Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of recorded cases of cervical cancer in patients over the age of 65 in the last five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service publishes cancer registration statistics annually, as Accredited Official Statistics. The information requested is therefore available at the following link:
https://www.cancerdata.nhs.uk/incidence_and_mortality
The interactive dashboard provides the most recent data available to 2020 which represents completed disease registration. The data is broken down by age and types of cervical cancer.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing women over the age of 65 to request a cervical smear.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to make an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of extending the age of the National Health Service’s cervical screening programme beyond 65 years old. The UK National Screening Committee reviewed the evidence to screen women over 65 years old for cervical cancer in 2019, and due to the lack of evidence, no recommendation was made on changing the age at which women exit the programme.
People over the age of 65 years old who have not had a positive human papillomavirus (HPV) cervical screening result recently are not invited back for screening. Evidence suggests that it is very unlikely that they will develop cervical cancer over the age of 65 years old if they are HPV negative.
Anyone aged 65 years old or older continues to be screened within the NHS cervical screening programme if one of the last three screening tests was abnormal. In addition, people aged over 65 years old who have never had cervical screening, or who have not had a screening since they turned 50 years old, are able to request a cervical screening test through their general practice.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of extending the cervical screening programme beyond the age of 65.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to make an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of extending the age of the National Health Service’s cervical screening programme beyond 65 years old. The UK National Screening Committee reviewed the evidence to screen women over 65 years old for cervical cancer in 2019, and due to the lack of evidence, no recommendation was made on changing the age at which women exit the programme.
People over the age of 65 years old who have not had a positive human papillomavirus (HPV) cervical screening result recently are not invited back for screening. Evidence suggests that it is very unlikely that they will develop cervical cancer over the age of 65 years old if they are HPV negative.
Anyone aged 65 years old or older continues to be screened within the NHS cervical screening programme if one of the last three screening tests was abnormal. In addition, people aged over 65 years old who have never had cervical screening, or who have not had a screening since they turned 50 years old, are able to request a cervical screening test through their general practice.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the national provision of safe access zones around (a) abortion clinics and (b) hospitals providing abortion services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No recent discussions have been held with the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the national provision of safe access zones around abortion clinics and hospitals providing abortion services.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, at what point in the provision of a person’s social care needs is the limit of local authority responsibility reached and the responsibility for funding that care transferred to NHS Continuing Healthcare.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is a package of ongoing care that is arranged and funded solely by the National Health Service, where the individual has been found to have a primary health need.
An individual has a primary health need if the main aspects or majority part of the required care is focused on addressing or preventing health needs. The National Health Service Commissioning Board and Clinical Commissioning Groups (Responsibilities and Standing Rules) Regulations 2012 set out the process for determining eligibility for CHC.
Establishing whether an individual has a primary health need requires a clear, reasoned decision, based on evidence of needs from a range of comprehensive assessments undertaken by a multidisciplinary team.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the cost of living on the mental health of young people.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department is acutely aware of the impact of the cost of living on mental health. Information on the support available to help with the cost of living is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/cost-of-living
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, the Government continues to expand and transform mental health services in England, so that more young people get the support they need for their mental health. We will also help thousands of young people into work through the £795 million expansion of NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support schemes.
Furthermore, there are around 65 locally funded Early Support Hubs in England. These hubs will support young people aged 11 to 25 years old who are experiencing anxiety or stress, including those who need support around financial circumstances. On 25 October we announced £4.92 million of new funding to deliver and evaluate innovative community-based mental health and wellbeing support for young people at 10 sites across England until the end of 2024/25.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding her Department has provided for (a) mental health services (i) for children and young people and (ii) in total and (b) all NHS services in each financial year since 2019-20.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
It is for individual local commissioners to allocate funding to mental health services to meet the needs of their local populations and this information is not collected centrally. Integrated care boards are expected to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard by increasing their investment in mental health services in line with their overall increase in funding for the year.
The following table shows the actual expenditure on mental health services for the period 2019/20 to 2022/23:
Year | Mental health spend for children and young people, excluding learning disabilities and eating disorders (£ billion) | Total mental health spend (£ billion) |
2019/20 | 0.79 | 13.32 |
2020/21 | 0.88 | 14.31 |
2021/22 | 0.92 | 14.93 |
2022/23 | 1.04 | 15.97 |
Source: NHS Mental Health Dashboard
Note: Total actual mental health spend reported here includes spending on learning disabilities and dementia, which is not included in the mental health investment standard or the baseline spend for the commitment in the NHS Long Term Plan to increase mental health spending by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January 2019, how much and what proportion of the additional £2.3 billion of funding for mental health services has been spent on services for (a) children and (b) other young people.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increasing funding to support the expansion and transformation of National Health Service-funded mental health services for adults, children, and young people in England by an additional £2.3 billion a year by March 2024. The proportion of this funding that has been spent on children and young people’s services is not separately identifiable.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to incorporate training on axial spondyloarthritis as a core component of continuous professional development within primary care.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Getting It Right First Time Rheumatology Programme is working to improve the early diagnosis of people with conditions such as axial spondyloarthritis. The programme published a national report on rheumatology in 2021, which makes a series of recommendations to support equitable and consistent access to diagnostic tests.
The programme has also worked with the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society to develop a pathway for axial spondyloarthritis to support clinicians to provide the best patient care and allow patients and commissioners to see what they can expect from a service.
Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced a range of guidance to support early diagnosis of conditions such as axial spondyloarthritis. Its Quality Standard on spondyloarthritis [QS170] sets out that adults with suspected axial or peripheral spondyloarthritis should be referred to a rheumatologist. Quality Standards are important in setting out to patients, the public, commissioners, and providers what a high-quality service should look like in a particular area of care. Whilst providers and commissioners must have regard to NICE Quality Standards in planning and delivering services, they do not provide a comprehensive service specification and are not mandatory.
General practitioners are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by NICE, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to reduce waiting times for axial spondyloarthritis diagnosis.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Getting It Right First Time Rheumatology Programme is working to improve the early diagnosis of people with conditions such as axial spondyloarthritis. The programme published a national report on rheumatology in 2021, which makes a series of recommendations to support equitable and consistent access to diagnostic tests.
The programme has also worked with the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society to develop a pathway for axial spondyloarthritis to support clinicians to provide the best patient care and allow patients and commissioners to see what they can expect from a service.
Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced a range of guidance to support early diagnosis of conditions such as axial spondyloarthritis. Its Quality Standard on spondyloarthritis [QS170] sets out that adults with suspected axial or peripheral spondyloarthritis should be referred to a rheumatologist. Quality Standards are important in setting out to patients, the public, commissioners, and providers what a high-quality service should look like in a particular area of care. Whilst providers and commissioners must have regard to NICE Quality Standards in planning and delivering services, they do not provide a comprehensive service specification and are not mandatory.
General practitioners are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by NICE, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.