Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of people in the UK under the age of 40 who have been diagnosed with Long Covid.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific estimate has been made. The Department uses estimates provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on the prevalence of ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 infection in the United Kingdom. Estimates are based on the self-reporting of ongoing symptoms by study participants rather than a clinical diagnosis. It is not possible to provide ONS estimates in the age group requested.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 extend support for low- and middle income earners who rely on private counselling or therapy in the context of the rising cost of living.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We continue to drive progress on delivering the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan to enhance the availability of National Health Service funded and commissioned mental health support and transformation of mental health services. Through the Long Term Plan, an additional two million people will be able to access NHS-funded mental health support by 2023/24.
On 9 October we launched our Every Mind Matters campaign, which urges people to be kind to their mind. The campaign empowers people to look after their mental health by directing them to free, practical tips and advice, through the Every Mind Matters website. Every Mind Matters includes practical advice on coping with money worries and job uncertainty, and it provides links to a range of voluntary organisations that provide mental health support, such as CALM and Hub of Hope, and to organisations such as Mental Health and Money Advice, a United Kingdom-wide service that combines support for both mental health and financial problems.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 increase access to (a) psychotherapy and (b) other long-term mental health support for low and middle-income earners affected by rises in the cost of living.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We continue to drive progress on delivering the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan to enhance the availability of National Health Service funded and commissioned mental health support and transformation of mental health services. Through the Long Term Plan, an additional two million people will be able to access NHS-funded mental health support by 2023/24.
On 9 October we launched our Every Mind Matters campaign, which urges people to be kind to their mind. The campaign empowers people to look after their mental health by directing them to free, practical tips and advice, through the Every Mind Matters website. Every Mind Matters includes practical advice on coping with money worries and job uncertainty, and it provides links to a range of voluntary organisations that provide mental health support, such as CALM and Hub of Hope, and to organisations such as Mental Health and Money Advice, a United Kingdom-wide service that combines support for both mental health and financial problems.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has plans to expand existing Government (a) schemes and (b) incentives such as salary sacrifice or employment assistance programmes in order to make (i) psychotherapy and (ii) other mental health support services more affordable.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Government already supports employers to provide a number of health and wellbeing initiatives for their employees which are tax exempt. This includes up to £500 towards recommended medical treatments to help employees return to work, as well as eye tests, annual health checks and welfare counselling. In March 2020 this was expanded, to include under the exemption for welfare counselling, counselling services which are also medical treatments, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Interpersonal Therapy. The Government keeps all taxes under review.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he make it his policy to waive fees for Disclosure and Barring Service checks for healthcare workers.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government introduced a free and fast track Disclosure and Barring Service check service for health and social care employers in March 2020 as part of the pandemic response. This service was brought in to ensure that they were able to safely and rapidly onboard large volumes of workers into COVID-19 related roles. The decision to cease the free arrangements in Spring this year is because the demand to recruit large numbers of staff into COVID-19 related positions has significantly reduced and the vaccine programme is coming to an end. The focus is now on recruiting to support elective care as business as usual which is not the legislated purpose of these arrangements. This is aligned to the government’s ‘Living with Covid’ strategy and ceasing of other temporary arrangements under the Coronavirus Act.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to issue contracts for the management of NHS health data to Palantir.
Answered by Will Quince
The procurement of solutions or services for the management of National Health Service health data by the Department and NHS England is subject to open competition, in line with Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Such procurement processes are open to all suppliers. The Department holds no current contracts with Palantir and has no contract award processes underway with this supplier. NHS England holds a contract with Palantir for the Foundry platform and will shortly be launching a procurement process open to all suppliers for a new Federated Data Platform to replace that system.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 improve the treatment of epilepsy.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The majority of health services for people with epilepsy are commissioned locally by integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs are best placed to make decisions regarding the provision of health services to their local population, including for the treatment of epilepsy, subject to local prioritisation and funding.
At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement for those with epilepsy, including NHS England’s Neuroscience Service Transformation Programme and RightCare Epilepsy Toolkit.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Department's response to Question 13 to the consultation on Changes to the General Dental Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council's international registration legislation, for what reason his Department is pursuing with the proposal that international applicants to the dental care professionals register must hold a DCP in the context of 70 per cent of respondents disagreeing with that proposal.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The Order amends the General Dentist Council’s (GDC) legislation so that international dentist qualifications cannot on their own be used in support of an application to the Dental Care Professional (DCP) register. Whilst we recognise that the majority of respondents to the public consultation disagreed with this proposal, we are proceeding with this change in the interests of patient safety. The Government and GDC recognise dentists and DCPs as distinct professions. The GDC’s priority must be on ensuring only suitably qualified people join the professions and this legislative change ensures consistency between the United Kingdom and international routes, since qualified dentists cannot apply to join the DCP register using their dentistry qualification.
The amendment made to the order following consultation enables the GDC to process applications from dentists to join the register as DCPs that are received up until the day before the order comes into force. This ensures that any live DCP title applications submitted before the legislation is passed will be processed.
The GDC will be introducing improvements to the Overseas Registration Exam which will support increased examinations capacity and help those dentists who may previously have utilised the DCP register route to complete the GDC registration process more quickly.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 access to infant immunisations at eight weeks of age.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Immunisations for babies at eight weeks are routinely delivered by general practitioner (GP) practices, who take responsibility for improving immunisation access by communicating key information on vaccinations through the practice website and their leaflets, in addition to NHS England updating their central website. NHS England also proactively invite families and carers to immunisation appointments and encourage healthcare providers to take every opportunity to promote the importance of infant immunisation through midwife contact, health visitors and the routine six-week post-birth check.
The Department encourages those who have missed their immunisation offer to catch-up via their GP and for anyone unsure of their vaccination status or eligibility, to contact their GP for advice.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 improve (a) recruitment and (b) retainment of (i) nurses, (ii) doctors, (iii) dentists and (iv) medical technicians.
Answered by Will Quince
We are on schedule to deliver an additional 50,000 nurses by the end of March 2024, with a further 32,000 nurses currently working in the National Health Service, compared with September 2019. The Government has funded an additional 1,500 medical school places each year for domestic students in England, which was completed in September 2020 and delivered five new medical schools. The first graduates from this expansion entered foundation training in August 2022.
Health Education England has undertaken a three-year review of education and training, which is being implemented through the Dental Education Reform Programme. In July 2022, we announced measures to reform NHS dental services to increase access for patients and remunerate dentists fairly for caring for patients with complex needs. We are also working with NHS England and the sector on longer-term improvements to make NHS dentistry a more appealing place to work.
Emergency medical technician training is undertaken through an apprenticeship qualification whilst employed in an ambulance service trust. Some EMTs can progress to a registered paramedic through additional education programmes.
NHS England’s retention programme seeks to understand why staff leave and provide targeted interventions to support staff to stay, with each trust required to have in place retention action plans that will target support where needed locally. The Department has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will consider the number of staff and the roles required and will set out the actions and reforms needed to improve workforce supply and retention.