Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to encourage more women to attend cervical screening.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England is working to raise awareness of this disease and encourage women to attend cervical screening through the national ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaigns, which have been run in partnership with Cancer Research UK since 2011.
PHE is in the process of developing a new campaign that will promote the uptake of cervical screening. The campaign is scheduled to launch early in March.
NHS England is also investing in initiatives to help ensure equality of access to screening and is investing more than £258 million this year to improve access to general practice and more than half the country is benefitting from improved access to all routine appointments (including cervical screening), at evening and/or weekends.
Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which of NHS England’s 25 trailblazer areas on transforming children and young people’s mental health include speech and language therapists.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
All 25 trailblazer sites will have new Mental Health Support Teams working in and near schools and colleges to support children and young people with mild to moderate mental health conditions.
Mental Health Support Teams will work in an integrated way with existing professionals including speech and language therapists, school counsellors, nurses, and the voluntary sector to treat those with mild to moderate mental health issues in school and will help children and young people with more severe needs to access the right support and provide a link to specialist NHS services.
Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the implications are for his policies of the conclusion in the paper entitled, Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017, published by NHS Digital in November 2018 that children with a mental disorder were five times more likely to have speech or language problems.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
On 20 December 2018, we announced the first wave of 25 trailblazer sites that will test the plans set out in ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper’, published in December 2017. This set out the Government’s intention to improve provision of support through its three key proposals: creating new Mental Health Support Teams working in and near schools and colleges to support children and young people with mild to moderate mental health conditions; piloting a four-week waiting time for access to specialist National Health Service children’s mental health services; and training Designated Senior Leads in mental health in schools and colleges.
Mental Health Support Teams will build on support already in place and work in an integrated way with other professionals such as speech and language therapists, including in support of delivering schools responsibilities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. Our aim is to improve earlier identification of mental health needs, including through knowledge of the links between mental health and others such as speech, language and communication needs, to increase access to services and to provide more comprehensive support for the full range of needs of children and young people.
Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
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 allow speech and language therapists to train as approved mental capacity professionals.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We envisage that speech and language therapists will play a vital role in the new system of the Liberty Protection Safeguards, particularly in circumstances when the person is non-verbal or has communication support needs. We expect speech and language therapists would be consulted in appropriate cases in order to ascertain the wishes and feelings of the cared-for person.
We will use the statutory Code of Practice to describe the detail of when the involvement of Speech and Language Therapists can help and support the Liberty Protection Safeguards process. We will also use the statutory Code of Practice to detail the professionals who can become Approved Mental Capacity Professionals.
Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NHS Clinical Commissioners on ensuring that speech and language therapy service specifications (a) require those services to have a pathway for when a child or young person is not brought to an appointment, (b) appropriately resource those services to provide support in settings that meet the needs of the child or young people and their parent and carer and (c) monitor and report on the number of children and young people who are discharged from those services because they did not attend an appointment.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
There have been no discussions with NHS Clinical Commissioners concerning speech and language therapy service specifications. Clinical commissioning groups have local responsibility for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local population, drawing on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance to agree the specifications for communication support. The protection and safeguarding of children and young people from harm is of paramount importance to all parts for the health care system. All providers should have their own governance arrangements in place for responding to non-attendance at appointments.