Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of standardising of NHS IT systems to help increase levels of efficiency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Interoperability between IT systems would improve the quality of care and safety for patients, as well as enabling better informed clinical and care decision-making, by allowing for information to be shared easily, in real time, between organisations that use different systems.
Information standards relating to information technology would enable such interoperability. The Government will shortly commence section 95 of the Health and Care Act 2022 and introduce regulations, which will, with Parliament’s approval, set out the procedure for preparing and publishing mandatory information standards for public and private health and adult social care providers.
The Data (Use and Access) (DUA) Bill will, Parliament permitting, subsequently make standards mandatory for IT providers in the health and care system, and make provision for ensuring compliance.
The impact assessment for these measures in the DUA Bill estimates benefits in terms of efficiencies of over £100 million over ten years. This is available at the following link:
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a hardship fund for parents of children who have been diagnosed with chronic illnesses and have been hospitalised for more than 2 months.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Building the Right Support Action Plan, published in 2022, contains commitments which have not yet passed their delivery dates, including the commitment to reform the Mental Health Act.
We do not plan to create new actions in a new action plan while the bill is before Parliament. However, we recognise that this is a vitally important area, and we are considering how to ensure that more people with a learning disability and autistic people are supported well in the community, ahead of the commencement of the Mental Health Act reforms.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 adequacy of levels of carers pay.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Adult social care is a historically low paid sector, as most care workers are paid at or just above the National Living Wage. The recently introduced Employment Rights Bill aims to address this by establishing a framework for Fair Pay Agreements, through which an agreement on pay and other terms and conditions for the adult social care sector can be negotiated and reached by employers, worker representatives, and others in partnership.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of an NHS-funded salaried training route to becoming a school counsellor.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have no plans to do so, as there is already an existing National Health Service-funded salaried training route for education based mental health practitioners, which enables them to work across education and healthcare to provide mental health support for children and young people in schools and colleges.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the previous Government's directive not to prescribe diabetes medication for non-licensed purposes on the availability of insulin stock; and what steps he is taking to safeguard those with diabetes from fluctuations in insulin availability.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are ongoing global supply issues with some medications used to treat diabetes, and we continue to work closely with all manufacturers of insulin and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists to improve the situation and ensure alternatives remain available for patients. We have issued communications to National Health Service healthcare professionals, providing comprehensive management guidance, advice, and information to allow them to support their patients in the management of the supply issues.
Clinicians can prescribe medicines outside their licensed indication, which is known as off-label use, where they consider it to be the best treatment option for their patient, and, if in the NHS, subject to funding by the NHS locally. However, our guidance is clear that the groups of medicines for diabetes, such as glucagon like peptide receptor agonists that are licensed to treat type 2 diabetes, should only be used for their licensed indication and should not be routinely prescribed for weight loss. The General Pharmaceutical Council, General Medical Council, Health and Care Professions Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council, and Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland have also issued a joint statement stressing the importance of health and care professionals meeting regulatory standards, including taking into account our guidance when prescribing these medicines.