Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
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 conduct regular financial audits of GP practices that are part of national chains on an (a) national and (b) local individual surgery basis.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is not the responsibility of the Department or NHS England to undertake financial audits of general practices (GPs). GPs are private businesses that are commissioned by integrated care boards to provide general medical services via a National Health Service contract. Practices have a range of auditing requirements, including disclosure of earnings, and maintaining an audit and system management function on their computer system, allowing NHS England to carry out audit functions relating to the maintenance of patient records.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
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 prevent fraud by nationwide GP chains.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government takes fraud against the National Health Service extremely seriously and we will use every available tool to bring fraudsters to account. A comprehensive three-year Counter Fraud Strategy is in place and a Fraud Risk Assessment has been undertaken for contracted services within general practice, to identify fraud risks so that preventative action can be taken. The NHS Counter Fraud Authority is also in place as a dedicated special health authority tasked with leading the fight against fraud, bribery, and corruption in the NHS in England. Where allegations of fraud are received, they will be thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action will be taken.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issued guidance on the maximum distance that a patient should travel to see their registered GP.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the arrangements for the provision of primary medical services, general practices (GPs) are required to agree an area within which they will accept patients onto their list. This ensures there is a sufficient distribution of GPs for all patients in England and provides for an area in which practices feel they are able to provide home visits, should they be needed.
Changes to the GP Contract arrangements in 2014/15 brought in a measure allowing GPs to register patients from outside their catchment areas without a duty to provide home visits for such patients.
If the practice feels it is not clinically appropriate or practical for the patient to be registered so far away from home, it can still refuse registration, but should explain the reason for doing so.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to appoint a men's health champion.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
On 28 November 2024, my Rt. Hon. friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced plans for England’s first Men’s Health Strategy at the Men’s Health Summit, held in partnership with Movember and hosted by Arsenal and the Premier League.
We will shortly be launching a call for evidence to seek views on what is currently working and what more needs to be done to support the health of all men. Through the strategy, we will explore all avenues to improve men’s health, including on leadership.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that mothers are properly supported following childbirth with their (a) general and (b) mental health.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Government is committed to ensuring that mothers are properly supported following childbirth with their general and mental health.
We are committed to improving maternity outcomes and experience of care for women and babies, as set out in Safer Maternity Care: next steps towards the national maternity ambition, published in October 2016. This should start before childbirth and the Government is supporting the Our Chance campaign to support women to understand advice about healthy pregnancies and how to act on it.
The National Institute for Care and Excellence has published quality standards on postnatal care, which includes the core care and support that every woman, their baby and if appropriate, their partner and family should receive during the postnatal period. This includes recognising women and babies with additional care needs and referring them to specialist services as required.
Evidence shows that the six-eight week appointment is a particularly crucial element of postnatal care. Better Births, the report of the National Maternity Review, states that the check should include assessing:
- how a woman has made the transition to motherhood, including her mental health;
- her recovery from the birth, using direct questions about common morbidities;
- longer term health risks for any morbidity identified; and
- any further help she might need whether connected with the birth or not; and what advice she might need about future family planning.
The Department has invested £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 work to increase awareness and skills across the workforce, supporting better identification of perinatal mental illness, early intervention and consequently improved recovery rates.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans the Government has to act upon the recommendations made by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' report, Each Baby Counts, published in June 2017, to improve maternity care.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Government and NHS England are supporting National Health Service maternity services to implement important changes that address the key recommendations in the Each Baby Counts report.
We published Safer Maternity Care: next steps towards the national maternity ambition in October last year to achieve the National Maternity Ambition to halve the rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries by 2030. This action plan, which feeds into the NHS England-led Maternity Transformation Programme, includes:
- an £8 million Maternity Safety Training Fund, which has been shared out to every NHS maternity unit to enable multidisciplinary teams to undertake training on CGT fetal monitoring, obstetric emergency skills and drills, leadership, human factors and team working;
- the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle which supports maternity teams by bringing together four key elements of care based on best available evidence and practice in order to help reduce stillbirth rates – these are reducing smoking in pregnancy, risk assessment and surveillance for fetal growth restriction, raising awareness of reduced fetal movement and effective fetal monitoring during labour;
- the development of a National Standardised Perinatal Mortality Review Tool that will be available later this year to support maternity and neonatal units to undertake and share learning from standardised, high quality case reviews of every stillbirth and neonatal death; and
- consultation on a Rapid Resolution and Redress scheme, which would contribute to reducing severe avoidable birth injuries through improved investigations and learning.
In addition, NHS Improvement launched a new Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative – a three-year programme to improve clinical practices and reduce variations in outcomes involving every trust, making it one of the largest maternity quality improvement programmes.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the steps taken by organisations to support carers to increase agile working practices.
Answered by David Mowat
In 2016, the Department carried out an extensive call for evidence, including a roundtable event with employers, to inform the development of a new Carers Strategy. As part of this exercise, the Department reviewed many examples of employers which have implemented workplace policies to support employees with caring responsibilities, and the growing evidence base on the benefits to businesses and carers of flexible working arrangements.
Earlier this month, the Department for Work and Pensions published Fuller Working Lives: A Partnership Approach, which sets out a range of ongoing partnership work with employers to support working carers aged over 50 and to continue to grow the evidence base in this area.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions the Government has had with NHS England on ensuring that the mandate to NHS England for 2017-18 reflects the Government's plans to improve support for carers through its forthcoming Carers Strategy.
Answered by David Mowat
The Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2016-17 set a clear expectation that carers should routinely be identified by services and given access to information and advice about the support available.
The Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2017-18 is currently being developed in consultation with NHS England and Healthwatch England, and will be published in due course.
Discussions are ongoing between the Government and NHS England to develop a range of actions to further support carers through the forthcoming Carers Strategy.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the implications of a reduction in the number of healthcare professionals trained to fit intra-uterine methods of contraception on women's access to contraception.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
No such assessment has been made. Since 2013, local authorities have been mandated to commission open access contraceptive services, including intra-uterine methods that meet the needs of their local populations. Data published by NHS Digital on 19 October 2016 showed that the number of women fitted with intra-uterine methods in sexual and reproductive health services increased slightly from 2014/15 (121,900) to 2015/16 (123,500) and by 79% compared to 10 years ago.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many pharmacies are now clustered.
Answered by David Mowat
We know that 40% of pharmacies are in clusters of three or more meaning that two-fifths of pharmacies are within 10 minutes’ walk of two or more other pharmacies.
But we also know that in many places there are far more than this. For example, on Loughborough Road in Leicester there are 12 pharmacies, all within 10 minutes’ walk of each other. Similarly on Clodeshall Road in Birmingham, there are 11 pharmacies within 10 minutes’ walk. There are many more examples of clusters of pharmacies throughout England, with one cluster in London of 18 pharmacies within 10 minutes of each other. The median average pharmacy currently receives £220,000 per year in National Health Service funding. This includes a fixed payment of £25,000 per year for almost all pharmacies, regardless of their size or quality. This represents an inefficient allocation of NHS funds.