Female Genital Mutilation

(asked on 17th November 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to make training on how to respond to cases of female genital mutilation mandatory for all doctors, nurses and medical staff.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 25th November 2016

The Department’s Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Prevention programme is continuing its work with NHS England and across the health service to tackle FGM. Launched in 2014 with total funding of over £4 million the programme has delivered training and outreach nationally reaching thousands of National Health Service professionals, introduced data collection and statistics, and developed policy and guidance on safeguarding and commissioning services. The programme in 2016/17 is focussing on the mental health needs of survivors and on embedding change across the NHS.

Last year the Department commissioned Health Education England to develop a range of FGM e-learning sessions available free of charge to NHS staff. These sessions include training on the mandatory reporting duty.

As part of the Department’s FGM Prevention Programme an FGM Mandatory Reporting awareness pack was sent to all hospitals and general practitioner practices in February 2016. In addition, the Department has worked with partners to support them in hosting articles and awareness raising information; one example of this was the provision of a flyer insert about the new FGM mandatory reporting duty which was included in the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) magazine, sent to approximately 45,000 RCM members.

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