Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to continue to fund the NHS staff mental health and wellbeing hubs beyond 2022/23.
Answered by Will Quince
Staff mental health hubs were established in October 2020 with funding subsequently extended to March 2023. They were funded on a non-recurrent basis using additional funding from Government as a short-term response to the pressure on the workforce from COVID-19. A number of systems across the National Health Service have chosen to continue to fund the work of the hubs. We are working with NHS England to explore how we can ensure all staff can access specialist support when they need it.
The health and wellbeing of NHS staff is a priority. NHS England has developed a range of health and wellbeing support for staff and earlier this year published a strategy to grow and strengthen occupational health and wellbeing services across the NHS. NHS staff can continue to access NHS Practitioner Health, a national support service for staff with more complex mental health needs brough about by serious issues such as trauma or addiction.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to help tackle health inequalities experienced by autistic adults.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We published our refreshed national autism strategy in July 2021. The strategy was backed by over £74 million in the first year and is aimed at tackling the health and wider inequalities experienced by autistic people through improving understanding in society, reducing diagnosis waiting times and improving access to high quality health and social care for autistic people. We are also updating the Statutory Guidance on Autism to support the National Health Service and local authorities to deliver improved outcomes for autistic people.
Each integrated care board is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism who will support the board in addressing the health inequalities that people with a learning disability and autistic people experience.
In January 2022, the scope of the ‘Learning from lives and deaths – People with a learning disability and autistic people programme’ (LeDeR) was expanded to include autistic people as well as people with a learning disability. This programme enables us to build up a detailed picture of key improvements needed, both locally and at a national level, to reduce the inequality in life expectancy for these groups.
In addition, from 1 July 2022, the Health and Care Act 2022 requires Care Quality Commission registered providers to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role. We are rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism to support this. This training will help to ensure that staff have the right skills and knowledge to provide safe and compassionate care for autistic people, which will play an important role in tackling health and care inequalities.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to make provision for neurodivergent adults to receive advocate support to (a) access health care and (b) attend health appointments.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We want all neurodivergent adults to be able to access health care when they need it. Advocates can play a crucial role in making sure people’s views are listened to, and that their rights are upheld. The Department and NHS England invested £4.5 million in 2021/22 to carry out a review of advocacy for people with a learning disability and autism in a mental health inpatient setting and to support a number of advocacy pilots and an evaluation of the most effective ways of working. A report on the findings of the advocacy review outlining recommendations will be published in due course.
Health services should make reasonable adjustments to care for people who have a disability in line with the Equality Act 2010. NHS England are developing a Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag which will show on a person’s health record that they may need reasonable adjustments. Reasonable adjustments can include allowing for advocate support to assist with accessing health care and attending health appointments.
From 1 July 2022, the Health and Care Act 2022 requires Care Quality Commission registered providers to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role. We are rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism to support this. This training will help to ensure that staff have the right skills and knowledge to provide safe and compassionate care, including how to provide reasonable adjustments, for autistic people, which will play an important role in tackling health and care inequalities.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
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 local authorities do not have specialist autism teams in (a) England and (b) Wales.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Information on how many and what proportion of local authorities currently do not have specialist autism teams in England. The last available data for England was published in the latest Autism Self-Assessment Framework (SAF) in 2018. The SAF was a voluntary data collection exercise, which asked several questions to local authorities in England about how they were implementing the national ‘Think Autism’ Strategy locally. This included questions about whether their diagnosis services were integrated with mainstream statutory services with a specialist awareness of autism for diagnosis or a specialist autism specific service. 81% of responding authorities stated that they had a specialist service.
Each integrated care board is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism to support them to deliver care and support for autistic people in their area. NHS England recently published statutory guidance on these Executive Lead roles.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
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 each Integrated Care Service having a specialist (a) allergy service, (b) allergy nurse and (c) dietician.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his Department's policy to ensure that all general practice clinicians can access readily available training on the signs and symptoms of a brain tumour.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions to support general practitioners in diagnosing brain cancer earlier. In April 2020 they introduced the ‘early cancer diagnosis service specification’ for Primary Care Networks (PCNs). This is designed to support improvements in rates of early cancer diagnosis by requiring PCNs to review the quality of their practices’ referrals for suspected cancer and take steps to improve them.
NHS England is making funding available to embed clinical decision support tools within general practice and give access to a wider range of diagnostic tests. These tools and tests are expected to support the earlier detection of a range of cancers including brain cancer. A brain cancer education module is freely available on ‘Gateway C’, which offers online and face-to-face training on cancer symptoms for primary care clinicians.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps with NHS England to revise the list of non-specific symptoms (NSS) that warrant referral to the NSS pathway to include more symptoms which may indicate a brain tumour.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Non-Specific Symptom (NSS) pathways are intended to cover the cohort of patients who do not fit clearly into a single ‘urgent cancer’ referral pathway, but who are nonetheless at risk of cancer. If a patient has specific alarm symptoms warranting referral onto a single site-specific pathway then these patients are better suited for a tumour-specific urgent suspected cancer pathway. In November 2022, NHS England launched the first phase of general practitioner (GP) direct access guidance to expand the availability of specific tests to GPs for people with concerning symptoms that do not meet the threshold for an urgent suspected cancer referral. Direct access diagnostics, NSS pathways and existing site-specific routes sit alongside and complement each other to ensure GPs are able to act swiftly to investigate the wide range of symptoms which can indicate cancer.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
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 17 April to Question 175561 on Palantir: Databases, for what reason that Answer did not mention the common law duty of confidentiality.
Answered by Will Quince
Question 175561 asked about the security of data, therefore, the answer summarised the key legislation and standards to which the Foundry platform conforms. It was not felt necessary to spell out common laws which apply to everyone in the United Kingdom. The common law duty of confidentiality is that the use or disclosure of personal information held in confidence can only happen when there is a lawful basis, or consent has been given, or where there is overriding public interest in the disclosure. The data which the platform collates is data which NHS England has a lawful basis for collecting for its statutory purposes. It cannot be used or disclosed for other purposes, and Palantir do not have access to the data. Therefore, the common law duty of confidentiality is fully respected.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle the health impacts of ultra-processed foods on children and families with low incomes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government encourages everyone to have a healthy, balanced diet in line with the United Kingdom’s healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, which shows that foods high in fat, salt or sugar should be eaten less often or in small amounts. UK Government dietary guidelines are based on recommendations from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN is currently carrying out a scoping review of the evidence on processed foods and health and aims to publish its initial assessment in the summer of 2023.
There is currently no universally agreed definition of ultra-processed foods. However, a diet high in foods classified as processed is often high in calories, salt, saturated fat and sugar and low in fibre, fruit and vegetables, which is associated with an increased risk of obesity and developing chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
We have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on improving health and wellbeing, including measures to improve diets. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, salt or sugar in key selling locations in store and online came into force on 1 October 2022. We are also working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for people to make healthier choices. There have been no discussions with NHS England on the introduction of dietary guidelines on ultra-processed foods.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to bring forward proposals for further regulation of the use of vape pens by people aged under 18.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have regulations in place to discourage underage vaping. The law protects children through restricting sales of vapes to over 18 years olds only, limiting nicotine content, refill bottle and tank sizes, labelling requirements and through advertising restrictions.
However, given the changing circumstances surrounding vapes, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has launched a call for evidence to identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vape products. The call for evidence will close on Tuesday 6 June. Following this, the Government will consider a range of options based on the evidence provided, including potential changes to vaping regulations.