Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of deaths linked to suicide forums since 2019.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No such estimate has been made, as this information is not routinely collected. The Online Safety Act 2023 introduces significant new protections from online suicide content. Under the act, in-scope services will have to take robust action against illegal suicide content, including taking proactive action to prevent users from encountering content that amounts to an offence under the Suicide Act 1961, and rapidly remove illegal suicide content once they become aware of it. Where content falls below the criminal threshold but is nonetheless harmful to children, in-scope services likely to be accessed by children must take steps to prevent children from encountering content that promotes, encourages, or provides instructions for suicide, including through the use of age assurance technologies.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the NHS on the potential merits of providing access to licensed gene therapies manufactured in the UK free of charge on the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
We have had no such discussions with NHS England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new medicines, including gene therapies, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NHS is legally required to make funding available for NICE recommended treatments, usually within three months of the publication of final guidance. NICE has been able to recommend several gene therapies for use on the NHS, often subject to commercial agreements proposed through the NICE appraisal process, that are now available for the treatment of eligible patients.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average cost was for a (a) new hospital, (b) hospital upgrade, (c) MRI machine, (d) CT scanner and (e) GP appointment in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The following table shows information relating to the average costs of a new hospital, hospital upgrade, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, computerised tomography (CT) scan and a general practitioner (GP) appointment.
| Average cost |
New hospital | It is not possible to define an average cost of a new hospital, as the cost is dependent on significant variables relating to the type of hospital (and therefore complexity of plant, ventilation systems, etc.), size and its associated physical conditions. |
Hospital upgrade | The average cost of a scheme in the National Health Service upgrades programme is around £20 million, with significant variation across schemes on cost and type of upgrade. |
MRI machine | There are different specifications of machine and therefore a range of prices, but current purchase costs before the cost of fitting is approximately £1 million. |
CT scanner | There are different specifications of machine and therefore a range of prices, but current purchase costs before the cost of fitting is approximately £800,000. |
GP appointment | Data not held. |
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
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 allow vaccines administered in France to be recorded in the UK National Immunisation Management System to allow people vaccinated abroad to access an NHS Covid Pass.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Vaccines administered in France can already be recorded in vaccination records and displayed in the NHS COVID Pass. English residents vaccinated in France should contact their general practitioner or 119 to book an appointment at a regional vaccination centre to record their vaccinations through the National Immunisation Management Service. There are currently seven sites capable of reviewing vaccination evidence with an additional 13 pending. Further expansion of the service is planned in due course.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
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 (a) reduce inequalities in healthcare and (b) prevent the avoidable death of Asian and Asian British babies.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The NHS Long Term Plan (2019) sets out a systematic approach to reducing health inequalities and addressing unwarranted variation in care by targeting a higher share of funding towards geographies with high health inequalities than would have been allocated using solely the core needs formulae. As a condition of receiving Long Term Plan funding, all major national programmes and every local area across England is required to set out specific measurable goals and mechanisms by which they will contribute to narrowing health inequalities by 2029.
On 1 October, we launched the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Reducing health disparities is one of the core aims of the office and it will set out its plans for delivering on this objective in due course
To improve equity for mothers and babies from Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic groups, NHS England and NHS Improvement published ‘Equity and Equality: Guidance for Local Maternity Systems’ on 6 September, which can be found at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/equity-and-equality-guidance-for-local-maternity-systems/
This guidance asks Local Maternity Systems (LMS) to produce an equity and equality analysis (covering health outcomes, community assets and staff experience) by 30 November 2021; and to co-produce an action plan to improve equity for mothers and babies from minority ethnic and other backgrounds, and race equality for NHS maternity staff by 28 February 2022. The guidance is supported by a £6.8 million investment.
LMS are being asked to include four interventions to prevent avoidable deaths of babies in their action plans: (1) targeted and enhanced continuity of carer with 75% of women from Black, Asian and Mixed ethic groups receiving continuity of carer by 2024 and additional midwifery time to support women from the most deprived areas, (2) smoke-free pregnancy pathways for mothers and their partners, (3) breastfeeding strategies to improve breastfeeding rates for women living in the most deprived areas, and (4) culturally-sensitive genetics services for consanguineous couples. The guidance is supported by a £6.8 million investment, which will support Local Maternity Systems to implement Equity and Equality Action Plans and implement targeted and enhanced Continuity of Carer.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of providing (a) free or (b) low-cost NHS covid-19 tests to parents whose children live abroad, to allow such parents to visit their children under legally agreed custody agreements between the UK and other countries whilst incurring reduced costs for covid-19 testing.
Answered by Jo Churchill
No assessment has been made.
Since requirements were introduced for international travel testing, the costs of travel testing have fallen significantly. The Government is committed to working with the travel industry and private testing providers to reduce the cost of travel testing whilst also ensuring travel is as safe as possible. NHS Test and Trace tests are priced at the mid-market level. We offer deferred payment plans and hardship support for people who cannot afford to pay for the cost of managed quarantine and testing. In some circumstances this may be available to those who are not in receipt of income related benefits.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
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 amending the Units of Dental Activity (UDA) allocation of an urgent band of treatment from 1.2 UDAs to 3 UDAs retrospectively from 1 January 2021 until the end of the covid-19 outbreak to (a) reduce contractual pressures on dentists and (b) take into account the time taken to see urgent patients during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Department has no current plans to assess the units of dental activity (UDA) allocation for urgent dental treatment.
Contractual arrangements for the first six months of the 2021/22 financial year have been introduced by NHS England and NHS Improvement. The revised UDA threshold set at 60% is based on data that indicates practices may now have capacity to safely achieve more dental activity. Arrangements will be monitored on a monthly basis and are expected to be in place for six months in order to provide increased stability for dental practices. National Health Service commissioners have the discretion to make exceptions, for instance in cases where a dental practice has been impacted by staff being required to self-isolate.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the contractual requirements for NHS primary dental care from 1 April 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Department is working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Office of the Chief Dental Officer on contractual arrangements for 2021/22 onwards. An announcement will be made shortly.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
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 ability of SMEs in the hospitality and food and drink manufacturing industries who have regularly changing menus to determine what constitutes a product high in fat, sugar or salt for the purposes of the online advertising ban.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The consultation on the proposal to introduce a total restriction of online advertising for products high in fat, salt and sugar asked a question on the impact of the proposals on small businesses and we have engaged with industry to understand these in more detail to factor in the final policy decision. We will publish the response to the consultation shortly.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he publish a comparative estimate of the contribution of (a) personal care settings such as hair and beauty salons, barbershops and in mobile services and (b) hospitality and leisure sectors to the covid-19 R rate.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
It is not possible to systematically identify where infection occurs in individual positive cases definitive data on the different locations where transmissions occur is not available.