Found: with Crohn’s and Colitis had to wait over a year for diagnosis, with almost half ending up in Accident

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance her Department provides to NHS A&E departments to ensure staff are aware that A&E services are free of charge regardless of immigration status.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department issues guidance to the National Health Service on charging overseas visitors for some NHS services. This guidance is reviewed regularly and makes it clear that some services, including accident and emergency, are free at the point of delivery for everyone. NHS England works with Overseas Visitor Managers in NHS trusts to operationalise this guidance effectively.

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 publicise opt-out testing for HIV to those attending emergency departments.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

HIV testing is essential, as it allows those with HIV to be offered lifesaving treatment, and prevents its onward transmission. This is why we have committed to scaling up HIV testing in our HIV Action Plan. As part of the HIV Action Plan, NHS England made an initial £20 million available over three years to 2025, for HIV opt-out testing in 34 emergency departments (EDs) in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence, areas with five or more HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old. The plan also included Blackpool in 2019, at 4.9 HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old, and the whole of London, including some local areas with high HIV prevalence supported with additional funding from NHS London.

In November 2024, the Government announced new research, commissioned through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to evaluate an expansion of blood-borne virus opt-out testing, including HIV, in 47 additional EDs in local areas of England with high HIV prevalence. These would be areas with two to five HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old, and would include the Wexham Park Hospital and Frimley Park Hospital in Slough. The research project is currently in the set-up phase, and funding will support 12 months of testing for each ED, although it is at the discretion of individual sites when the testing will commence. It is the responsibility of individual EDs to make service users aware of the availability of HIV and other blood-borne virus opt-out testing, as appropriate.

HIV opt-out testing in EDs in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence has shown very encouraging outcomes so far, and at 21 months has delivered 2.6 million HIV tests, and found more than 1,000 people with undiagnosed or untreated HIV, including those who would not have been found via other testing routes. Making HIV testing routine in a front-line health care setting such as an ED, raises the awareness of HIV and helps remove the stigma associated with HIV testing.

We are also working to improve workforce training in the National Health Service to increase HIV awareness, and in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), to continue to monitor the levels of stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV within the health and social care system, as well as within community settings. The UKHSA published the positive voices survey report in early 2024, which presents key indicators for HIV stigma, and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hiv-positive-voices-survey/positive-voices-2022-survey-report

Further work is underway to develop key indicators for monitoring quality of life and stigma for people living with HIV.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average (a) daily cost per adult held in the emergency department and (b) length of stay was in that department in the latest period for which data is available in each acute trust within the Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated care system boundary.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information is not available in the format requested. NHS England published the general and acute length of bed stay data for 2022/23, with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2022-23

The length of stay in an adult intensive care unit hospital bed and an elderly care hospital bed is not collected centrally by the Department, or published by NHS England. NHS England publishes the median total time spent in accident and emergency, from arrival to admission, transfer, or discharge, and again with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/provisional-accident-and-emergency-quality-indicators-for-england/january-2024-by-provider

The information requested on average daily costs by acute trust and integrated care system is not collected centrally by the Department.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to improve the capacity of the Accident and Emergency department of Queen’s Hospital Romford.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services aims to increase capacity and improve accident and emergency wait times, so that 76% of patients are seen within four hours, by March 2024.

The management of specific accident and emergency services is a decision for local National Health Service commissioners and providers. In making these decisions they will take into account the needs of their local populations and make the best use of available resource to maximise patient outcomes. A surgical assessment unit recently opened at Queen’s Hospital Romford, which should increase capacity and reduce accident and emergency wait times.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people attended an A&E department with a dental issue in each year since 2019.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services aims to deliver one of the fastest and longest sustained improvements in emergency waiting times. This includes bringing down accident and emergency wait times for 76% of patients being admitted, transferred, or discharged, within four hours by March 2024. Data on how many people attended an accident and emergency department with a dental issue is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-accident--emergency-activity

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish the average time taken between a 999 call for help and first hospital treatment for patients suffering a severe heart attack in each financial year since 2010-11.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested is not collected centrally by the Department.

Found: trained front-line staf f from primary care, Police Scotland, the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), Accident

Question

To ask the Scottish Government what work it is doing to assess the impact of the Scottish Ambulance Service’s Integrated Clinical Hub service on the demand for ambulances, including on waiting times at accident and emergency departments.

Answered by Gray, Neil - Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care

The Scottish Ambulance Service is currently in the final stages of evaluating the work of the Integrated Clinical Hub (ICH) across 2023 and this evaluation will be shared with Scottish Government.