Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 young people with mental health problems can access treatment on the NHS.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
In June last year the Government announced a £20.5 billion annual real terms uplift for the National Health Service by 2023/24. Following this, the NHS has published its Long Term Plan which sets out what the NHS will deliver for patients over the coming years. An additional investment of £2.3 billion a year will go into the NHS for mental health services by 2023/24, ensuring growth in investment in mental health services for children and young people faster than both NHS spending and mental health spending overall.
Over the next five years, the NHS will therefore continue to invest in expanding access to community-based mental health services to meet the needs of more children and young people, so that by 2023/24 at least an additional 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 will be able to access support via NHS funded mental health services and school or college-based Mental Health Support Teams.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 regional disparities on life expectancy.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England has published ‘A review of recent trends in mortality in England’. This shows that life expectancy is as high as it has ever been in this country, but improvements have slowed down, and there remain differences in life expectancy between areas across the country. The review is available to view at the following link:
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 life-saving medicines are available in the event of supply chain disruption as a result of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The Government has agreed the terms of our exit from the European Union, as set out in the Withdrawal Agreement. The Withdrawal Agreement offers a time-limited implementation period that provides a bridge to the future relationship, allowing business, including the life sciences industry, to continue trading as now until the end of 2020. The supply of medicines and medical supplies would remain unchanged during the implementation period.
As a responsible Government, however, we continue to prepare proportionately for all scenarios, including the unlikely outcome that we leave the EU without any deal in March 2019.
On 23 August 2018, the Department wrote to pharmaceutical companies that supply the United Kingdom with pharmacy or prescription-only medicines, including non-national programme vaccines, from, or via, the EU/European Economic Area, asking them to ensure they have a minimum of six weeks’ additional supply in the UK, over and above their business as usual operational buffer stocks, by 29 March 2019 in the event of a no deal EU exit.
Since then we have received very good engagement from industry who share our aims of ensuring continuity of medicines supply for patients is maintained and able to cope with any potential delays at the border that may arise in the short term in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The Department does not expect to see significant changes to existing medicine supply chains or capacity in the intervening period, however we will be monitoring this closely. There is already a team within the Department that deal with medicine supply shortages arising both in the community and in hospitals. We have well established operational levers and channels we use between ourselves and the Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency or the National Health Service to mitigate supply issues.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women later died after missing an early cervical cancer screening as a result of not being sent a letter notifying them of the early screening.
Answered by Steve Brine
To date no serious harm has been identified following the recent serious incident whereby a number of cervical screening invitations, reminders and results letters were not sent to women. All women affected by this incident have been written to and the file of any woman needing a follow up is being checked to ensure they have been referred appropriately. Assessments of harm as a result of not being sent a letter are ongoing.
The public health advice from Public Health England is that the risk posed by missing these letters remains low.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 prevent system errors occurring in the correspondence sent to women relating to cervical cancer screening.
Answered by Steve Brine
Following the recent cervical screening incident, announced on 15 November 2018, Capita has confirmed they have put in place daily audits to ensure all women’s files are accounted for and are looking at how automated processes can be used to reduce errors. Additionally, the checks within the Capita call and recall service have been upgraded at every stage of the process and Capita has appointed an independent audit team to carry out a detailed review into operation systems and processes in Primary Care Support England.
I laid a Written Ministerial Statement on 15 November, HCWS1086, explaining the incident and the steps being taken to address it, offering reassurances to the women affected. All individual women affected have been written to directly and Capita has issued an apology.
NHS England has set up a multiagency clinical panel to manage the response to the incident and, separately, has announced an independent expert review into cancer screening programmes.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 the delivery of mental health services.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health sets out 58 recommendations for transforming mental health services in England, all of which have been accepted by the Government. The Five Year Forward View is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Mental-Health-Taskforce-FYFV-final.pdf
The plan is supported by an extra £1 billion for mental health services to be spent between 2017 and 2021. Key steps for implementing the plan are set out in Implementing the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fyfv-mh.pdf
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
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 provide access to mental health services for homeless people.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Public Health England, and NHS England on provision of both mental and physical health services for rough sleepers to inform national priorities and local commissioning decisions.
The Government is committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and ending it by 2027. Our Rough Sleeping Strategy, which was published in August 2018, includes proper consideration of the needs of those with mental illness. As part of the Rough Sleeping Strategy, we are testing models of community-based provision designed to enable access to health and support services for people who are sleeping rough. This will include services to support people with both mental ill health and substance misuse issues.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made preparations for reduced staff levels in the NHS in the event that the UK leaves the EU with no deal.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
We do not want or expect a no deal scenario. As a result of the significant progress made in negotiations, we remain confident we will agree a mutually advantageous deal with the European Union. We are not, however, complacent, and have plans in place in the event the United Kingdom leaves the EU with no deal. Our overall programme of work is comprehensive, thorough and continuously updated.
We have been clear from the beginning of this process that we want EU nationals currently working in the National Health Service to stay after we leave the EU and we are working to safeguard their future, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations.
The Department continues to monitor and analyse overall staffing levels across the NHS and, and we are working across Government to ensure there will continue to be sufficient staff to deliver the high quality services on which patients rely following the UK’s exit from the EU
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effect of the change in the public health grant on the health outcomes of lower income households in (a) Blackburn and (b) England.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England (PHE) has not made an assessment of changes in the public health grant on the health outcomes of low income households in Blackburn or England.
PHE does monitor a range of health outcomes at a national and local level through the Public Health Outcomes Framework. This framework includes monitoring health inequalities by measuring the difference in health outcomes between deprived and non-deprived areas.
The Public Health Outcomes Framework can be found at the following link:
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, hat progress has been made on the NHS Nurse recruitment drive; what assessment he has made of the implications of (a) the UK leaving the EU and (b) immigration policy on that recruitment drive; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The National Health Service has introduced a range of measures to support increased recruitment and retention across the health and care system, including a 25% increase in training places for nurses.
NHS England, with the support of Department and Health Education England, has recently launched a major advertising campaign, aimed at encouraging recruitment to the NHS, retaining the existing workforce, and promoting the possibility of a return to the workforce for those who have previously worked in the NHS. The campaign has a strong focus on nursing, and builds upon Health Education England’s #KnowAboutNursing campaign, which has been running since May of this year.
The Department continues to monitor and analyse overall staffing levels across the NHS and adult social care, and is working across Government to ensure there will continue to be sufficient staff to deliver the high quality services on which patients rely following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
The latest nationality statistics show at March 2018 4,558 more EU nationals excluding the UK (EU27) employed in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups than in June 2016.
The agreement between the UK and EU Commission on 8 December will guarantee the rights of the 158,000 EU nationals working in our health and care system. It means that EU citizens living lawfully in the UK and UK nationals living lawfully in the EU by 29 March 2019 will be able to stay and enjoy broadly the same rights and benefits as they do now.
On the impact of immigration policy on nurse recruitment, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid) recently removed both doctors and nurses from the ambit of the Tier 2 visa cap. This means the NHS and others are able to recruit as many overseas nurses as they need.