Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken recent steps to ensure that healthcare providers receive adequate (a) training and (b) resources to (i) diagnose and (ii) treat Group B Streptococcus infections.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Midwives are a key source of information for new and expectant parents on group B strep (GBS), so it is critical that they are well-informed and this awareness will help eliminate these serious, yet often avoidable, infections in new-born babies. Group B Strep Support and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) have an evidence-based i-learn module on GBS that is freely available to RCM members. It would be beneficial for as many midwives as possible to take the training to increase awareness of GBS.
Public Health England’s national programme Start4Life provides advice and practical guidance to parents-to-be and families with babies and under five years old, to help them adopt healthy behaviours and build parenting skills. The Start4Life website offers guidance for pregnant mothers on GBS which is available at the following link:
Screening for GBS is not routinely offered to all pregnant women in the United Kingdom. A risk-based approach has been adopted, whereby those women identified as at risk of having a baby affected by GBS are offered antibiotics in labour.
The GBS carriage rate varies among racial groups, however the highest rates occur within people of black African ancestry and the lowest in people of South Asian ancestry. Evidence shows that continuity of carer can significantly improve outcomes for women and their babies from ethnic minorities and those living in deprived areas. NHS England wrote to all trusts regarding the Midwifery Continuity of Carer (MCoC) stating that where locally it is decided that provision of MCoC can continue, NHS England continues to encourage prioritised rollout to areas with a high proportion of Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity women, as well as areas of high deprivation.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
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) public awareness and (b) education on Group B Strep.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Midwives are a key source of information for new and expectant parents on group B Strep (GBS), so it is critical that they are well-informed. Awareness of GBS helps eliminate this serious, yet often avoidable, infections in new-born babies. An evidence-based i-learn module on GBS is freely available to all Royal College of Midwives members and midwives are encouraged to undertake this training to increase their knowledge around GBS.
Additionally, the Government’s national Start4Life programme provides advice and practical guidance to parents-to-be and families with babies and under five years old, to help them adopt healthy behaviours and build parenting skills. The Start4Life website offers guidance for all pregnant mothers, including those from Black and Asian backgrounds, on GBS. The guidance is available at the following link:
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government intends to reallocate the wages of junior doctors who are striking to other projects.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has no such plans.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 17 April 2023 to Questions (a) 177802 and (b) 177804 on Dental Services: Staff, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of directly employing all dental support staff working in (i) dental surgeries and (ii) the dental sector through the NHS.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We have no current plans to make a specific assessment.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of hospitals had legionella bacteria detected in their water supply since 2018; what the financial cost of each detection has been in each instance; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The information requested is not collected.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of heart failure on people from ethnic minority backgrounds; and what steps his Department is taking to increases early diagnoses of heart failure in people from those groups.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
No recent assessment has made. NHS England has a range of current guidance supporting Healthcare Professionals on identifying the symptoms of heart failure, including an elearning programme targeted at clinicians in primary and community care settings.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent guidance his Department has provided to practice nurses on identifying the symptoms of heart failure.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
No recent assessment has made. NHS England has a range of current guidance supporting Healthcare Professionals on identifying the symptoms of heart failure, including an elearning programme targeted at clinicians in primary and community care settings.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what schemes the Government run to encourage people from lower socio-economic backgrounds into the civil service.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
We have a range of schemes to encourage people from lower all backgrounds to join the civil service including:
Apprenticeships, a new strategy was launched in April 2022 and included a target for lower-socio economic backgrounds.
Accelerated development schemes like the Fast Stream. (Representation from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the Fast Stream has increased annually since 2016.)
Civil Service Commission’s Going Forward into Employment Scheme: Life Chances scheme, uses innovative approaches to recruit people from a wide range of backgrounds into the Civil Service with targeted recruitment of care leavers, prison leavers and veterans.
Internships such as the Summer Diversity Internship Programme, the scope of which has been broadened to include lower-socio economic backgrounds.
Mentoring and sponsorship such as the Ministry of Justice Graduate Aspiration programme.
Outreach is carried out by many of our departments within Schools, Colleges and Universities to raise awareness of the broad range of Civil Service careers available.
Work experience placements such as Movement to Work which supports employers to provide work placements that combine employability skills training with on-the-job experience.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that civil service recruitment processes comply with provisions in the Equality Act 2010 on discrimination against people according to their (a) socio-economic status and (b) other protected characteristics.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Cabinet Office operates a policy requiring all employment opportunities to be made readily available to all.
The current selection process is designed to be fair and objectively identify the best candidates.
There are a number of safeguards built in to the process:
Applications are anonymised until after the sift stage.
All sifters are expected to act in accordance with the Civil Service Code.
We would also expect an independent presence during any sift exercise. Each panel should include at least one member from outside of the line of business to provide an independent view.
We are committed to providing services and developing policies which promote equality of opportunity and eliminate unlawful discrimination. We are an equal opportunities employer and will not unlawfully discriminate in any aspect of employment, including how employees are selected or how employees are treated.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of the Brownfield Land Release Fund on (a) retrofits of industrial buildings, (b) housing pressures, (c) economic growth and (d) place-based renewal.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Brownfield Land Release Fund was launched in April 2021 and is supporting local authorities to release their surplus brownfield sites for housing by March 2024.