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Written Question
Life Expectancy: Gateshead Central and Whickham
Thursday 14th November 2024

Asked by: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average life expectancy is in (a) Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency and (b) each ward of that constituency.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Life expectancy estimates for Parliamentary constituencies are not available. Life expectancy estimates for local authorities in England are produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The latest available figures from the ONS are for the three-year period 2020 to 2022. In that period, life expectancy at birth for the Gateshead local authority, which includes the constituency of Gateshead and Whickham, was 76.7 years for males, and 81.4 years for females.

Life expectancy estimates for electoral wards are produced by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID). The following table shows the latest available estimates of life expectancy at birth, separated by sex, for the five-year period of 2016 to 2020, in the electoral wards within the Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency:

Electoral ward name

Sex

Life expectancy in years

Bridges

Male

73.7

Chowdene

Male

77.8

Deckham

Male

74.1

Dunston and Teams

Male

73.0

Dunston Hill and Whickham East

Male

79.0

High Fell

Male

74.5

Lobley Hill and Bensham

Male

74.7

Low Fell

Male

80.8

Saltwell

Male

76.5

Whickham North

Male

77.9

Whickham South and Sunniside

Male

82.3

Bridges

Female

78.6

Chowdene

Female

83.1

Deckham

Female

77.8

Dunston and Teams

Female

81.1

Dunston Hill and Whickham East

Female

83.8

High Fell

Female

78.6

Lobley Hill and Bensham

Female

78.6

Low Fell

Female

83.8

Saltwell

Female

84.8

Whickham North

Female

80.3

Whickham South and Sunniside

Female

87.6

Source: data is from the OHID’s Local Health profile, with further information on male and female life expectancy within the Gateshead local authority available, respectively, at the following two links:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/local-health/data#page/3/gid/1938133185/pat/502/par/E08000037/ati/8/are/E05001067/iid/93283/age/1/sex/1/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/5/cid/4/tbm/1

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/local-health/data#page/3/gid/1938133185/pat/502/par/E08000037/ati/8/are/E05001067/iid/93283/age/1/sex/2/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/5/cid/4/tbm/1/page-options/car-do-0

The profile also provides comparable estimates for the Gateshead local authority for the five-year period, from 2016 to 2020.


Written Question
Care Quality Commission
Monday 4th November 2024

Asked by: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been (a) budgeted and (b) spent by the Care Quality Commission on the (i) design, (ii) development and (iii) rollout of its new regulatory platform.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) budget for its new regulatory platform was £88.3 million. The actual cost of the regulatory platform is £92.4 million, including the utilisation of contingency, which isn’t accounted for in the budget, and so is the reason for the variance. The actual cost comprises spending on contingent labour, internal staffing, professional services, and non-pay costs. All spending during the CQC’s transformation was subject to appropriate governance, and any procurement was undertaken in line with public sector standards.

The regulatory platform was gradually delivered and implemented over a five-year period to the end of March 2024. The CQC is unable to provide a breakdown of the figures into design, development, and rollout as the regulatory platform was broken down into various services and each of these had a different design, build, test, and deploy phase. These phases overlapped due to the phased rollout.


Written Question
Mental Health Services: Gateshead
Tuesday 10th September 2024

Asked by: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been waiting to access Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services support in Gateshead for more than six months.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the number of referrals that subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date from 2019/20 to 2023/24, and the number of referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months, regardless of when the referral started, as of the end of March 2024, for those aged zero to 17 years old:

Reporting Period

Referrals who received first contact over six months from the referral request date

Referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months

2019/20

85

2020/21

150

2021/22

570

2022/23

145

2023/24

60

1,745

Source: Mental Health Dataset.

As the definition of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the dataset is not clear cut, and the methodology for deriving CAMHS changes over time, the use of age at referral is the most reliable way of defining those referred to CAMHS.

The number provided includes all new referrals in each year where the person was a resident of the local authority of Gateshead. In addition, the number of referrals which have had a contact is included to provide context around the numbers of referrals which have been received and subsequently had a care contact.

For some referrals it may not be expected that a contact would be recorded. For example, in some circumstances, referrals are received by triage teams. These referrals are subsequently closed without a contact, with a new referral opened once triaged.

In some scenarios, referral IDs are being re-used. For the purposes of this analysis, the care contact must take place within the same referral for the same person, as such a small number of contacts may not be included within a specific referral, but this is a data quality issue.


Written Question
General Practitioners: Gateshead Central and Whickham
Monday 9th September 2024

Asked by: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of open GP practices in Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency (a) on the most recent date for which figures are available and (b) in 2010.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The data provided has been sourced from NHS Digital and shows the number of open practices as of August 2024, and in August 2014 as no data is available prior to this. The data only includes main practices in the Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency and does not include branch practices. Locations have been mapped to current constituency boundaries. Open and close dates for practices were identified using data from NHS Organisation Data Service.

As of August 2024, there are 15 open practices in the Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency. In August 2014, there were 19 open practices in the Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency.


Written Question
Mental Health Services: Gateshead
Monday 9th September 2024

Asked by: Mark Ferguson (Labour - Gateshead Central and Whickham)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many referrals have been accepted by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Gateshead in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the number of referrals for those children aged between 0 and 17 years old at the time of referral to mental health services in Gateshead local authority between 2019/20 and 2023/24:

Reporting Period

Number of new referrals

Number of new referrals that received a first contact (contact can occur at any point within the referral)

2019/20

2,415

1,745

2020/21

2,420

1,755

2021/22

4,130

2,695

2022/23

4,150

2,260

2023/24

6,940

2,225

Source: Mental Health Dataset, NHS England

Notes:

  1. The definition of by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the dataset is not clear cut and also the methodology for deriving CAMHS changes over time. As such, the use of age at referral is the most reliable way of defining those referred to CAMHS.
  2. The number provided includes all new referrals in each year where the person was a resident of the local authority of Gateshead. In addition, the number of referrals which have had a contact is included to provide context around the numbers of referrals which have been received and subsequently had a care contact.
  3. For some referrals it may not be expected that a contact would be recorded. For example, in some circumstances, referrals are received by triage teams. These referrals are subsequently closed without a contact with a new referral opened once triaged.
  4. In some scenarios, referral IDs are being re-used. For the purposes of this analysis, the care contact must take place within the same referral for the same person, as such a small number of contacts may not be included within a specific referral but this is a data quality issue.