. Plans cover opportunities for improving access that can be implemented locally and regionally in collaboration with charities, third sector organisations, and other parts of the National Health Service. These opportunities include:
Increasing flexibility within existing services (e.g. extending out of hours appointments and making greater use of mobile screening units); and
Improving accessibility to cancer screening via alternative settings (e.g. integrated in sexual health clinics).
In addition to this, Professor Richards’ review of national adult screening programmes, published on 16 October, made a number of recommendations on increasing uptake and accessibility, including how we use financial incentives to promote out of hours and weekend appointments. Professor Richards called for more convenience with regard to screenings, saying patients should be able to choose appointments close to their work, and local screening services should put on extra evening and weekend appointments for breast, cervical and other cancer checks. The report also called for more to be done to drive uptake through social media campaigns and text reminders. The Department, NHS England and Public Health England will consider the recommendations of Professor Richards’ report and publish an implementation plan early next year.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 ensure that companies producing and selling tobacco products do not circumvent the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 through changes to packaging design.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Tobacco regulations in England are enforced by local authorities through Trading Standards, this includes the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015. The Department keeps track of enforcement and compliance through these regulations.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of children under five years old who are obese.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Child Measurement Programme measures the heights and weights of children in Reception (four to five-year olds) in England.
The data for the 2018/19 school year showed that 9.7% (57,869) of children in Reception were obese. This is based on 95% (597,812) of children in Reception eligible for measurement. These data are available to view at the following link:
The Health Survey for England measures the height and weight of a small sample of children annually. The latest available report, from the 2017 survey, shows that 10% of two to four-year-olds surveyed were obese. This is based on measurements taken from 536 children. These are available to view at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england/2017
No data is collected centrally for children below the age of two.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 use technology to improve attendance at NHS cancer screenings.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department, NHS England and Public Health England (PHE) are committed to increasing the proportion of invites for National Health Service cancer screening appointments that are accepted, through increasing uptake and making appointments more accessible. NHS cancer screening programmes cover breast, bowel and cervical cancer.
PHE’s ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ and ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaigns use social media and online platforms to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and the importance of screening and thereby improve attendance at cancer screening appointments. The ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaign encouraged women to respond to their cervical screening invitation letter, and if they missed their last screening, to book an appointment at their general practitioner practice. The campaign also provided practical information about how to make the test more comfortable, which could also improve attendance.
In addition to this, Professor Richards’ review of national adult screening programmes, published on 16 October, made a number of recommendations on using technology to improve attendance. These recommendations included rolling-out text reminders nationally that have been successfully piloted at a local level and improving functionality of the screening IT systems to support improvements in uptake and coverage. The Department, NHS England and PHE will carefully consider the recommendations in Professor Richards’ report and publish an implementation plan in due course.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 tackle the misrepresentation of evidence which encourages women to drink alcohol during pregnancy by downplaying the risk to the health of the unborn child.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is very clear about the dangers that alcohol poses to the unborn child and reflects this in the advice it gives. The United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines published in 2016 provide clear advice to women not to drink alcohol if they are planning for a pregnancy or are pregnant. Information available on the NHS website also reflects this advice.
Additionally, the Government has been clear that the alcohol industry must reflect the UK Chief Medical Officers' alcohol guidelines on the labels of their products which includes a no drinking in pregnancy logo.
Public Health England, NHS England and local commissioners are already undertaking awareness and education on the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant. For example, the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership has recently launched its Drymester campaign to raise awareness of drinking alcohol when pregnant.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 women receive the same standard of care as men during diagnosis, treatment and aftercare of heart disease or a heart attack.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.