Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on the implementation of the recommendations of his Department's report entitled Good for you, good for us, good for everybody: A plan to reduce overprescribing to make patient care better and safer, support the NHS, and reduce carbon emissions, published on 22 September 2021.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 9 September 2024 to Question 2902.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 reduce melanoma incidence rates.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department continues to advise patients to follow National Health Service guidance on reducing the risk of melanoma. The advice is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/seasonal-health/sunscreen-and-sun-safety/
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 support GP surgeries (a) improve energy efficiency and (b) reduce their carbon footprint.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Primary care will play an important role in helping the National Health Service achieve the net zero targets outlined in the report, Delivering a Net Zero NHS, published in July 2022, by decarbonising its estate, travel, and supply chain. Targeted efforts are needed to reduce emissions from medicines, which make up nearly two-thirds of primary care’s carbon footprint. There is range of support available to general practice (GP) surgeries to achieve this transition.
Supported by NHS England, the Royal College of General Practitioners is actively working to reduce the carbon footprint of GP surgeries through several initiatives like the Net Zero Hub, which provides guidance, eLearning, and tools for sustainability, and the Green Impact for Health Toolkit, which offers practical advice and awards for sustainable practices, among others. GP surgeries are also encouraged to use grants through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, for low-carbon heating solutions.
On efficiency and heat, all new buildings and major refurbishment projects, including primary care upgrades, will need to comply with NHS England’s Net Zero Building Standard, published in 2023.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 help reduce overprescribing.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Overprescribing can be addressed by taking a shared decision making approach and optimising a person's medicines; ensuring that patients are prescribed the right medicines, at the right time, in the right doses. The National Health Service is responding to the challenge of overprescribing and driving changes in this area by:
Offering treatments that are not medicines is also key to addressing overprescribing. Many other initiatives delivered across the NHS contribute towards this. These include delivery of personalised care and shared decision-making, NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression, and social prescribing.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many mental health trusts are implementing smoking cessation services.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. Smoking is closely associated with poor mental health and wellbeing, as people with mental health conditions die 10 to 20 years earlier, with smoking contributing significantly to this. Further information on the wellbeing of smokers aged 18 years old and over, and the relationship between smoking and mental health, is available respectively at the following links:
https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/26/health-matters-smoking-and-mental-health/
It also costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year. At the end of quarter three of 2023/24, 37 out of 48 Mental Health services identified as eligible under the NHS Long Term Plan, are reporting that they are delivering tobacco dependence treatment services.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of how many and what proportion of repeat prescriptions are unused.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
As identified in the National Overprescribing Review, published in September 2021, addressing overprescribing is a key area of opportunity for delivering greater value for money in medicines in the National Health Service, and it forms part of NHS England’s ongoing Medicines Value programme priorities. Evidence is limited but the review estimated that at least 10% of the total number of prescription items in primary care need not have been issued.
The review report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-overprescribing-review-report
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 November 2023 to Question 2154 on Gynaecology: Waiting Lists, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of waiting times for NHS gynaecology services in Rotherham.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Government is taking action to recover elective services, including for patients waiting for National Health Service gynaecology services in Rotherham, by providing record levels of staffing and funding as the NHS implements the Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care. We have not made a specific assessment of waiting times for NHS gynaecology services in Rotherham.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason her Department has indefinitely delayed the introduction of the Liberty Protection Standards.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The difficult decision to delay the implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards was not taken lightly. We have done so to enable the Department, and local partners, to prioritise the reforms set out in the Next Steps to Put People at the Heart of Care plan. These include investment in the workforce, technology, and support for unpaid carers.
These priorities, alongside the funding uplift of up to £8.1 billion over this year and next to strengthen adult social care provision, will drive forward our ambition of ensuring that everyone can access the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Until the Liberty Protection Safeguards come into force, the existing Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, which form a key part of the Mental Capacity Act, remain in place and ensure that decisions are made in a person's best interests.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the annual cost to the public purse is of NHS repeat prescriptions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Information is not held in the format requested. The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) holds information on the net ingredient cost (NIC) for both repeat dispensing, where a patient is able to obtain repeat supplies of National Health Service prescriptions without the need for their general practitioner (GP) to issue a prescription each time a supply is required, and repeat prescribing, where the patient still needs to obtain an NHS prescription from their GP each time they require their prescribed medication or appliances. The NIC is the basic reimbursement cost of a medicine. It does not consider discounts, amount for containers or other added reimbursement expenses so the final amount the NHS pays will be different.
The following table shows the total number of items and NIC for both repeat dispensing and repeat prescribing for prescriptions that have been dispensed in the community in England for financial year 2022/23:
| Total Number of Items | Total Net Ingredient Cost (£) |
NHS Repeat Dispensing | 156,550,745 | 490,019,357 |
NHS Repeat Prescribing | 734,963,250 | 7,100,020,164 |
Source: NHSBSA
As identified in Good for you, good for us, good for everybody: a plan to reduce overprescribing to make patient care better and safer, support the NHS, and reduce carbon emissions in 2021, addressing overprescribing is a key area of opportunity for delivering greater value for money in medicines in the NHS, and it forms part of NHS England’s ongoing Medicines Value programme priorities.
Notes:
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
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 reduce waiting times for NHS gynaecology services in (a) Rotherham and (b) the rest of England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We are taking action to recover elective services, including for patients waiting for National Health Service gynaecology services in Rotherham and England, by working towards the targets set out in the Elective Recovery Plan and providing the NHS with record levels of staffing and funding.
£2.3 billionn was awarded at Spending Review 2021 to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. This includes an established spoke, at Montagu Hospital CDC, to which General Practices in Rotherham constituency can refer patients for key diagnostic checks, tests and scans. The funding will also be used to increase capacity for imaging and improving digital diagnostics.
We are also transforming the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity through dedicated and protected surgical hubs, focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. There are currently 95 elective surgical hubs that are operational across England as of 16 November 2023. These surgical hubs will help separate elective care facilities from urgent and emergency care. This includes an elective surgical hub at Sheffield Teaching Hospital, where patients with gynaecological conditions can access surgical treatments.
We are also investing £25 million in women’s health hubs between 2023 and 2025 so that women can get better access to care for essential services such as gynaecology, menstrual problems, contraception and the menopause.