Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to help support community pharmacists.
Answered by James Morris
The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) commits £2.592 billion in each of the five financial years between 2019 and 2024 to community pharmacy. It introduces plans to develop new services and expand the role of community pharmacy in prevention, urgent care and medicines safety. Negotiations on what the sector will deliver through the CPCF in 2022/23 are ongoing.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 performance of NHS trusts demonstrated by the latest data available; and what steps he is taking to help support NHS trusts which are not meeting national targets set for England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department works with NHS England to regularly assesses the performance of National Health Service trusts against national performance standards. NHS England provides targeted support to hospitals facing the greatest delays in the handover of ambulance patients to identify short and longer-term interventions. NHS England also supports those trusts most at risk of not meeting the elective recovery ambitions set out in the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to (a) recruit more NHS staff, (b) ensure that requests of medical staff to work overnight shifts are reasonable and (c) reduce appointment backlogs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Local National Health Service trusts have responsibility for ensuring appropriate staffing levels and recruiting the number of health professionals required to meet local service need. We have committed to recruiting NHS staff and investing in the workforce. As of April 2022, there were more than 9,600 additional nurses and 4,000 doctors working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups. We are currently on schedule to meet the commitment for a further 50,000 nurses. We have established a programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify the training pipeline and ethically recruit internationally.
Eligible new and continuing nursing students on pre-registration courses at English universities will also receive an additional grant of £5,000 for each year of their course. Further funding of up to £3,000 is available for costs such as childcare or to encourage recruitment in specific specialisms. The NHS has also established a People Recovery Task Force to provide assurance on the safety and wellbeing of staff. However, it is the responsibility of individual employers to ensure that requests for medical staff to work overnight are reasonable.
Through the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, we have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to address waiting times in elective services. This is in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund made available to systems in 2021/22.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 tackle the shortage of GPs in rural areas; and what assessment his Department has made of the impact of that shortage on the quality of services that patients receive.
Answered by James Morris
In 2016, we launched the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme which provides a one-off financial incentive of £20,000 to attract doctors to train in locations where there have been challenges to recruitment, including many rural areas. In 2021, 550 places were available through the Scheme and following additional Government investment, there are 800 places available in 2022.
The general practice workforce also consists of other health professionals who can respond to the needs of patients, including in rural areas. We are diversifying the general practice workforce, including recruiting 26,000 more primary care staff, to ensure the appropriate range of skills is available in general practice to deliver high quality patient care.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the average waiting time for an operation in Wiltshire; and what steps he is taking to tackle healthcare backlogs caused by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific estimate has been made as average waiting times for operations is not collected at county level. The Department and NHS England meet regularly with National Health Service trusts to discuss waiting lists for planned treatment. This includes assessing current progress on addressing waiting times and sharing advice to deliver on the targets in the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 improve access to NHS Dental Care Services in Wiltshire.
Answered by James Morris
From July 2022, NHS England and NHS Improvement have asked practices to deliver 100% of contracted units of dental activity and 100% of units of orthodontic activity to improve access for patients safely. An additional £50 million for National Health Service dentistry was allocated for the final quarter of 2021/22 to support the provision of urgent care to patients. Of this funding, £4,726,000 was made available to the South West region, including Wiltshire.
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with stakeholders, including the British Dental Association, on improvements to the NHS dental system to improve access, including in Wiltshire.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 effectiveness of the NHS England blueprint in respect of improving access to GP appointments; and what guidance his Department has issued on the steps that patients can take in the event they are dissatisfied with the quality of the service that they receive from their GP.
Answered by James Morris
The Department is working with NHS England and NHS Improvement and others to improve access to general practitioner (GP) appointments for patients. In May 2022, there were on average 1.31 million general practice appointments per working day, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations - a 9% increase from May 2019. NHS England and NHS Improvement are continuing to provide structured support to practices working in the most challenging circumstances via the Access Improvement Programme.
Practices can provide patients with details of the complaints process. Patients can also raise concerns with the local commissioner, NHS England and NHS Improvement or with the local Healthwatch, the independent consumer champion for health and social care.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 reduce rates of childhood obesity.
Answered by Steve Brine
We published the second chapter of our world-leading childhood obesity plan on 25 June. This builds on the real progress we have made since the publication of chapter one in 2016, particularly in reformulation of the products our children eat and drink most. Our plan sets a bold ambition to halve childhood obesity and significantly reduce the gap in obesity between children from the most and least deprived areas by 2030.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance the NHS provides to (a) patients and (b) the families of deceased patients on the return of medical equipment that is no longer required.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Arrangements for the return, reuse or recycling of equipment is decided locally between the relevant commissioners and providers of equipment. There is a responsibility on National Health Service trusts to make the best use of all resources and items including recycling and reuse of equipment where it is safe and cost effective to do so.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
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 new mothers' mental health problems are identified as early as possible.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This Government is committed to improving perinatal mental health services for women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year, so that women are able to access the right care at the right time and close to home.
The Department is investing £365 million from 2015/16 to 2020/21 in perinatal mental health services, and NHS England is leading a transformation programme to ensure that by 2020/21 at least 30,000 more women each year are able to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period. This includes access to psychological therapies and specialist community or inpatient care.
A key element of the programme is to increase awareness and skills across the workforce, supporting better identification of perinatal mental illness, early intervention and consequently improved recovery rates. In addition, there are over 570 perinatal mental health visitor champions. Their role is to support health visitors with the identification and management of anxiety, mild to moderate depression and other perinatal mental disorders, and knowing when to refer on.