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Written Question
Maternity Services: Safety
Thursday 1st February 2024

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of maternity and neonatal safety improvement schemes on mitigating the effects of inequalities in perinatal deaths.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

In March 2023, NHS England published its three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services. This sets out how the National Health Service will make maternity and neonatal care more equitable, as well as safer and more personalised.

The three-year delivery plan is based on evidence, including the impact on inequalities where available, and wide consultation. NHS England is tracking the impact on maternity and neonatal outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation.

A central ambition of the delivery plan is to reduce inequalities in access, experience and outcomes for women and babies. This is being delivered through the implementation of Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems equity and equality action plans and advocating a proportionate universalism approach, alongside targeted service models designed to reduce inequalities, including enhanced midwifery continuity of carer and culturally sensitive genetics services for high need areas.

NHS England is also providing training and resources for all maternity and neonatal staff, so they can deliver culturally competent and sensitive care. This includes access to cultural competence training, developed in partnership with the Royal College of Midwives, and provision of clinical training aids to support care for women and babies with black or dark skin. In November 2023, NHS England offered £50,000 funding to each NHS England regional team in England to implement ethnic minority workforce training to upskill staff and promote more equitable experience for service users.

In January 2024, the NHS Race and Health Observatory launched the Learning and Action Network in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Health Foundation. The Learning and Action Network will utilise an anti-racism approach to quality improvement to drive clinical transformation and enable system-wide change. It will work with nine healthcare systems to improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes.

Additionally, the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC’s) national maternity inspection programme, which completed in December 2023, looked at how services are addressing inequalities in maternity care through a safety and leadership lens. The CQC will be reporting on their findings from the inspection programme later this year and will include findings relating to inequalities.


Written Question
Maternity Services: Safety
Thursday 1st February 2024

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that maternity and neonatal safety improvement schemes include a focus on mitigating the effects of inequalities.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

In March 2023, NHS England published its three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services. This sets out how the National Health Service will make maternity and neonatal care more equitable, as well as safer and more personalised.

The three-year delivery plan is based on evidence, including the impact on inequalities where available, and wide consultation. NHS England is tracking the impact on maternity and neonatal outcomes based on ethnicity and deprivation.

A central ambition of the delivery plan is to reduce inequalities in access, experience and outcomes for women and babies. This is being delivered through the implementation of Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems equity and equality action plans and advocating a proportionate universalism approach, alongside targeted service models designed to reduce inequalities, including enhanced midwifery continuity of carer and culturally sensitive genetics services for high need areas.

NHS England is also providing training and resources for all maternity and neonatal staff, so they can deliver culturally competent and sensitive care. This includes access to cultural competence training, developed in partnership with the Royal College of Midwives, and provision of clinical training aids to support care for women and babies with black or dark skin. In November 2023, NHS England offered £50,000 funding to each NHS England regional team in England to implement ethnic minority workforce training to upskill staff and promote more equitable experience for service users.

In January 2024, the NHS Race and Health Observatory launched the Learning and Action Network in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Health Foundation. The Learning and Action Network will utilise an anti-racism approach to quality improvement to drive clinical transformation and enable system-wide change. It will work with nine healthcare systems to improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes.

Additionally, the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC’s) national maternity inspection programme, which completed in December 2023, looked at how services are addressing inequalities in maternity care through a safety and leadership lens. The CQC will be reporting on their findings from the inspection programme later this year and will include findings relating to inequalities.


Written Question
Maternity Services: Safety
Monday 29th January 2024

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to (a) monitor the progress of and (b) evaluate maternity and neonatal safety improvement schemes.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

Improving safety and outcomes for women and babies is central to NHS England’s Three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, which is built on recommendations from recent maternity safety inquiries and specifically addresses the key themes raised in them.

The Plan includes determining success measures that will be used to monitor outcomes and progress in achieving key objectives on the plan. To facilitate monitoring against the key objectives, NHS England published technical guidance which includes information to provide clarity on the data sources and indicator construction for these measures.


Written Question
General Practitioners: Workplace Pensions
Wednesday 24th January 2024

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many complaints her Department received about the (a) processing and (b) administration of GP pensions in each of the last five years.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) administers the NHS Pension Scheme. NHS England act as the host board for general practitioners (GPs) and are responsible for local pension administration for GPs. This is provided through the Primary Care Support England contract they hold with Capita. Complaints about the processing and administration of GP pensions may be directed to the NHSBSA or NHS England. The NHSBSA and NHS England operate their own complaints processes.

The Department does not routinely receive complaints on GP pension matters, but it does receive items of correspondence on this issue. However, it is not possible to isolate items of correspondence relating to GP pension processing and administration from other items of correspondence relating to NHS Pension Scheme policy.


Written Question
Hearing Aids
Thursday 14th September 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in which areas of England bilateral hearing aids (a) are and (b) are not provided to all patients with hearing loss in both ears who wish to receive them.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Audiology services are locally commissioned services and responsibility for provision of hearing aids, including bilateral hearing aids, lies with local National Health Service commissioners. Data on provision of bilateral hearing aids is not held centrally, although this information may be collected locally.


Written Question
Hospitals: Construction
Wednesday 22nd March 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide (a) a list of all firms engaged on advisory or consultancy work by the new hospital building programme in the financial year (i) 2021/22 and (ii) 2022/23 to date, (b) the number of staff working on the programme from each firm, (c) a description of each contract, including the start and end date and (d) the total value of each contract.

Answered by Will Quince

The consultants the New Hospital Programme has engaged with have been specialists who have brought highly technical skills, support and experience needed for a programme of this size and complexity. The total spending on consultants to support specific, time-limited, critical elements of the Programme at this stage, particularly the set-up of the Programmatic approach, will enable an overall reduction in Programme costs compared to a traditional approach to building hospitals.

The New Hospital Programme is a joint unit between the Department and NHS England; as such, we have individuals employed directly by the Department and NHS England. The total headcount for the New Hospital Programme is 125 staff either permanent, temporary, or loaned. The Programme does not have consultants that form part of the headcount. There are 149 full-time equivalent consultants engaged with the Programme as of February 2023.

Disclosure of the lowest, highest, and average daily rates paid to consultants could hinder the Programme’s future purchasing position in relation to the procurement of similar services and release would prejudice commercial interests. However, information on all contract award notices can be found on Contracts Finder at GOV.UK under ‘NHP’ and awarded by either the Department or NHS England & NHS Improvement (this does not include individual trust contracts).


Written Question
Hospitals: Construction
Wednesday 22nd March 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of staff working on the new hospitals programme are (a) management consultants, (b) NHS officials and (c) other civil servants.

Answered by Will Quince

The consultants the New Hospital Programme has engaged with have been specialists who have brought highly technical skills, support and experience needed for a programme of this size and complexity. The total spending on consultants to support specific, time-limited, critical elements of the Programme at this stage, particularly the set-up of the Programmatic approach, will enable an overall reduction in Programme costs compared to a traditional approach to building hospitals.

The New Hospital Programme is a joint unit between the Department and NHS England; as such, we have individuals employed directly by the Department and NHS England. The total headcount for the New Hospital Programme is 125 staff either permanent, temporary, or loaned. The Programme does not have consultants that form part of the headcount. There are 149 full-time equivalent consultants engaged with the Programme as of February 2023.

Disclosure of the lowest, highest, and average daily rates paid to consultants could hinder the Programme’s future purchasing position in relation to the procurement of similar services and release would prejudice commercial interests. However, information on all contract award notices can be found on Contracts Finder at GOV.UK under ‘NHP’ and awarded by either the Department or NHS England & NHS Improvement (this does not include individual trust contracts).


Written Question
Hospitals: Construction
Wednesday 22nd March 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the (a) lowest, (b) highest and (c) average daily rate paid to consultants working on the new hospitals programme was in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Will Quince

The consultants the New Hospital Programme has engaged with have been specialists who have brought highly technical skills, support and experience needed for a programme of this size and complexity. The total spending on consultants to support specific, time-limited, critical elements of the Programme at this stage, particularly the set-up of the Programmatic approach, will enable an overall reduction in Programme costs compared to a traditional approach to building hospitals.

The New Hospital Programme is a joint unit between the Department and NHS England; as such, we have individuals employed directly by the Department and NHS England. The total headcount for the New Hospital Programme is 125 staff either permanent, temporary, or loaned. The Programme does not have consultants that form part of the headcount. There are 149 full-time equivalent consultants engaged with the Programme as of February 2023.

Disclosure of the lowest, highest, and average daily rates paid to consultants could hinder the Programme’s future purchasing position in relation to the procurement of similar services and release would prejudice commercial interests. However, information on all contract award notices can be found on Contracts Finder at GOV.UK under ‘NHP’ and awarded by either the Department or NHS England & NHS Improvement (this does not include individual trust contracts).


Written Question
Dental Services: Refugees
Thursday 2nd February 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

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 help ensure that Ukrainian refugees can (a) register at NHS dentists and (b) access necessary dental healthcare.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

Asylum seekers and refugees, including those from Ukraine, are able to access National Health Service dental care from any NHS dental practice that is accepting NHS patients.

In September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to NHS dental services for England, for all patients seeking NHS care. Work to implement the improvements is underway

Patients struggling to find a local dentist can contact NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre for assistance or contact NHS 111 if seeking urgent care.


Written Question
Pregnancy Loss Review
Monday 16th January 2023

Asked by: Olivia Blake (Labour - Sheffield, Hallam)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide a timeline for the Pregnancy Loss Review; whether he expects the review to reflect the recommendations from Miscarriage Matters, The Lancet Journals series published in April 2021; and whether he expects the review to recommend that (a) every miscarriage should be acknowledged and recorded and the figures published and (b) consistent miscarriage care should be available 24 hours a day in every area of the country.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

The Pregnancy Loss Review: Care and Support when Baby Loss Occurs Before 24 Weeks Gestation was commissioned to consider the registration and certification of pregnancy loss occurring before 24 weeks gestation and on the quality of National Health Service care. The Review will make recommendations on improving the care and support women and families receive when experiencing a pre-24-week gestation baby loss. We know that the Review has been delayed and part of this delay is due to the coronavirus pandemic. We are working with the independent review leads to get it published as soon as possible.

There are currently no official statistics reported for miscarriages. It is hard to accurately report miscarriage figures in England due to a significant number of miscarriages not being reported to a healthcare provider, especially those that take place at an early gestation.  However, while this is complex this is an area that the Government is considering more closely. The Government is committed to considering the Lancet Series’ recommendation to record every miscarriage.

We cannot commit to the recommendation of miscarriage support 24 hours a day in every area of the country at this stage, but we remain committed to providing all women with safe care and we encourage services to provide care in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guideline on Ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage, published April 2019.