Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it remains his Department’s policy to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy between areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The ambition to improve healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 and reduce the gap by 2030 remains Government policy. A significant proportion of ill-health is preventable. We are focusing on the major conditions which contribute to early mortality and reduce years of good health and factors such as smoking, poor diet and alcohol which disproportionately impact some communities.
The measures include the ambition for England to be smoke-free by 2030 and addressing obesity through working with the food industry to ensure it is easier to make healthier choices and to increase progress on the reformulation of foods. We will set out more information on plans to address health disparities in due course.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 6 December 2022 to Question 98800 on Memory Clinics: Waiting Lists, how many (a) memory assessment services and (b) patients waiting for an appointment with such a service there were in each NHS Trust in England on 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The information requested is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are waiting for an appointment with a memory assessment service in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England as of 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
There are currently two memory assessment services provided by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, with 682 patients currently waiting to attend a first appointment, of which 527 are yet to be offered an appointment date. The data requested for England is not held centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many memory assessment services there are in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England as of 29 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
There are currently two memory assessment services provided by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, with 682 patients currently waiting to attend a first appointment, of which 527 are yet to be offered an appointment date. The data requested for England is not held centrally.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
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 improve the data quality for NHS Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services in (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
NHS England has made guidance available for services related to specific care pathways to improve the data submitted to the Mental Health Services Dataset and issued guidance for the recording of outcomes data, access data and for the measurement of waiting times for non-urgent access to community children and young people’s mental health services. NHS England is providing additional support to assist local areas to overcome local data flow challenges and to make data products such as dashboards routinely available for services to review. Existing guidance is being improved to support local National Health Service commissioners supporting voluntary and community sector providers to submit data to the Mental Health Services Dataset and question and answer sessions have been delivered to respond to enquiries and examine barriers to submitting the data.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings of the report from the Cystic Fibrosis Trust on UK Cystic Fibrosis Service Resourcing 2019 to 2021, published on in June 2022, whether the Government is taking steps to ensure cystic fibrosis centres have fully staffed Multi-Disciplinary Teams, including cystic fibrosis specialist social workers and clinical psychologists.
Answered by Will Quince
England’s adult and paediatric cystic fibrosis service specification sets out national standards for cystic fibrosis services, including the importance of multi-disciplinary teams involving clinical psychologists and social workers. There are regular discussions between regional commissioning teams and providers, which include reviewing compliance with service standards and service quality issues in the services commissioned.
Service specifications are contractual documents between commissioners and providers. However, it does not mandate the number of staff in a multi-disciplinary team, as that is determined by the local trust according to the size of the service and the needs of the patient population. There are no plans to review staffing levels in cystic fibrosis multi-disciplinary teams.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to mitigate the potential costs of regulatory reform to the health and care sector.
Answered by Will Quince
Reforms to professional regulation is not expected to add costs to the health and care sector. The current model of regulation for healthcare professionals will be reformed to provide further protection for patients, support health services and allow the workforce meet future challenges.