Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support her Department provides to people who are waiting for (a) trauma, (b) joint replacement and (c) other orthopaedic treatment who have to give up their jobs until they receive that treatment.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is taking steps with NHS England to support people waiting for appointments and surgery for long-term conditions, including in trauma and orthopaedics, by offering online support, increasing elective capacity, and encouraging personalised support.
As set out in its elective recovery delivery plan, the National Health Service is increasing elective capacity and improving patient pathways to reduce avoidable delays in care. This includes funding new surgical hubs and expanding those already in operation to increase elective capacity and improve treatment waiting times for patients with long-term conditions. Through improvements to patient pathways, there will be greater end-to-end support, including help to prevent patients sustaining secondary injuries.
In addition, NHS England is developing further guidance to support local health systems to provide personalised and targeted support for patients and their carers, to help them manage their symptoms, prevent deterioration, and recover effectively from treatment.
NHS England launched the My Planned Care platform in February 2022, giving patients advice and support to manage their health and avoid significant deterioration of symptoms whilst they wait for appointments. This online platform includes advice on movement, medication, and mental health.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Elective recovery taskforce: implementation plan, published by her Department on 4 August 2023, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure elective recovery remains a key priority for those with (a) arthritis and (b) musculoskeletal conditions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting waiting lists is one of the Government’s top priorities. The National Health Service is prioritising urgent and cancer care and will continue to do its best to maintain appointments and elective services wherever possible, including joint replacement surgery and musculoskeletal services. 18-month waits for trauma and orthopaedic services have been reduced by more than 92% since September 2021.
Additionally, we are transforming the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity through dedicated and protected surgical hubs. This is focused on providing high volume low complexity surgery in six high volume specialties, which includes trauma and orthopaedics including joint replacement surgery, as well as other elective treatment areas such as ophthalmology, general surgery, gynaecology, Ear Nose and Throat, and urology.
94 of these such hubs are open currently, and through capital investment announced at 2021 Spending Review, the NHS plans to have 132 such centres open by March 2025.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to prioritise elective recovery for people with (a) arthritis and (b) musculoskeletal conditions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting waiting lists is one of the Government’s top priorities. The National Health Service is prioritising urgent and cancer care and will continue to do its best to maintain appointments and elective services wherever possible, including joint replacement surgery and musculoskeletal services. 18-month waits for trauma and orthopaedic services have been reduced by more than 92% since September 2021.
Additionally, we are transforming the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity through dedicated and protected surgical hubs. This is focused on providing high volume low complexity surgery in six high volume specialties, which includes trauma and orthopaedics including joint replacement surgery, as well as other elective treatment areas such as ophthalmology, general surgery, gynaecology, Ear Nose and Throat, and urology.
94 of these such hubs are open currently, and through capital investment announced at 2021 Spending Review, the NHS plans to have 132 such centres open by March 2025.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to tackle backlogs in joint replacement surgery.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting waiting lists is one of the Government’s top priorities. The National Health Service is prioritising urgent and cancer care and will continue to do its best to maintain appointments and elective services wherever possible, including joint replacement surgery and musculoskeletal services. 18-month waits for trauma and orthopaedic services have been reduced by more than 92% since September 2021.
Additionally, we are transforming the way the NHS provides elective care by increasing activity through dedicated and protected surgical hubs. This is focused on providing high volume low complexity surgery in six high volume specialties, which includes trauma and orthopaedics including joint replacement surgery, as well as other elective treatment areas such as ophthalmology, general surgery, gynaecology, Ear Nose and Throat, and urology.
94 of these such hubs are open currently, and through capital investment announced at 2021 Spending Review, the NHS plans to have 132 such centres open by March 2025.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to increase the number of social care workers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Strangford on 30 November 2023 to Question 3222.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to reform the social care charging system.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As announced in the Autumn Statement 2022, we listened to the concerns of local government and took the difficult decision to delay the planned adult social care charging reforms. To ensure that these highly ambitious reforms are successful and to avoid destabilising the system, it is vital that we work with the sector to ensure that local authorities have the capacity and readiness to deliver reform successfully.
We are committed to working with local authorities to build preparedness, and the Government has made available up to £8.1 billion to put the adult social care system on a stronger financial footing.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time was for a referral to child and adolescent mental health services in (a) Lewisham Deptford constituency, (b) London and (c) England in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are investing at least £2.3 billion of additional funding a year by March 2024 compared to 2018/19 to expand and transform mental health services in England so that two million more people, including 345,000 children and young people, can get the mental health support they need.
Our record investment in mental health has seen spending on children and young people’s mental health services increase from £841 million in 2019/20 to just over £1 billion in 2022/23.
Information on the average waiting time1 for a referral to child and adolescent mental health services for the reporting period July to September 2023 is in the following table:
Information is not available at constituency level.
Area | Median waiting time between referral start date and first contact in days for referrals for under 18s supported through NHS funded mental health with a first contact in the reporting period | Median waiting time between referral start date and first contact in days for referrals for under 18s supported through NHS funded mental health still waiting for a first contact and still waiting at the end of the reporting period |
England | 19 | 170 |
London2 | 23 | 131 |
Lewisham local authority | 60 | 185 |
Source: Mental Health Services Data Set, NHS England
1 The wait time in days is calculated as the difference between the date the referral was made to the date the patient attended their first contact in relation to the referral. The information includes people with an open referral for suspected autism and anyone with a referral that was either discharged during the reporting period or has no discharge date submitted regardless of whether they had a first care contact during the year or not.
2 The following local authorities have been included in the London grouping: Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, City of London, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth and Westminster.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that all people with a learning disability are included on a GP learning disability register.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Inclusion on the learning disability register is crucial to ensuring that people receive the right support at the right time. Anyone can ask to go on their general practitioner’s (GP’s) learning disability register if they think they have a learning disability. However, we know that not everyone with a learning disability is on a GP register. There is work underway in NHS England to address this issue, including work nationally and regionally to encourage children and young people to join the register at age 14 years old and access annual health checks.
NHS England has issued guidance to support GPs to better identify people who should be on the register, including information on specific diagnostic codes, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 adequacy of the level of funding allocated for social care.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for York Central on 22 November 2023 to Question 2356.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
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 the level of supplies of ADHD medication for (a) children and (b) adults.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are aware of disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While some issues have now been resolved, we know that there are currently disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. These issues are expected to resolve in early 2024.
We understand how frustrating and distressing medicine shortages can be and we want to assure patients that we are working intensively with the respective manufacturers to resolve the issues as soon as possible and to ensure patients have continuous access to ADHD medicines in the United Kingdom, in the short and long term.
We have issued communications to the National Health Service to advise healthcare professionals on management of patients whilst there continue to be disruptions to supplies. Patients are advised to speak to their clinician regarding any concerns they have and to discuss the suitability of treatment with alternative medicines.