Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to bring guidance for wearing face masks in care homes in line with (a) hospitals and (b) other health care settings.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 15 December 2022, adult social care guidance has been amended to support a risk-based approach to mask wearing and align with hospitals and other health care settings. This has replaced previous guidance which stated face masks should be worn at all times in adult social care.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) financial and (b) other steps his Department is taking to help tackle NHS workforce shortages in the City of Durham.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has committed to publishing a workforce plan next year, which will include independently verified forecasts for the number of healthcare professionals required in future years, including in the City of Durham.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
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 implications for his policies of trends in the level of healthy life expectancy in the City of Durham.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate his Department has made of the proportion of GP appointments in the City of Durham conducted face-to-face in the last 12 months; and what that figure was in 2013.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
This information is not collected in the format requested.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help improve access to NHS dental services in the City of Durham.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in the City of Durham.
On 25 November 2022, the Department introduced legislation to amend the National Health Service dental contract to incentivise dentists to deliver care to high needs patients through fairer remuneration. The legislation requires NHS dentists to update their NHS.UK profiles more frequently to ensure patients can access accurate information on the services available. The Department will enable NHS England’s commissioners to more flexibly commission additional care for patients where this can be delivered by NHS dental teams.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of care homes were rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in City of Durham constituency as of 1 November 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 1 November 2022, 13 or 86.7% of care homes in the City of Durham constituency are currently rated by the Care Quality Commission as ‘good’ overall.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help support young people with eating disorders in City of Durham constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In September we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Durham. Ensuring easier access to general practice will expand this route to access mental health services.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand NHS mental health and eating disorder services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Durham. We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Niche reports on the deaths of three teenage girls in the care of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust published on 2 November 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of mental health services for children and young people; and whether he will publish a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are working with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and mental health providers to ensure that all adults and children and young people being treated in such settings receive safe, high-quality and compassionate care and are treated with dignity and respect.
Whilst the Department has made no such specific assessment, NHS England has established the National Quality Improvement Taskforce to improve specialist children and young people’s inpatient mental health, autism and learning disability services in England. The Taskforce is expected to complete its work in spring 2023.
The CQC has introduced a new single assessment framework to target more frequent inspections at the worst-performing service providers. The new framework contains six evidence categories which states the type of evidence the CQC will collect which form a picture of the quality of care and improve the consistency of its judgements.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to help tackle health inequality in City of Durham constituency.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
‘Our plan for patients’, published on 22 September, sets out the immediate priorities to support individuals to live healthier lives, including improving access to health and care services in all areas and preventing ill-health. Further information on measures to address health disparities will be available in due course.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities works with local system partners in City of Durham to support programmes to reduce health inequalities, including providing evidence and intelligence.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that every child in the City of Durham constituency has access to an NHS dentist.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Our Plan for Patients’ includes initial improvements to ensure dentists are remunerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver NHS treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The Plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists; and holding the local ICS to account for dentistry provision. A statement was also made on 19th July on the reforms that the Government has made to the dental contract.
The Government is working hard with NHS England and contractors to restore dental services across England, including in Durham. NHS England asked dental practices to return to delivering 100% of their contracted activity from July 2022.
In circumstances where parents are unable to access an urgent dental appointment for their child directly through a NHS dental practice, they should contact NHS 111 for assistance.