Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress her Department has made on reforming the social care workforce.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are carrying out ambitious reforms for the care workforce to increase the supply and quality of social care.
We will shortly be publishing the Care Workforce Pathway setting out a career path for care workers, together with launching a new care qualification and funding thousands of training places.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the last new paediatric patient attended their first appointment at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust gender and identity development service.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This information is not held centrally. However, no new first assessment appointments have been offered by the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust since the end of March 2023.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 12 August 2022 to Question 40021 on Coronavirus: Vaccination for children, if she will take steps to remove Pfizer covid-19 vaccination is removed from the NHS.UK schedule.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
The NHS.UK vaccination schedule sets out which vaccinations individuals are eligible to receive through the National Health Service, including COVID-19. However, the schedule does not specify which specific COVID-19 vaccine will be used. The Government continues to be guided by the expert independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 June 2022 to Question 17162 on Coronavirus: Vaccination for children, for what reason the covid-19 vaccination for five- to 11-year-olds was included in the NHS.UK vaccination schedule information for the purposes of raising awareness with the public; who made that policy decision; what the set criteria are for including vaccines on the NHS routine children's immunisations schedule; and whether the threshold for long-term benefit in otherwise healthy children has been met for the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Maggie Throup
While the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s one-off advice for a non-urgent offer of the Pfizer vaccine in this age group was publicised on NHS.UK to raise awareness, it does not reflect a change in policy.
COVID-19 vaccination is not included in the UK Health Security Agency’s routine childhood immunisation schedule, which provides immunisation information for health professionals and immunisation practitioners.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the evidential basis is (a) for the inclusion of covid-19 vaccinations for children in the recommended list of NHS vaccinations, (b) that demonstrates the roll out of covid-19 vaccination for children provides long-term protection against disease, (c) that demonstrates covid-19 infection presents a substantial risk to children and (d) that risks to children associated with covid-19 vaccination are outweighed by benefits of vaccination.
Answered by Maggie Throup
On 16 February 2022, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised a non-urgent offer of the Pfizer vaccine should be made to children aged five to 11 years old who are not in a clinical risk group. The JCVI considers this advice as a one-off response to pandemic rather than part of the routine vaccination schedule. NHS.UK includes the offer of COVID-19 vaccination for this age group on its vaccination schedule information to raise awareness with the public.
Vaccine-induced protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and death is expected to be maintained for a longer period than protection against mild disease in children, as evidenced in the United Kingdom data for adults. Most children aged five to 11 years old who are not in a COVID-19 clinical risk group are at extremely low risk of developing severe disease with the majority experiencing asymptomatic or mild disease following infection.
The JCVI’s statement concludes that the potential health benefits of vaccination are greater than the potential health risks. Vaccination of children aged five to 11 years old who are not in a clinical risk group is expected to reduce the small number of hospitalisations and paediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19 cases. The extent of these benefits is dependent on the timing and severity of any future wave of infection.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what coordination is taking place between the UK and Israel on covid-19 vaccine deployment.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government recognises that a global pandemic requires global solutions. It is essential that the Department is regularly in discussions with other countries, including Israel, on a wide range of COVID-19 issues to share learnings and collaborate internationally on the vaccination programme. Feedback from these discussions, where relevant, is used to improve the United Kingdom vaccination programme.
Asked by: Miriam Cates (Conservative - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what collaborative scientific research partnerships are ongoing between the UK and Israel to combat covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Funded by the Department, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is the nation's largest funder of health and care research. The NIHR has led urgent public health research on COVID-19, targeted at both domestic and global research and development solutions. Outside the United Kingdom, we are funding global health research to tackle COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries, in partnership with UK Research and Innovation, using Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fund high quality applied health research and training. Countries eligible to receive ODA are as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee list of ODA recipients. Israel is not eligible to receive ODA and as such has not been involved in the NIHR’s global health research in this area.