Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 ensure that clinical staff have an adequate understanding of deaf awareness.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for patients, and to deploy their staff in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their local populations.
Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including deaf people.
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and with a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff, providers, and commissioners of services are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of the disabled people using these services.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 improve implementation of the Accessible Information Standard to support deaf people.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for patients, and to deploy their staff in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their local populations.
Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including deaf people.
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and with a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff, providers, and commissioners of services are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of the disabled people using these services.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 reform dental contracts.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of National Health Service dentists. There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system, so that we deliver a system better for patients and the profession.
We are continuing to meet the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to discuss how we can best deliver our shared ambition to improve access for NHS dental patients.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 increase the provision of dentistry services in Camborne and Redruth constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Camborne and Redruth constituency, this is the Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly ICB. ICBs have been asked to start making extra urgent dental appointments available from April 2025. The Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly ICB is expected to deliver 10,910 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.
ICBs have started to advertise posts through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years. As of 10 April 2025, in England, there are 53 dentists in post with a further 44 dentists who have been recruited but are yet to start in post under this scheme. Another 256 posts are currently advertised.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make a comparative assessment between trends in levels of people hospitalised due to eating disorders in (a) England and (b) other European nations in 2024.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no plans to make a comparative assessment between trends in levels of people hospitalised due to eating disorders in England and other European nations in 2024.
NHS England has commissioned the Royal College of Psychiatrists to deliver a national all-age eating disorders audit. This aims to drive improvement in the identification and appropriate management of eating disorders and the quality and consistency of services for all ages in England. This will help ensure that services across the country are safe, effective, patient centred, timely, efficient, and equitable.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS 10-year health plan for England will include dentistry services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts the National Health Service needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. All three shifts are relevant to improving dental health in all parts of the country, and we expect dentistry services to benefit from the plan
Delivering better joint working between services, and more preventative action like supervised toothbrushing programmes will all help people improve their dental health and access the dental services they need closer to home.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 improve services for women with eating disorders.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Too many women with eating disorders are not getting the support or care they need, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health, so that people can be confident in accessing high quality support when they need it.
The Department continues to work closely with NHS England to ensure that people with an eating disorder get the care and treatment they need.
NHS England is continuing to expand community-based eating disorder service capacity, including crisis care and intensive home treatment, to improve outcomes and recovery, reduce rates of relapse, prevent eating disorders continuing into adulthood, and reduce lengths of stay in urgent and emergency care.
Funding for eating-disorder services has increased each year, from £46.7 million in 2017/18 to a planned spend of £101 million in 2024/25.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of adults with eating disorders that are waiting for treatment from community mental health services; and what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England recently published data on adult community mental health waiting times, which includes adult community eating disorder services. Services are working throughout 2024/25 to improve the data quality for these metrics, to be more accurate from 2025/26.
At the end of January 2025, 206,603 referrals to community mental health services for adults and older adults with serious mental illness were waiting for a second contact. The median waiting time was 93 days, and the 90th percentile was 263 days.
As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, the Government will recruit 8,500 mental health workers to help ease pressure on busy mental health services.
We are working with NHS England to consider options to deliver this commitment alongside the refresh of the Long Term Workforce Plan. This will focus on the three shifts to deliver our 10 Year Plan: moving care from hospitals to care in communities; making better use of technology in health and care; and focusing on preventing sickness, not just treating it.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 potential merits of improving (a) the funding of and (b) support for NHS dentistry services in rural areas.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service in England invests £3 billion in dentistry every year. NHS planning guidance is now published for 2025/26 and confirms that dental budgets are ringfenced. Planning guidance also confirms that improving access to urgent dental appointments is a key national priority.
We are aware of the challenges faced in accessing a dentist, particularly in rural areas. The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have started to recruit posts through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the ICBs across England. For the Camborne and Redruth constituency, this is the NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 adequacy of Car-Hill formula for funding to GPs in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There has been no assessment made of the adequacy of the Carr-Hill formula for funding to general practices (GPs) in Camborne, Redruth, and Hayle.
Plans to review this funding formula may be revisited in future. However, any changes would need careful planning to ensure they do not threaten stability or cause financial uncertainty for practices.
We are committed to ensuring that primary medical services receive appropriate support and resources. We are investing an additional £889 million in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.