Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what specialist services are available for people with Bipolar disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to investing approximately £1 billion by 2023/24 to increase access to high quality care in the community for people with severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder. Through the new models of care provided by integrated care systems, services will be based on the needs of individuals, rather than solely on diagnoses. This follows feedback received from those with severe mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, during the development of the community mental health framework.
Information on National Health Service expenditure on services and treatments specifically for people with bipolar disorder is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
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 including (a) Nalmefene and (b) Naltrexone as part of an alcohol harm reduction strategy.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends nalmefene as an option for reducing alcohol consumption for people with alcohol dependence who have a high drinking risk level, without physical withdrawal symptoms and who do not require immediate detoxification. NICE also recommends oral naltrexone for harmful drinkers and people with mild dependence who have not responded to psychological interventions alone, and for people with moderate and severe dependence, following successful withdrawal. NICE recommends that these medications should only be prescribed along with psychosocial intervention.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is developing United Kingdom guidelines for the clinical management of harmful drinking and alcohol dependence, which will include guidance on prescribing nalmefene and naltrexone. Publication of these guidelines is expected later this year.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to help ensure that the NHS has capacity to deal with future infection outbreaks and deliver routine elective surgery.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department continues to provide additional funding, drive innovation, and supporting the National Health Service to deliver both the recovery of elective services and deal with future infection outbreaks and wider pressures. It is however difficult to ensure there will be no disruptions during future infection outbreaks especially over winter.
Operational plans are in place to better manage emergency care demand and capacity. It includes the largest ever seasonal flu vaccination programme over winter, COVID-19 booster vaccines for priority groups to reduce infection risk and a 10-point plan for emergency care, which includes a range of actions across urgent, primary and community care.
To deliver elective services, the department has committed £2 billion this year to start to tackle backlogs and a further £8 billion across the following three years to increase elective activity and transform services, to improve productivity and expand capacity. At the Spending Review in October 2021, we also announced £5.9 billion capital investment to further support elective recovery, diagnostics, and technology over the next three years. This investment is key to increasing capacity and productivity.
As we have throughout this pandemic, we continue to work closely with independent sector to make the most effective use of the capacity and services available, including over winter and if needed during any future outbreaks.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department and NHS England are taking to ensure that best practice set out by the Getting It Right First Time programme in areas including orthopaedics are adopted throughout the NHS.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme is now embedded within NHS England and NHS Improvement’s programmes to improve quality and productivity, ensuring best practice is adopted throughout the National Health Service. GIRFT practices are incorporated into the Pathway Redesign Programme and fast track surgical hubs, which are tackling waiting lists in high volume, low acuity specialties such as orthopaedics by increasing surgical productivity across the NHS.
GIRFT metrics are also used in the model hospital system, which is a digital tool that provides an overview of a trust’s opportunities to enhance productivity. This enables peers to benchmark directly against one another and identify where improved practices can be adopted across the NHS.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he will take under the Elective Recovery Plan to ensure that new funding for tackling the backlog will reduce waiting times for hip and knee replacement operations.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department has provided £2 billion to the National Health Service to tackle the backlog, in addition to £8 billion over the next three years to increase activity and transform elective services. Trusts are encouraged to find innovative ways to deliver elective services, including high volume, low complexity approaches including surgical hubs for hip and knee replacements. The Department is also providing a £700 million Targeted Investment Fund to enable cutting edge technologies and to increase operating theatre capacity, thereby improving productivity in hospitals.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to maintain the medical testing diagnostics infrastructure which has been established during the covid-19 outbreak to help in the early detection of other illnesses, including cancer and dementia.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We plan to maintain the testing diagnostics infrastructure as part of the United Kingdom’s diagnostic capability.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to extend preventative health care testing after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The UK National Screening Committee advises ministers and the National Health Service on all aspects of population screening. Professor John Deanfield is leading a review of the NHS Health Check programme, which is designed to spot early signs of stroke, kidney disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes or dementia. The review will report later in the year.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the Government's long-term policy on a new UK health diagnostics sector and preventative health strategy following the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have no current plans to publish a new long-term policy on the United Kingdom health diagnostics sector. We are establishing the Office for Health Promotion, to drive the prevention agenda across Government and we will set out more detail on our plans for improving public health later in 2021.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to improve public awareness of sarcoma cancer.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are no specific plans to do so. Public Health England, NHS England and NHS Improvement’s campaign, ‘Help us help you’ which ran from October to December 2020, to raise awareness of general symptoms of cancer and encourage people experiencing persistent symptoms to contact their general practitioner. Further ‘Help us help you’ campaigns are under consideration.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what advice given by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies' Environmental and Modelling Group was used by his Department when it made the decision to fund a project led by the Universities of St Andrews and Dundee on whether ultraviolet-C light can kill viruses which cause covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies’ Environmental and Modelling Group’s (SAGE-EMG) advice highlighted the potential for far-UVC technology as promising but requiring further research.
The Universities of St Andrews and Dundee presented far-UVC technology to a workshop convened by the Innovation and Partnerships team in NHS Test and Trace. The workshop evaluation considered several technologies and based on the evidence presented and SAGE-EMG’s advice to further the research, far-UVC technology was considered suitable for funding.