Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to tackle the shortages in personal protective equipment raised in the letter to him from the Leader of Birmingham City Council, dated 16 April 2020.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 28 May, the Make Cell identified 502 opportunities from companies with the potential to manufacture safe-to-use personal protective equipment to the technical standards, scale and pace required. Of these, 374 are being fully assessed, 77 have been ‘qualified’ and a further 27 now have an approved technical design following prototype development. To date, the Department has raised 13 purchase orders (POs) with nine different companies – covering gowns, aprons, facemasks, visors, and hand sanitizer. These POs are for nearly half-a-billion items of PPE, 12 million square metres of gown fabric and 105 tonnes of raw materials for facemasks. Companies with raised POs have already started the manufacturing process, with some already delivering to National Health Service frontline services. More new manufacturers of PPE are expected to commit to producing PPE in the coming weeks, with 25 opportunist companies in final commercial discussions.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
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 mental health effect on leaseholders whose properties have been found to have been fitted with flammable cladding following the Grenfell Tower Fire; and what support his Department has provided to those leaseholds to alleviate that effect.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
There are no specifically targeted mental health programmes for residents of other buildings fitted with flammable cladding. If residents of buildings fitted with flammable cladding need mental health support, we would urge them to make contact with their general practitioner to discuss these issues so they may be referred to mental health services as appropriate.
Mental health is one of the Government’s top priorities and we are working across Government to ensure that all people, regardless of their residential situation, get the help and support they need.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to consider the conclusions of Public Health England’s review into the effect of covid-19 on black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities to be taken into account when easing covid-10 lockdown measures.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The United Kingdom’s response to COVID-19 is are underpinned by scientific advice informed by a number of infectious disease models. Each of these is overseen by world-leading academic and public health institutions, who come together in the UK Government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M).
At each review point, impacts on black, Asian and minority ethnic groups have been carefully considered, in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty requirement for public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities.
The Government will continue to review the measures, assessing them to ensure that they continue to be necessary and proportionate based on available scientific evidence, which includes up to date data.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent comparative assessment his Department has made of the rate of infection of covid-19 in multi-generational households and the wider population.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government Office for Science currently publishes the latest estimate of the United Kingdom-wide range for R on a weekly basis. At the time of writing the current range is estimated to be 0.7-0.9 and is based on latest data available to determine infection and transmission rates. We do not calculate nor compare the R rate in different settings.
Guidance for multigenerational households can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timescale is for Public Health England’s review into the effect of covid-19 on black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England led a rapid review to better understand how different factors can impact on how people are affected by COVID-19. This includes analysis of ethnicity, deprivation, age, sex (male and female) and obesity, where data was available. The review’s findings have now been published and can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-review-of-disparities-in-risks-and-outcomes
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the risk posed by covid-19 to black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities in comparison to the population as whole.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are very concerned by the apparent disproportionate number of people from minority ethnic backgrounds who have died, both within the National Health Service and overall. We have asked Public Health England (PHE) to complete a rapid review to understand how COVID-19 may be having an impact on different ethnic groups, and other groups of concern. PHE has begun linking thousands of existing health records for people who have had COVID-19 in order to gather more robust data.
To complement this rapid review by PHE, the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation issued a joint call on 22 April for research proposals to investigate emerging evidence of an association between ethnicity and COVID-19 incidence and adverse health outcomes.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment the Government has made of for what reasons black, Asian, and ethnic minority communities are disproportionately affected by covid-19.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England (PHE) has been asked to review the potential that some ethnic minority groups are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. As part of this review, PHE is matching laboratory records of COVID-19 cases to other health records to draw down accurate data on ethnicity, age, sex and geographical region.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
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 ensure that the cross-Government strategy to tackle covid-19 does not disproportionately put black, Asian, and ethnic minority communities at a heightened risk of infection.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have asked Public Health England to complete a rapid review to understand how COVID-19 may be having an impact on different ethnic groups. To complement this rapid review, the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation issued a joint call on 22 April for research proposals to investigate emerging evidence of an association between ethnicity and COVID-19 incidence and adverse health outcomes.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of medicated patients being cared for in mental health facilities indefinitely.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We have made no such estimate. There is no central National Health Service collection of information on medicines issued to individual patients in NHS hospitals.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support is available to patients in mental health facilities for prolonged periods of time to challenge the diagnosis or treatment they have received.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Where a patient is subject to the Mental Health Act 1983 for over three months, they have the right to a Second Opinion Appointed Doctor who will confirm a patient’s capacity to consent to treatment, and review whether continuing medication is necessary.
Patients subject to the Act can also access Independent Mental Health Advocates who provide support to patients to exercise their rights and ensure they can participate in the decisions that are made about their care and treatment.
Patients also have the right to appeal to an independent tribunal, which has the power to discharge patients from their detention under the Act.
For mental health patients not detained under the Mental Health Act, there is no legal right to a second opinion. However, as standard clinical practice National Health Service trusts will have arrangements in place for second opinion requests.