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 her Department is taking to ensure that hospitals follow NICE guidelines on (a) suicide and (b) self-harm risk assessment (i) tools and (ii) scales.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Improving risk management and safety planning for suicide and self-harm prevention is a priority in the Government’s suicide prevention strategy. The strategy highlights the importance of compliance with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidelines on risk assessment. NHS England is taking forward work in this area.
We would expect health professionals to have regard to guidelines from the NICE, which state that risk assessment tools should not be used to predict future suicide or repetition of self-harm.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of automatically notifying women with neurofibromatosis type 1 before their 40th birthday that they are eligible to attend breast cancer screening from the age of 40 years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Currently women with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) who are considered at moderate or high risk of breast cancer, can be referred through clinical professionals such as specialists in genetics or oncology for annual breast screening which is managed at a local level.
An assessment has not made of the potential merits of automatically notifying women with NF1 before they are 40 years old that they are eligible to attend breast cancer screening from the age of 40 years.
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 she has taken with NHS England to help raise awareness by (a) patients and (b) GPs of the increased risk of breast cancer in people with neurofibromatosis type 1.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department works with NHS England to raise awareness of cancers, including for people with increased risk of cancer. In January 2024, NHS England relaunched the Help Us Help You cancer awareness campaign, designed to increase earlier diagnosis by encouraging people to come forward with suspected signs of cancers.
For individuals with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), who are at increased risk of breast cancer, the National Health Service in England recommends breast screening from the age of 40 years old. It is important that awareness of this is widespread among patients and general practices (GPs). Treatment for NF1 involves regular monitoring, and if a patient develops complex problems, their GP can usually refer them to one of two specialist NHS centres, so that a treatment plan can be drawn up. These centres are at Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London, and at Manchester University Hospital.
We expect clinicians to keep themselves appraised of developments within conditions, and to refer to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidance as part of their clinical decision-making process.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the publication Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024, published on 14 May 2024, if he will make an assessment of the reasons why over 180,000 Tax Credits claimants that have been sent a migration notice did not make a Universal Credit claim within the required timeframe.
Answered by Jo Churchill
In February 2024, we published insight into tax credit claim rates, including reasons for not claiming, available here: Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to table 3 of his Department's publication entitled Completing the move to Universal Credit: Statistics related to the move of households claiming Tax Credits and DWP Benefits to Universal Credit: data to end of March 2024, published on 14 May 2024, if he will break down this data by (a) each nation, (b) each region and (c) each local authority area in the North East.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The information requested is published in table 6 of the Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024,Move to Universal Credit statistics, July 2022 to March 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to ensure that all people with hearing loss have access to (a) Relay UK, (b) video calls with captions, (c) a video relay service and (d) in-person transcriptions services when applying for Personal Independence Payment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
When applying for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) there are two different types of service offer available to claimants who are deaf or hearing impaired.
We offer Video Relay Service, a third-party sign and talk solution which allows sign language to be used to aid communication between a claimant and DWP, via a third party. There is no transcript of the conversation, but calls are recorded.
Information is provided on Gov.UK:
British Sign Language (BSL) video relay service
If you’re on a computer - find out how to use the service on mobile or tablet
We also offer a service known as Relay UK. This is a text relay service for people who cannot hear or speak on the telephone and includes captions. The full conversation is transcribed in real time as it happens.
Information is available on Gov.UK:
Relay UK (if you cannot hear or speak on the phone): 18001 then 0800 917 2222
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 staff were employed in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in public mental health national roles in (a) 2021, (b) 2022, (c) 2023 and (d) 2024.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
National public mental health activity is delivered in a matrix, via a mixture of national and regional teams, drawing on public health, mental health, policy, project delivery, communication, marketing, and analytical expertise. The approach and scale of the contribution from the various teams in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the Department varies in line with the action being taken.
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 much funding has been allocated to (a) The Prevention Concordat for Better Mental Health and (b) Every Mind Matters in each year since their inception.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Prevention Concordat programme has never been allocated funding. The funding for Better Health - Every Mind Matters, each year from 2019/20 to 2023/24, is as follows:
- £6,910,000 in 2019/20;
- £3,040,000 in 2020/21;
- £5,300,000 in 2021/22;
- £3,330,000 in 2022/23; and
- £3,350,000 in 2023/24.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if he will hold discussions with the Northern Ireland Executive on the adequacy of resources for tackling NHS waiting times in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Steve Baker
The Government stands ready to support the Executive to reduce unacceptably long waiting times. The Government has made £3.3bn available to the Executive to spend on its priorities, including over £30m to address healthcare waiting lists.
I am clear that tackling waiting lists and stabilising health services in Northern Ireland is the start of a much bigger challenge in transforming services for the longer term. Innovative strategic thinking is needed to find solutions that will balance budgets and improve all public services across Northern Ireland. The Government is excited to work with Executive Ministers on plans that will deliver for Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether official statistics on suicides in armed forces veterans will be published annually.
Answered by Johnny Mercer
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs, Office for National Statistics and the Ministry of Defence have collaboratively developed a new approach for calculating veteran suicides in England and Wales.
This year, the ONS published suicide statistics for 2021 using this new approach and it intends to continue publishing veteran suicide stats on a yearly basis.