Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 have been visited to deliver booster doses of covid-19 vaccinations on more than one occasion.
Answered by Maggie Throup
As of 30 December 2021, 5,893 or 39% of care homes, including both older adult and non-older adult care homes, had been visited on more than one occasion. As of 25 December 2021, 25 care homes or 0.16% care homes were yet to be visited. As of 7 January 2022, seven or 0.05% of care homes were yet to be visited. Delays in visiting the remaining care homes were due to outbreaks, therefore visits could not take place until the 28-day isolation period was over.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 yet to be visited to deliver booster doses of covid-19 vaccinations as of (a) 25 December 2021 and (b) 7 January 2022.
Answered by Maggie Throup
As of 30 December 2021, 5,893 or 39% of care homes, including both older adult and non-older adult care homes, had been visited on more than one occasion. As of 25 December 2021, 25 care homes or 0.16% care homes were yet to be visited. As of 7 January 2022, seven or 0.05% of care homes were yet to be visited. Delays in visiting the remaining care homes were due to outbreaks, therefore visits could not take place until the 28-day isolation period was over.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of the £300 million announced by the Government on 1 December 2021 will be ringfenced for new supported housing; and how many new homes the Government expects that funding to deliver.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
In the adult social care reform white paper, we committed to continue to incentivise the supply of supported housing for older and disabled people through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund with £213 million available over the next three years. This is alongside a new £300 million investment to embed the strategic commitment in all local places to connect housing with health and care, to boost the supply of supported housing and to increase local expenditure on services for those in supported housing.
We will work in partnership with local authorities, housing providers and others to design and establish our new investment. We will share further detail of how the investment will be targeted, as well as details of the impact we expect to deliver, with interested parties as this work develops.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many tests have been conducted at the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa since it first opened in July 2021.
Answered by Maggie Throup
As of the 11 November 2021, the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory has conducted 1,926,331 polymerase chain reaction tests.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 ensure that all new and prospective parents have access to a high quality health visiting service.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Local authorities are responsible for the commissioning of health visiting services in England. The Spending Review confirmed that the Public Health Grant will be maintained in real terms, enabling local authorities across the country to continue delivering critical frontline services for new and prospective parents. In March 2021, commissioning guidance and a modernised health visiting service model were published to support local decision-making and promote quality practice through high impact evidence.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 impact of the covid-19 outbreak on the delivery of the school based vaccine in 2021-22.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, routine childhood immunisation programmes continued to be delivered in primary care. However, the closure of schools from 23 March 2020 meant that the delivery of all school-aged immunisation programmes, including human papillomavirus (HPV), tetanus, diphtheria and polio booster (Td/IPV) and meningococcal ACWY (MenACWY) were interrupted from this date onwards.
Recovery and restoration continues, with National Health Service providers adopting a flexible and transformative delivery model to ensure those eligible receive their vaccine. This includes prioritisation of immunisations based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, digitalising consent processes and utilising a range of alternative community settings to deliver vaccines where appropriate. NHS England has also been working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department of Education to ensure that schools facilitate the continuation of vaccinations.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation plans to complete its review into the inclusion of the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine in the childhood vaccination programme.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2010, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation found that offering a universal varicella vaccination programme against chickenpox would not be cost effective and may increase the risk of severe disease and complications in adulthood, both from chickenpox and shingles.
The varicella/zoster subcommittee has kept this under review. In February 2019 the subcommittee commissioned modellers to re-run the economic modelling with new quality-adjusted life year data and discount rates. This work was paused during the pandemic and will recommence in due course.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
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 including the chickenpox vaccination in the childhood vaccination programme.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The decision to offer a chickenpox vaccine to all children in the United Kingdom is under ongoing review by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The JCVI has previously advised that offering a universal varicella or chickenpox vaccination programme would not be cost-effective and is highly likely to increase the risk of severe disease and complications in adulthood, both from chickenpox and shingles.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish weekly data on (a) the number of people vaccinated for covid-19 by (i) constituency and (ii) lower local authority level and (b) the proportion of people vaccinated for covid-19 in each Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation priority group by (A) constituency and (B) lower local authority level.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
NHS England and NHS Improvement publish daily data on the total first and second doses given to date by region. NHS England and NHS Improvement also release a weekly publication of vaccination data including the number of people vaccinated by both constituency and lower local authority level. The weekly publications also include the proportion of people vaccinated for COVID-19 across a range of cohorts and geographies and population estimates are provided for the majority of the data. This data is available at the following link:
www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what contracts his Department has signed with private companies relating to the running of a new high throughput laboratory in Leamington Spa.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Royal Leamington Spa laboratory will be run by the Department which will hold supply contracts for resourcing, equipment, machinery, facilities and waste management. These contracts will be published on the Governments Contract Finder website.