Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of installing high-efficiency particulate absorbing filters in schools to tackle the risk of covid-19 infection.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department has considered the merits of high-efficiency particulate absorbing (HEPA) filter use in schools, as well as recognising how good ventilation helps to create a healthy indoor environment for staff and students.
There is strong evidence from laboratory studies of the efficacy of HEPA filtration technology at removing airborne viruses and particulate matter from the air.
Departmental officials sit on the working group for a project looking at the implications and potential benefits of fitting primary schools with air cleaning technology: the Bradford classroom air cleaning technology (class-ACT) trial. This was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and managed through the UK Health Security Agency. The study is run from the Centre for Applied Education Research which is based at the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK. The trial has concluded, and the academic leads intend to publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal in due course.
Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles which reduces the risk of respiratory illness, as well as improves pupils’ alertness and concentration. Between September 2021 and April 2023, the department delivered over 700,000 CO2 monitors to over 45,000 state-funded settings, including schools. This means that all eligible settings now have an assigned CO2 monitor for every teaching and childcare space to help them manage their ventilation.
For settings that identified spaces with sustained high CO2 readings (1500ppm or more) through their monitors, an application process was made available for department-funded air cleaning units (ACUs) that utilise HEPA technology. This policy was informed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies’ Environmental Modelling Group which advises that ACUs have limited benefit in spaces that are already adequately ventilated and should only be considered where the ventilation is inadequate and cannot be easily improved. The department has subsequently delivered over 9,000 ACUs to over 1,300 settings between January 2022 and April 2023.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
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 clinical trials have been available for brain tumour patients each year since 2020; and whether he has made an estimate of the number of brain tumour patients that have been able to undergo trials during this same period.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) supports patients, the public and health and care organisations across England to participate in high-quality research. The following table shows the number of brain tumour studies on the NIHR CRN Portfolio in each year since 2020 in England:
Year | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Number of brain tumour studies* supported by NIHR CRN open to recruitment | 52 | 55 | 61 | 61 |
Number of participants recruited | 4,102 | 1,105 | 3,368 | 4,317 |
Source: NIHR
Note: this includes observational studies and interventional studies, including clinical trials
We are not aware that brain tumour patients are routinely being excluded from other types of studies, however, we know that sometimes people are automatically excluded from taking part and this can be for good reasons. When designing research studies, researchers consider inclusion and exclusion criteria carefully to ensure they are not unnecessarily excluding specific groups who would benefit from the outcome of their study. However, we are aware that inclusion/exclusion criteria can disproportionally exclude individuals from specific groups for example older adults or pregnant women. The Health Research Authority (HRA) is developing guidance to improve practices in this area. The improved guidance produced by the HRA will help researchers to consider if these people and any other groups may be unnecessarily excluded and consider putting measures in place to address this.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the (a) quality and (b) consistency of support provided by NHS Trusts for bereaved parents following miscarriage or baby loss.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In 2023/24, NHS England is investing £5.9 million nationally to support the delivery of daily bereavement care services for women and families who suffer pregnancy/baby loss and is growing the number of staff trained in bereavement care.
All parents experiencing a loss should be provided with safe and compassionate bereavement support that is responsive to their needs and choices. While we recognise that many units are working towards these standards, this standard of bereavement care provision needs to be consistent nationally.
We are also looking to improve access to and the quality of perinatal mental health care for mothers and their partners. There are now 35 Maternal Mental Health Services across England which provide psychological therapy for women experiencing mental health difficulties related to their maternity experience, including as a result of loss. Services are due to be implemented in every area of the country by March 2024.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of improvements to the consistency of the implementation of fertility treatment guidelines in the last 12 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
As part of the first-year commitments in the Women’s Health Strategy, the Government published our in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) transparency tool on GOV.UK in July 2023. This tool compiles published integrated care board (ICB) policies on their local fertility treatment offer to keep track nationally of implementation progress.
As part of keeping the tool up to date, we will review ICBs’ local policy statements in 2024, to check on progress with the implementation of National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence fertility guidelines.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the application of non-clinical criteria in determining the suitability of candidates for IVF treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Women’s Health Strategy was published on 20 July 2022 and contained several important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service-funded fertility services. We will be working with NHS England this year to assess fertility provision across integrated care boards, which have responsibility for commissioning fertility services, with a view to removing non-clinical access criteria.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many meetings were held between officials in her Department and representatives from NHS England on geographic variations in fertility treatment in the last year.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There are regular meetings held between officials from NHS England and the Department as part of the Women’s Health Strategy commitment to address the current geographical variation in access to National Health Service-funded fertility services across England.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on relieving the financial burdens for same-sex couples receiving fertility treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Funding decisions for health services in England, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF), are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population.
The Government published the first Women’s Health Strategy on 20 July 2022, which contained several important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service funded fertility services. This includes improving access to IVF for female same-sex couples by removing the additional financial burden they face when accessing treatment. We are working with NHS England to develop guidance for ICBs to assist in their commissioning plans, which will be published in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress her Department has made on delivering the Women's Health Strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Since publishing the Women’s Health Strategy, we have achieved a significant amount of progress. This includes launching a women’s health area and new women’s health pages on the National Health Service website, investing £25m in women’s health hubs, improving access to hormone replacement therapy and boosting research into women’s health. We have appointed Professor Dame Lesley Regan as the first ever Women’s Health Ambassador for England. Dame Lesley is focused on raising the profile for women’s health and supporting implementation of the strategy.
Future priorities will be announced shortly.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether women who have received criminal convictions for (a) non-violent and (b) non-sexual crimes are eligible for NHS fertility treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There is no national guidance about eligibility for National Health Service-funded fertility treatment based on past criminal convictions. In England, decisions about local fertility services are determined by integrated care boards.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to Written Answer of 12 December 2023 to Question 5046 on Migrants: Health Services and Housing, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of data sharing between stakeholders and local authorities; and what plans he has to improve it.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We continue to work closely with local authorities (LAs) and share regular, timely and relevant data and Management Information in the form of heat maps to allow effective planning and understand the geographical distribution of asylum seekers in the UK.
Whilst provision of healthcare is not a statutory duty or obligation for the Home Office, ensuring those in our care are sufficiently looked after and safe is the right thing to do. Home Office and health partners already collaborate with local authorities and others, to make this happen at an operational and tactical level; however, strategic oversight and shared direction have been lacking.
We are building on these products and following feedback from LAs, have increased the breadth of information contained to include further details including accommodation type and demographics.
In conjunction with our strategic migration partnerships, we continue to work with LA forums and other partners to understand and identify ways of managing impacts.
Heatmaps are shared with local authorities to provide an indication of the number of decisions and therefore cessations that could flow through down to LA level because of the increase in decisions made this year. The data only provides a snapshot in time and is heavily caveated as it is taken from live sources and therefore has not been assured to the level that published data has been and as such there are no plans to share it with Honourable Members.