Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the interim report of the Cass Review, if the Government will adopt the interim advice of reforming the approach to providing gender identity services for children and young people, replacing it with a system where local centres become direct service providers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
NHS England is currently considering the interim report of the Cass Review. The Department continues to work with NHS England on how the review’s recommendations can be implemented.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
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 help tackle inequalities in women's health.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Our Vision for the Women’s Health Strategy, published in December, set out our ambitions for improving the health and wellbeing of women across England and reducing disparities. It is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-vision-for-the-womens-health-strategy-for-england. We will publish the full Women’s Health Strategy later this year.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) was established to reduce health disparities, including those which affect women. OHID will publish a Health Disparities White Paper with impactful measures to address health disparities at each stage they arise.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the interim report of the Cass Review, published in February 2022, if the Government will adopt the advice set out in that report on reforming the approach to providing gender identity services for children and young people and introduce a system in which local centres become direct service providers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We welcome Dr Cass’ report and look forward to the publication of the full review, which will provide further detail on an improved model of care for children and young people with gender dysphoria.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to include provisions for improving access to treatment for the menopause in the forthcoming Women’s Health Strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The menopause is a priority topic in Our Vision for the Women’s Health Strategy, which we published on 23rd December 2021, alongside the analytical report of the call for evidence survey. In due course we will publish the full Strategy which will set out our full ambitions in this area.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's long term strategy is to attract, recruit and retain neurology professionals.
Answered by Edward Argar
This Government is committed to supporting staff and investing in the wider neurological workforce, including nurses and allied health professionals. The NHS People Plan, published in July 2020, sets out measures to support and grow the workforce and strengthen retention in the NHS. We have set up a comprehensive work programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify our training pipeline, and ethically recruit internationally.
Health Education England (HEE) determines the number of medical specialty training posts that are made available each year based on considerations including spending review allocations, strategic priorities for training the medical workforce and an annual process whereby local teams submit recruitment plans for specialty training programmes. Neurology is a popular specialty and generally achieves 100% fill rate for training places.
In July 2021 the Department commissioned HEE to work with partners to review, renew and update the existing long-term strategic framework for the health workforce.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish guidance for medical exemptions for mandatory covid-19 vaccinations for those who work in care homes.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
We will shortly publish further guidance on vaccination as a condition of deployment in care homes. This will provide further detail around medical exemptions and information on how individuals can check their exemption status.