Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
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 potential merits of providing guidance to health professionals on (a) advice and (b) other support for parents of unborn babies with (i) intersex conditions and (ii) other variations in sex characteristics.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Statutory Guidance on Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education will include (a) variations in sex characteristics and (b) intersex.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Compulsory Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) should help pupils to understand that society consists of a diverse range of people. The department is currently consulting on updated RSHE guidance, with a view to finalising it later in the year. The consultation runs until 11 July 2024 and can be found at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/rshe-team/review-of-the-rshe-statutory-guidance/.
The draft guidance includes a requirement that pupils should be taught about equality and the law relating to the protected characteristics by the end of their secondary education. The guidance is also clear that pupils should be taught the importance of respecting others, even when they are very different from them.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, when she plans to publish her response to her Department's call for evidence on Variations in sex characteristics, which closed on 28 March 2019.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
It is important to understand the experiences of people living with VSC, as well as the impacts on their family and support networks. In order to understand these experiences, it is vital that research and first hand testimony be conducted and made widely available.
That is why the Government is currently monitoring and considering evidence and research specific to people living with VSC, including the evidence provided through the call for evidence. We hope to be in a position to publish the findings of the review in due course.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what medications have been reimbursed to community pharmacies below the market price for pharmacy procurement in (a) 2021, (b) 2022, (c) 2023 and (d) 2024.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The information requested is not held centrally. Community pharmacy reimbursement arrangements, set out in the Drug Tariff, are not designed to pay every individual pharmacy the cost, or more than the cost, of the medicine. This means that at an individual level, there will be instances where a pharmacy pays more than they are reimbursed, and other instances where they are paid less than they are reimbursed.
The medicine margin survey assesses the amount of medicine margin, the difference between the reimbursement price and the price the pharmacy was charged by the supplier, retained by community pharmacies. The survey has found that overall, more than the amount agreed as part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework, has been delivered in total across the previous four financial years.
In addition to this, where a number of pharmacies cannot purchase at or below the Drug Tariff reimbursement price, the Department considers concessionary price requests that come directly from the Community Pharmacy England, on behalf of community pharmacies. From 1 April 2024, we introduced a new retrospective top-up payment for concessionary prices, providing an additional payment to contractors when the margin survey indicates that despite a concessionary price, there was an under payment.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
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 estimate of the number of pharmacies that have closed in Coventry North West constituency since 2019; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of pharmacy closures on primary care standards.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
On 31 December 2023, there were 22 pharmacies in Coventry North West constituency, including one distance selling pharmacy. Between 31 December 2019 and 31 December 2023, two pharmacies closed in Coventry North West and no new pharmacies opened. However, access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 97% of the population of Coventry North West living within a 20-minute walk from a pharmacy. This exceeds the national average of 80%. Residents of Coventry North West can also access services from distance selling pharmacies that operate nationally.
It is the role of local authorities in England to undertake pharmaceutical needs assessments for their areas, every three years, to ensure provision continues to meet their population’s needs. Integrated care boards (ICBs) have regard to those assessments when commissioning services and where a pharmacy closure impacts on the access to services, a new contractor can apply to open a pharmacy in the area.
Services within the National Health Service delivered in community pharmacy can have a positive impact on secondary care. For example, the Discharge Medicines Service and the New Medicine Service provide patients with extra support for medicines preventing (re)hospitalisation. Urgent and emergency care settings can also refer patients to community pharmacies for a minor illness consultation or an urgent medicine supply, taking the pressure off secondary care. Increasing the impact of these services, which are already commissioned in community pharmacies, will require continued embedding of referral in secondary care pathways.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of increasing funding for community pharmacies on funding for secondary care.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
On 31 December 2023, there were 22 pharmacies in Coventry North West constituency, including one distance selling pharmacy. Between 31 December 2019 and 31 December 2023, two pharmacies closed in Coventry North West and no new pharmacies opened. However, access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 97% of the population of Coventry North West living within a 20-minute walk from a pharmacy. This exceeds the national average of 80%. Residents of Coventry North West can also access services from distance selling pharmacies that operate nationally.
It is the role of local authorities in England to undertake pharmaceutical needs assessments for their areas, every three years, to ensure provision continues to meet their population’s needs. Integrated care boards (ICBs) have regard to those assessments when commissioning services and where a pharmacy closure impacts on the access to services, a new contractor can apply to open a pharmacy in the area.
Services within the National Health Service delivered in community pharmacy can have a positive impact on secondary care. For example, the Discharge Medicines Service and the New Medicine Service provide patients with extra support for medicines preventing (re)hospitalisation. Urgent and emergency care settings can also refer patients to community pharmacies for a minor illness consultation or an urgent medicine supply, taking the pressure off secondary care. Increasing the impact of these services, which are already commissioned in community pharmacies, will require continued embedding of referral in secondary care pathways.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing non-repayable maintenance grant funding for higher education students from the least advantaged backgrounds.
Answered by Luke Hall
The government believes that income-contingent student loans are a fair and sensible way of financing higher education. It is only right that those who benefit from the system should make a fair contribution to its costs. The department has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for undergraduate and postgraduate students each year with a 2.8% increase for the current 2023/24 academic year and a further 2.5% increase announced for the 2024/25 academic year.
In addition, the department has frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven successive years. The department believes that the current fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring that the system remains financially sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer and reducing debt levels for students in real terms.
The government understands the pressures people have been facing with the cost of living and has taken action to help. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students, including disadvantaged students. The department has also made a further £10 million of one-off support available to help student mental health and hardship funding for the 2023/24 academic year. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes. For the 2024/25 financial year the department has increased the Student Premium, including the full-time, part-time and disabled premium, by £5 million to reflect high demand for hardship support. Further details of this allocation for the 2024/25 academic year will be announced by the Office for Students (OfS) in the summer.
Overall, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £108 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, which is an average of £3,800 per UK household. The department believes this will have eased the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in higher education to help them meet increased living costs.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to reduce daily standing charges for gas and electricity in (a) Coventry and (b) the Midlands.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
Ofgem launched a call for input on standing charges looking at how it is applied to energy bills and what alternatives could be considered. Ofgem is currently analysing the responses and will publish its response in due course.
The variance in standing charge is mainly due to regional differences in energy distribution costs. These costs reflect the expenses of maintaining and upgrading the distribution network in a specific area, and the number of consumers those costs are spread across.
On 30 March, my Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State and I wrote to the Chief Executive of Ofgem, highlighting the importance of keeping standing charges as low as possible.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will set a target time for women to receive treatment from specialist referred services after they first present symptoms of heavy menstrual bleeding in primary care.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We recognise the severe impact that heavy menstrual bleeding can have on women and girls, which is why improving care for menstrual problems, including heavy menstrual bleeding, is among our 2024 priorities for the Women’s Health Strategy.
Many women can have heavy menstrual bleeding managed in a general practice and women’s health hubs. We are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for essential services in the community. One of the core services of women’s health hubs is menstrual problems assessment and treatment, including for women experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding.
Accessing treatment at a health hub can avoid the need for a referral to secondary care, and therefore cut waiting times, one of the Prime Minister’s top priorities. We are making good progress on tackling the longest waits, to ensure patients get the care they need when they need it. The main standard in elective performance is the referral-to-treatment standard. The NHS Constitution sets out that a minimum of 92% of patients waiting for their first definitive elective treatment, including patients with heavy menstrual bleeding, should have been waiting no more than 18 weeks from referral.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including a screening process for heavy menstrual bleeding for women attending primary care surgeries for gynecological (a) procedures and (b) consultations.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No formal assessment has been made. Improving care for menstrual problems, including heavy menstrual bleeding, is among our 2024 priorities for the Women’s Health Strategy. We recognise the severe impact that heavy menstrual bleeding can have on women, and we are taking steps to improve access to care so that women experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding can receive the care they need. We are investing £25 million in women’s health hubs, so that women can get better access to care for essential services, including for menstrual problems such as heavy menstrual bleeding.