Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 cases of late diagnoses of bowel cancer in emergency NHS settings; and what steps he is taking to reduce this number.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No recent estimate has been made. Data is only available up to 2020 from the National Disease Registration Service. The data for the year 2020 highlights that 24.4% of bowel cancer patients were diagnosed through emergency presentation.
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including bowel cancer, as early and as quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes. The Department is committing to this by improving waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment, starting by delivering an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week, to support faster diagnosis and access to treatment.
The NHS Bowel Cancer Screening programme currently invites people aged 56 to 74 years old for screening every two years. However, this age cohort is increasing to those aged 50 to 74 years old by 2025, which may reduce the number of late diagnoses.
Furthermore, NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptom and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. This campaign urged people to take up the offer of bowel screening when invited.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 69 of the House of Lords Preterm Birth Committee report entitled Preterm Birth: reducing risks and improving lives, HL 30, published on 14 November 2024, if his Department will revise the national maternity safety ambition to reduce the (a) incidence and (b) impact of pre-term births.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We welcome the House of Lords’ Preterm Birth Committee’s report focused on reducing risks and improving lives. We thank all the individuals and organisations that gave evidence to the Inquiry, and the committee members for their detailed examination of the issues and evidence in drawing their conclusions. We will respond to the report and the recommendations in the new year.
The National Maternity Safety Ambition will end in 2025. We are currently looking carefully at what comes beyond this ambition, to ensure that an evidence-based approach is taken, and that all targets are woman- and baby-centred.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 ensure that Start for Life services in Sunderland are funded beyond 1 April 2025.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme is central to the Government’s commitments to give every baby the best start in life, and to deliver the healthiest generation ever.
The Prime Minister’s Plan for Change outlined that we will give children the best start in life by strengthening and joining up family services to improve support through pregnancy and early childhood. There will be investment to continue to build up the Family Hub and Start for Life programme. The Autumn Budget announcement has already confirmed £69 million to continue delivery of a network of Family Hubs in 2025/26.
We are aware that local authorities such as Sunderland are undertaking financial planning for 2025/26, and have communicated with those for whom programme funding information is critical for operational business purposes.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 ensure that parents do not have to wait six months or more for post-mortem results following the death of a baby.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact of delays in post-mortems on bereaved families. Specialised perinatal pathology services provide medical investigations, including post-mortem examinations following the death of a foetus or baby. These services are delivered by 18 National Health Service hospital trusts in England.
Perinatal pathology services are currently experiencing significant staff shortages. There are 26.15 whole time equivalent consultant vacancies, which is a 46% vacancy rate across the service. The lack of consultant staff is impacting the service’s ability to produce post-mortem reports in line with national standards, as set out in NHS England’s service specification B, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/e12-perinatal-path.pdf
In response to the impact that the staffing challenges are having have on the service, NHS England has established a Perinatal Pathology Transformation Programme which is implementing interventions to increase perinatal pathology service capacity over time and improve the post-mortem reporting time. The programme reports to a national Steering Group which has clinical, commissioning, and key stakeholder representation, including service users and patient and public voice representation, through the baby loss charity Sands. The Royal College of Pathologists is also included in the membership of the Steering Group.
Additionally, we welcome and are carefully considering the findings of the Justice Committee’s recent follow-up Inquiry into the Coroner Service, including on coronial pathology provision.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 young people with cancer have equity of access to (a) age-appropriate and (b) specialist psychological support.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster so that more patients survive. This includes children, teenagers and young adults (CTYA).
NHS England has published service specifications that set out the service standards required of all providers of CTYA cancer services. The requirements include ensuring that every patient has access to specialist care and reducing physical, emotional, and psychological morbidity arising from treatment for childhood cancer. The specifications are available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/group-b/b05/
Children’s cancer care is managed by principal treatment centres (PTCs) who ensure quality care. Each PTC has a multi-disciplinary team which meets at least weekly and includes a specific focus on the psychosocial needs of patient. The multi-disciplinary team ensures that each service user is assessed for psychological needs and can access any psychosocial support that is required.
The Department is also taking steps to improving waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment across all cancer patient groups in England. We will start by supporting the NHS to deliver an extra 40,000 scans, appointments and operations each week to ensure that patients are seen as quickly as possible.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set out guidance for general practitioners on the symptoms of cancer in CTYA, recommending referral within 48 hours for those presenting with potential cancer symptoms. To support timely investigation after referral, we are working with the NHS to maximise the pace of the roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, including via the roll out of community diagnostic centres.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 reduce waiting times for the (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of cancer in teenagers and young adults.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster so that more patients survive. This includes children, teenagers and young adults (CTYA).
NHS England has published service specifications that set out the service standards required of all providers of CTYA cancer services. The requirements include ensuring that every patient has access to specialist care and reducing physical, emotional, and psychological morbidity arising from treatment for childhood cancer. The specifications are available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/group-b/b05/
Children’s cancer care is managed by principal treatment centres (PTCs) who ensure quality care. Each PTC has a multi-disciplinary team which meets at least weekly and includes a specific focus on the psychosocial needs of patient. The multi-disciplinary team ensures that each service user is assessed for psychological needs and can access any psychosocial support that is required.
The Department is also taking steps to improving waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment across all cancer patient groups in England. We will start by supporting the NHS to deliver an extra 40,000 scans, appointments and operations each week to ensure that patients are seen as quickly as possible.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set out guidance for general practitioners on the symptoms of cancer in CTYA, recommending referral within 48 hours for those presenting with potential cancer symptoms. To support timely investigation after referral, we are working with the NHS to maximise the pace of the roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, including via the roll out of community diagnostic centres.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to leverage international cooperation to accelerate (a) biomedical research and (b) treatments for (i) ME and (ii) long covid.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is exploring opportunities with international research partners to foster research cooperation in areas of unmet need. For example, the Department of Health and Social Care has close links with the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. The US’ Assistant Secretary for Health has discussed long COVID with the Chief Medical Officer, and the Department of Health and Social Care has also co-hosted a series of researcher exchanges between United Kingdom and US experts.
The NIHR and Medical Research Council are committed to funding high-quality research to understand the causes, consequences, and treatment of long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and are actively exploring next steps for research in these areas.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 adequacy of the safety of NHS care for patients with (a) severe and (b) very severe ME.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2021 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidelines on the diagnosis and management of myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), provides recommendations on principles of care for people with severe ME/CFS, including hospital care, and adapting a multidisciplinary approach with access to a range of health and social care professionals based on needs.
The NICE’s guidelines are not mandatory, but the Government does expect healthcare commissioners to take the guidelines fully into account in designing services to meet the needs of their local population, and to work towards their implementation over time.
No specific assessment has been made of the adequacy of the safety of National Health Service care for patients with severe and very severe ME/CFS, but there are steps that the Government is taking to improve care for patients with ME/CFS, including those with severe and very severe ME/CFS.
The Department has funded the £3.2 million DecodeME study with the Medical Research Council to understand the causes and consequences of, and find treatments for, ME/CFS. This study aims to understand if there is a genetic component to the condition and, in doing so, increase our understanding of ME/CFS to support the development of diagnostic tests and targeted treatments.
The public consultation on the interim delivery plan for ME/CFS was run in 2023. It has been a priority since July 2024 to publish the response to the 2023 consultation on the ME/CFS interim delivery plan. Departmental officials are in the process of finalising a report summarising the responses, for publication. The consultation responses, alongside continued stakeholder engagement, will inform the development of the final delivery plan, which we aim to publish in the winter of 2024/25. The plan will focus on boosting research, improving attitudes and education, and bettering the lives of people with this debilitating disease, including those with severe and very severe ME/CFS.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 ensure that the 2021 NICE Guideline for ME/CFS is implemented.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2021 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidelines on the diagnosis and management of myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), provides recommendations on principles of care for people with severe ME/CFS, including hospital care, and adapting a multidisciplinary approach with access to a range of health and social care professionals based on needs.
The NICE’s guidelines are not mandatory, but the Government does expect healthcare commissioners to take the guidelines fully into account in designing services to meet the needs of their local population, and to work towards their implementation over time.
No specific assessment has been made of the adequacy of the safety of National Health Service care for patients with severe and very severe ME/CFS, but there are steps that the Government is taking to improve care for patients with ME/CFS, including those with severe and very severe ME/CFS.
The Department has funded the £3.2 million DecodeME study with the Medical Research Council to understand the causes and consequences of, and find treatments for, ME/CFS. This study aims to understand if there is a genetic component to the condition and, in doing so, increase our understanding of ME/CFS to support the development of diagnostic tests and targeted treatments.
The public consultation on the interim delivery plan for ME/CFS was run in 2023. It has been a priority since July 2024 to publish the response to the 2023 consultation on the ME/CFS interim delivery plan. Departmental officials are in the process of finalising a report summarising the responses, for publication. The consultation responses, alongside continued stakeholder engagement, will inform the development of the final delivery plan, which we aim to publish in the winter of 2024/25. The plan will focus on boosting research, improving attitudes and education, and bettering the lives of people with this debilitating disease, including those with severe and very severe ME/CFS.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 (a) help the NHS and local health services can maximise investment in (i) new-born hearing screening, (ii) cochlear implants, (iii) hearing aids and (iv) other hearing technology and (b) use Auditory Verbal therapy to maximise such interventions.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service audiology services, including the provision of therapies for people with hearing loss, are locally commissioned, and the responsibility for meeting the needs of people with hearing loss lies with local NHS commissioners.
In July 2016, NHS England published Commissioning Services for People with Hearing Loss: A Framework for Clinical Commissioning Groups, which supports integrated care boards in making informed decisions about what is good value for the populations they serve and to assist in providing more consistent, high quality, integrated care. NHS England also published specific guidance on newborn hearing screening in 2016, Newborn hearing screening programme (NHSP) operational guidance, which supports healthcare professionals and stakeholders delivering and managing newborn hearing screening programmes in England.
We also expect commissioners to follow guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). In 2018, the NICE issued the guidance, Hearing loss in adults: assessment and management, which aims to improve hearing loss services, including the provision of hearing aids.
Specialised ear surgery, such as cochlear implantation, is commissioned directly by NHS England as a specialised service. In NHS England’s specialised commissioning specification, Cochlear implantation services for adults and children, updated in May 2023, Auditory Verbal Therapists are recognised as part of multi-disciplinary teams able to provide rehabilitation services, alongside a range of other health professionals.